in brief In late September last year, national pay TV giant Foxtel announced a new online service dubbed ‘Presto’, which was to see consumers charged $24.99 per month to access “a regularly updating collection of great films”, all streamed through the Internet, as opposed to its existing pay TV platform.
In a statement issued at the time, the company said Presto’s launch, slated for later last year, “aligns perfectly with the increasing appetite for movie content delivered over the internet across different devices”. It will feature content already licensed to the Foxtel Movies channels, including access to “the biggest box office releases of 2012 at launch along with on demand access to the Foxtel Movies vault of recent and older favourite movies”.
However, according to the Financial Review (we recommend you click here for the full, paywalled article), the launch of the service has already been delayed. The newspaper reports:
“Foxtel’s online movie streaming service, Presto, has failed to launch and will be delayed by up to two months because of software bugs.”
The news comes as rival service Quickflix (which also offers online DVD rental) has continued its recent growth. The company said in a statement issued last week that it had added over 10,000 new customers and was experiencing strong demand for its streaming service. Total active customers increased by 10 per cent to 120,800 in the quarter including 18,552 people trialling the service.
The company said the momentum of its IPTV streaming service continued to build in the quarter to the end of December, with the numbers of hours streamed increasing by 23 per cent over the previous quarter. The level of streaming was 40 per cent higher than the equivalent period in the prior year. New platforms launched during the quarter including PlayStation 4, LG Smart TVs, TiVo and Amazon Kindle Fire added to the demand.
Image credit: Foxtel
I hope the competition grabs as much market share before foxtel launches their service. For too long foxtel has held a monopoly and i wouldn’t shed a tear if the were the last to market, only to loose the market.
pffffttt.
Netflix = $7.99 per month for movies and TV shows and special interest documentaries etc, etc, etc, vs Foxtel = $24.99 for some form of movies.
no thanks Foxtel, you can keep your “Australia tax” version of entertainment.
did I mention Netflix’s $7.99 FULL SERVICE product has no ads!. Foxtel, you can keep your $80/pm ad & promo ridden drivel, and I’ll keep my netflix, thanks anyway!
Not only is Netflix only $7.99 a month you throw in Hulu at the same price then $2.45 for your smart dns service. Thats $18.43 a month for a full replacement to foxtel.
I have foxtel it costs me $80 a month on the basic package. I’ve been using netflix and such as a trail for its replacement. which i am going to can foxtel. Only down side for me is my internet service has congestion so during peak/holidays ill be back to using the free to air.
Oh, a “white elephant which has been totally mismanaged” then eh?
Yeah can’t say I’m sad for them.
I wonder if they will set a minimum mb/s connection you need like iinet or just let anyone sign up to it?
They won’t have to worry about me signing up for it. I hope no-one does after all it’s Murdoch’s whips on Turdbulls back are the reason we aren’t getting an NBN anymore…
“They won’t have to worry about me signing up for it. I hope no-one does after all it’s Murdoch’s whips on Turdbulls back are the reason we aren’t getting an NBN anymore…”
This by a bajillion. I now have fibre (thank you greenfields estate) and they reticulate Foxtel through the network, but still NO!
Netflix I’m looking at you ;)
The only downside is if I ever need to move, with the Turdbull network I won’t know what sort of connection I will get; back to node lottery
My internet is far too slow where on a good day, I’ll get 4Mbps. As I rent, Abbott’s buggy in front of the horse approach won’t be connected to my house as I very much doubt my landlord will pay for this primitive policy, nor can I afford the overpriced rubbish.
Yeah I tried to get FetchTV and I was rejected due to being under 3.8mb/s (or around abouts).
I’m kind of glad they did reject me because of this, I wouldn’t want to be paying for a service and have it not work properly.
Murduch charges $25 a month. Netflix charges $8 (USD).
Enough said.
Yep.
I’ll stick with US-based Netflix. The cost and effort to access is trivial; the collections are pretty decent and frankly the system just works.
Unsurprisingly, given the rather simple point-click of accessing content, for a fixed cost-per-month really makes the ‘alternatives’ increasingly less used.
If you make it stupidly easy, and don’t charge me a lot – I’m probably going to just use that – because effort. Foxtel could learn a heck-of-a lot from Netflix.
Netflix Subscription – $7.99/month.
Hulu Plus Subscription – $7.99/month.
Amazon Prime Subscription – $6.58/month.
Unblock-US Subscription – $4.99/month
+AUD/USD Conversion rate.
+ International Credit Card Transaction fee (eg 10%).
TOTAL: $35/month.
Why the flap, would I pay for Poxtel when I already get so much more from overseas currently?
When will these old people in power learn…
I did a survey for a new service thats coming, a Kids only subscription service for $6.99, also with the option of pay per view… this included over 1000 titles from the US, UK & Australia, Content included things like Dora, Wiggles, and movies such as Astroboy… Either this is Netflix, Amazon OR the mooted Channel 9 service…
Netflix & UnblockUs which also gives access to US & British Tv networks online just to mention a few all for well under $15 a month.
Why anyone would pay to have Insurance adds rammed down their throats I will never know, I hope Foxtel dies a slow painful death.
(I hope Foxtel dies a slow painful death.)
If the Coalition have their way, your wish will come true Richard.
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