Broadband ISP TalkTalk and Sky UK Battle Over NOW TV Fees
Struggling internet service provider TalkTalk is reportedly withholding millions of pounds from Sky (Sky TV, Sky Broadband etc.) due to a contractual dispute, which relates to fees owed for use of the media giant’s NOW TV video streaming service. The budget ISP had been offering this to customers until relatively recently (part of a bundle via a single bill).
The Salford-based group has certainly had a rough few years and in September 2024 secured a crucial refinancing package worth c. £400m (here and here), which saved it from the immediate risk of a default on its debts. But it’s still in a difficult position and recently suffered another round of redundancies (here), as well as the continued shrinking of its customer base from 3.6 to 3.2 million customers over the past year (here).
Suffice to say that saving money is also a key focus for the embattled internet provider as it tries to get its finances under control, at the same time as fending off against a highly competitive market. This might give some context to the new dispute with Sky over TalkTalk’s prior bundling of the NOW TV streaming service.
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According to The Telegraph (paywall), the dispute over volumes is said to have been going on for some months, with sources within TalkTalk allegedly indicating that it reflects changing viewing habits. A source at one supplier also claimed there was “significant concern” about the company’s ability to pay its bills, although TalkTalk says it does not recognise that description of its finances.
Meanwhile, the ISP is still said to be planning a consumer-focused product refresh in the near future, which it’s hoped could help to turn around their fortunes. Time will tell.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This doesn’t look great for TalkTalk.
How did this company end up in such an utter mess? Going several years back, they were pretty successful. Is it simply that they were particularly good at harnassing the oppotunities of LLU, and now the world has moved on they have been left behind?
Cyber attacks, poor security, and poor employee relations, redundancies, outsourcing etc probably all played a part in Talktalk’s troubles. I worked for them for 7 years and it was great at first, til the outsourcing started happening, and their tech support staff outsourced to another country. Then there was the whole “add value” era where we were told to try an upsell on every call or promote self service.
As for their TV, it was always, in my opinion, a poor offering compared to Sky ans Virgin. The boxes were slow and if you wanted to record something, you could only record the channel you were watching but I guess that’s less of an issue now most stuff is available to stream.