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Starhub lost the broadcast rights of EPL, ESPN, STAR Sports and STAR Cricket last week which explains the huge plunge in its share prices. It was down from $2.16 to a low of $1.94 on Friday before rebounding to close at $2.
Is there any future for Starhub?
Starhub is known for paying hefty dividends over the years and at 18 cents dividend per share, the yield is at 9%. Considering its bottom during the crisis was $1.76, $2 seems to be rather attractive buy for a yield and recovery play.
To put things in perspective, cable TV accounts for about 20% of Starhub’s revenue. It has about 550,000 pay TV subscribers and it is not known how many families actually subscribed cable TV purely for soccer.
Reports over the weekend showed that many subscribers and soccer fans will be hanging onto Starhub even though EPL can only be watched on Mio TV. Of course, the reports can be biased as we do not have the actual numbers or expected churn rate.
Personally I feel that losing EPL is a prelude to more losses of TV subscribers to Mio TV. As much as I do not like Singtel, I cannot help but to admit that Singtel has the full financial muscle to boot Starhub out of the cable TV market altogether.
Now that Singtel has committed a large sum of money for the EPL, it is only a matter of time before it competes with Starhub on Discovery, HBO, Animal Planet and other premium content. (Not to mention the 2010 World Cup will be another bidding war highly anticipated by market watchers.)
If the worst case scenario materialised, Starhub will be at the deep end of the water.
Starhub might be its victim of its success of bundling the 3 services into discounted packages. Now that Singtel can do the same, Starhub will need to spend more on marketing, retention and content to remain a market player.
The question is, can it afford it at all? Read more...[caption id="attachment_1975" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Photo by Bombardier"][/caption]
Starhub lost the broadcast rights of EPL, ESPN, STAR Sports and STAR Cricket last week which explains the huge plunge in its share prices. It was down from $2.16 to a low of $1.94 on Friday before rebounding to close at $2.
Is there any future for Starhub?
Starhub is known for paying hefty dividends over the years and at 18 cents dividend per share, the yield is at 9%. Considering its bottom during the crisis was $1.76, $2 seems to be rather attractive buy for a yield and recovery play.
To put things in perspective, cable TV accounts for about 20% of Starhub’s revenue. It has about 550,000 pay TV subscribers and it is not known how many families actually subscribed cable TV purely for soccer.
Reports over the weekend showed that many subscribers and soccer fans will be hanging onto Starhub even though EPL can only be watched on Mio TV. Of course, the reports can be biased as we do not have the actual numbers or expected churn rate.
Personally I feel that losing EPL is a prelude to more losses of TV subscribers to Mio TV. As much as I do not like Singtel, I cannot help but to admit that Singtel has the full financial muscle to boot Starhub out of the cable TV market altogether.
Now that Singtel has committed a large sum of money for the EPL, it is only a matter of time before it competes with Starhub on Discovery, HBO, Animal Planet and other premium content. (Not to mention the 2010 World Cup will be another bidding war highly anticipated by market watchers.)
If the worst case scenario materialised, Starhub will be at the deep end of the water.
Starhub might be its victim of its success of bundling the 3 services into discounted packages. Now that Singtel can do the same, Starhub will need to spend more on marketing, retention and content to remain a market player.
The question is, can it afford it at all? Read more...
[/caption]
Starhub lost the broadcast rights of EPL, ESPN, STAR Sports and STAR Cricket last week which explains the huge plunge in its share prices. It was down from $2.16 to a low of $1.94 on Friday before rebounding to close at $2.
Is there any future for Starhub?
Starhub is known for paying hefty dividends over the years and at 18 cents dividend per share, the yield is at 9%. Considering its bottom during the crisis was $1.76, $2 seems to be rather attractive buy for a yield and recovery play.
To put things in perspective, cable TV accounts for about 20% of Starhub’s revenue. It has about 550,000 pay TV subscribers and it is not known how many families actually subscribed cable TV purely for soccer.
Reports over the weekend showed that many subscribers and soccer fans will be hanging onto Starhub even though EPL can only be watched on Mio TV. Of course, the reports can be biased as we do not have the actual numbers or expected churn rate.
Personally I feel that losing EPL is a prelude to more losses of TV subscribers to Mio TV. As much as I do not like Singtel, I cannot help but to admit that Singtel has the full financial muscle to boot Starhub out of the cable TV market altogether.
Now that Singtel has committed a large sum of money for the EPL, it is only a matter of time before it competes with Starhub on Discovery, HBO, Animal Planet and other premium content. (Not to mention the 2010 World Cup will be another bidding war highly anticipated by market watchers.)
If the worst case scenario materialised, Starhub will be at the deep end of the water.
Starhub might be its victim of its success of bundling the 3 services into discounted packages. Now that Singtel can do the same, Starhub will need to spend more on marketing, retention and content to remain a market player.
The question is, can it afford it at all? Read more...
