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Foxtel unveils ‘triple play’ bundle as streaming and subscriber competition heats up

Foxtel has unveiled its new ‘triple play’ bundling of TV, home phone and internet services in a single package in partnership with Telstra, as the subscription TV giant makes a play to widen its subscriber base.foxtellogo

The move comes as a number of new video streaming services have begun entering the market such as Stan and Fetch TV, as well as the highly anticipated entry of US streaming giant Netflix this year.

The move will see Foxtel customers able to use a single subscription for TV, broadband and home phone in partnership with Telstra, which owns 50 per cent of the cable company. News Corp owns the other fifty per cent.

Basic packages start at $90 per month for access to 43 channels, standard home phone and 50 gigabytes of broadband data, with 100GB, 200GB and 500GB plans priced at $95, $105 and $125 respectively. Customers can also scale up the number of channels they subscribe to.

Last year Foxtel began cutting subscription costs, including the basic package which was cut by half to just $25 per month in anticipation of increased competition.

Foxtel also announced its new broadband home network gateway, the Foxtel Hub, which it claimed would deliver fast household WiFi speeds to subscribers. There will also be no data download limits for when using Foxtel Go and Anytime when connected to Foxtel Broadband. Presto and Foxtel Play customers also enjoy this benefit when connected to Foxtel Broadband, the company said.

Freudenstein

Freudenstein

Richard Freudenstein, Foxtel CEO said the company was determined to remain competitive by offering the best entertainment experience possible, and to make it more accessible through investments in pricing and packaging.

“Today, we take that effort to the next level by providing our most compelling offer yet with our new Foxtel broadband and home phone bundles,” he said.

It comes as the company has been teasing the launch of its next generation set top box, the IQ3, which will have a range of advanced streaming and viewing features.

Megan Brownlow, editor of PwC’s Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook report told Mumbrella late last year the major players were gearing up for a marketing war around subscription services, and believes this is where customers, and dollars, will ultimately be won and lost.

“This will be a marketing war not just a content war,” she said. “It’s going to be a marketing war and the winners will be the best and biggest marketers.”

Fetch TV CEO Scott Lorson said he saw two discrete battles taking place in Australian media.

“There are two distinct competitive environments emerging – one is the platform play which is all about the full pay-TV platform, which is the battle between Foxtel versus Fetch TV and our associated partners. And then you are also seeing a separate battle emerge for over-the-top (OTT) all you can eat SVOD services emerge. All of which will be about competing with Netflix in this market.”

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