How the BPL broadcasting rights fight will impact StarHub, SingTel

Someone's at the losing end.

According to Nomura,  is a positive for StarHub, for sentiment, and also for its pay-TV/ bundling business. StarHub didn't lose many subscribers after it originally lost BPL in 2010 – it didn’t gain either but had to cut sport-package prices. So it is likely that its customer additions could pick up.

SingTel on the other hand may see some subscriber churn (since 2010, it has increased its pay-TV subs from 200k to 400k while StarHub has been around 530-540k levels); but we also note that it significantly expanded its other content over the past 3 years.

Here's more from Nomura:

Hence churn may not be significant, but this does put a dampener on its intentions of further boosting its content/ bundling appeal.

Price will be key. SingTel claims that it has been heavily subsidising this content and those who wish to watch this content on its own (eg StarHub customers) will likely have to pay significantly higher monthly subscription fee.