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Rumour: Seven to exit Presto?

Heated competition is behind rumours that Seven may exit its joint venture with Foxtel.

prestoThere is speculation today that Seven may pull out of Presto, its joint venture with Foxtel.

According to The Australian, both parties have agreed on a six-month budget rather than a full ­financial year agreement. It claims Seven is reluctant to invest any more money into the venture and has indicated to Foxtel that it plans to exit the joint venture.

However Seven CEO Tim Worner recently announced Presto posted subscriber growth of 193 per cent in fiscal year 2016.

“This business is benefiting from Seven’s content production strengths and there are more commissions in the pipeline,” he said.

Presto has been under pressure from the competition of Netflix and Fairfax / Nine-owned Stan.

 

Fairfax last week said Stan had reached 500,000 active subscribers and was expected to break even in fiscal year 2018, while research firm Telsyte said Presto had 112,000 paid subscribers in June.

 

 

16 Responses

  1. We tried them all at one stage and have ended up with Stan and Netflix only. With Presto there just wasn’t enough of interest compared to the other two. During our free trial month we didn’t end up watching anything on Presto and found that the majority of what was on offer we had already seen on on of Seven’s or Foxtel’s channels and wouldn’t chose to watch again in any case.

  2. I have free Presto at the moment too (part of my Telstra TV deal) – and I currently have Netflix and Stan as well. I have only watched 2 movies on Presto – and that was because I went overseas for a while. I do look from time to time for something to watch – and I do intent to watch Mr Robot – but I am a binger I don’t want to wait every week so will wait. But I have also been kicked out so many times from the app. On Netflix and Stan I stay logged in no problem – Presto is forever kicking me out and it doesn’t even save your email so you have to retype that in too (first world problems) – but it is in the experience, I won’t go back after Mr Robot. I do already have Foxtel with Drama so I pretty much have everything in there already anyway!!! I certainly would not be paying for it. Netflix is Netflix – I love it . and Stan I must say I am very impressed with – have…

  3. I have a free subscription to the service and I still don’t use it. The UX is terrible – rolling up seasons, even if there’s only one, makes it hard to quickly access content, and the entering of passwords a billion times sent me crazy.
    I also find their content choices strange and unappealing – Home & Away movies + Mr Robot?! Back catalogue Winners & Losers – zzz….

  4. Until Presto have a working Apps they will not succeed and really I don’t think they are even trying. They have been promising an AppleTV4 solution for 10months and we are still waiting, in that same time Stan have launched an App and updated it 3 times

    1. Agree, that’s why I never trialled it, I’m not prepared to get another device just for one service and it’s not good enough just to have the facility to AirPlay or worse – have to connect your laptop with a cord to your TV. So now I’m settled and happy with my Netflix and Stan subscriptions and wouldn’t add another provider even if they do finally have an Apple app.

  5. Seven is the number one free-to-air network but severely lagging in this area. Their venture with the flawless Tivo recorder, marketed badly through their own Hybrid Television Services branch, was a complete and utter failure, yet it was the better product by a country mile. The same too with Presto. It has been woefully marketed, and a disaster from the outset. Seven seems to enter these agreements with gusto, but there is no management with the follow-through. I would have thought there should be. Such a waste of resources and money.

  6. Ten would seem to be the likely successor for Seven. And yes, you mention another point (which I think is true for all the streaming services), that you can’t fully delete your account. I made sure to sign up with a spare Visa debit card I received as a gift, so they needed to email me to update my details when it came time to pay and they couldn’t charge me without me knowing (for Presto).

  7. Agree with Brendos74. I’m enjoying the Presto library but there are a bunch of problems (I’m using on a PS). I continually have to enter my password. Have even had the app stop mid-stream to ask for a password. The app continually crashes and, when it does, you can’t resume – you have to start from the beginning. Programs aren’t split into chapters so when you do have to restart something from the beginning, you have to fast forward. I thought we ditched this with the VHS? Unless I’m not looking in the right place, you can’t browse the Presto library. You can browse curated lists otherwise you have to search. Thankfully JustWatch has a database of Presto’s library and it’s searchable. And, lastly, I’m pretty sure the PS4 app is not in 5.1. The library is the only reason I’m persevering, but they need to address these issues and quickly.

  8. I trialled Presto a few months ago. While the content was fine, I found myself drawn to Stan and I am now a paid Stan subscriber. Overall Stan shows were more appealing to me, including Unreal and the brilliant home grown No Activity and Wolf Creek. Presto’s desktop website leaves a lot to be desired, while Stan has a much better website and a Windows 10 app. In the interests of fairness, I don’t always receive a stable stream using Stan, but on or the other of the website or app usually works. The only thing I miss from Presto is the weekly newsletter highlighting new /notable content.

  9. I’d be surprised if Worner’s “subscriber growth” figure isn’t heavily misleading, when Foxtel ended the 2 free movies a month for platinum subscribers at the end of last year they replaced it with a year’s subscription to Presto – given he’s specifically talking about mere subscribers rather than paid, I suspect they’d be included.

  10. Presto always have offers for free 2 month trials on the back of shop a dockets. I’m hoping that Netflix would pick up their content if it closes.

  11. There gap between Presto and Stan is fueled by Pesto’s usability and registration.
    I “locked” 2 accounts trying to register which can’t be deleted (lucky I had a third credit card)
    Once I finally signed up, the categorization and grouping was not intuitive, the search function doesn’t work on SamsungTV, it’s slow, it freezes, it crashes etc.
    Their one saving grace is that they have Mr Robot. Last Thursday I had to spend 10 minutes trying to find the latest episode.

    They need to take a lead from 9Now/9JumpIn.
    Relaunch (with Ten) under a new name and most importantly with new software.

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