Speculation Spark and Sky have been in talks over Lightbox

Thursday, 28 November 2019

Spark has indicated it doesn't want to invest further in Lightbox but its search for a 'growth partner' has proved a long one.

Spark and Sky are not commenting on speculation that Sky is in talks to buy Spark's Lightbox streaming television entertainment service.

Spark announced in March that it had begun a formal process to select a 'growth partner' for Lightbox, which competes with Sky's own Neon service.

It said at the time that Lightbox had 355,000 subscribers but said Lightbox's continued success would require ongoing investment, especially in content.

Spark spokeswoman Ellie Cross said it still had a 'commercially-sensitive process' underway to identify a growth partner for Lightbox and the company was not able to provide any comment on how that was proceeding.

**READ MORE

Sky TV boss Martin Stewart has already demonstrated his propensity to think outside the box with a Olympics deal with TVNZ.

* TVNZ 1 will have daily coverage of Tokyo Olympics

* Internet TV shows will need content warnings in wake of '13 Reasons Why'

* Spark launches Lightbox television this month**

Sky chief executive Martin Stewart also declined to comment.

'We are talking to a whole range of people about a whole range of things.

'Our 'to do list' is pretty long but I don't have any comment on anything specific until we are ready to announce,' he said.

A deal between Sky and Spark over Lightbox could surprise, given the two companies have locked horns over the past two years for streaming sports rights.

Competition between the companies is believed to have pushed Sky into forking out more money, reportedly $500m, to re-sign the five-year rights for domestic and All Blacks rugby.

But both Lightbox and Neon, while attracting solid followings, have been eclipsed in the streaming entertainment market by dominant rival Netflix.

Spark said in March that it envisaged working with an existing media player to leverage their entertainment content with the 'strong marketing and distribution platform' that it had built with Lightbox.

Television New Zealand chief executive Kevin Kenrick has indicated it believes the streaming market will become a bloodbath while another potential partner, television channel Three owner MediaWorks, has indicated its desire to pull out of television entirely.

In a sign that battlelines in the media industry are being redrawn, Stewart said on Thursday that he hoped a partnership with TVNZ over the free-to-air coverage of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would develop into a broader partnership between Sky and TVNZ.