Liberty Global takeover of Ziggo in the Netherlands

icdg

This one's a buggy with some possible wider implications. Liberty Global has made an offer to buy out its Dutch rival Ziggo.

http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/Joint-announcement-press-release-Ziggo-Final.pdf

Although on a corporate level, Liberty is buying Ziggo, on an organisational level within Holland it will be effectively a reverse takeover of the bigger Ziggo and it will be the Ziggo name that will be kept and the Ziggo head office that will be maintained, with UPC effectively disappearing in its own home market.

It raises questions on a wider front for UPC as Holland was its home market and where the Mediabox and Horizon platforms were first developed and introduced. Presumably they will now be moving to Ziggo's platforms. What this means for future development of UPC's own platforms is any guess. It may also mean a move away from the UPC brand in the long term. Of course nothing will happen in the near future but one wonders what the future strategic direction for the UPC brand will be in the event of this going through.

former legend

Very interesting but:

Reaching 7 million or over 90% of Dutch homes, the combined business will provide approximately 10 million video, broadband internet and telephony services to over 4 million unique customers through a fiber-rich cable network

I have no idea what the situation in the Netherlands is like, but if those 90% of homes have no alternative providers open to them, then this is going to come under serious scrutiny for competiton/monopoly.

Wabbit Ears

icdg wrote: »

It raises questions on a wider front for UPC as Holland was its home market and where the Mediabox and Horizon platforms were first developed and introduced.

You're confusing UPC NL and Liberty Globals corporate headquarters in NL which are seperate entities.

The Cush

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

You're confusing UPC NL and Liberty Globals corporate headquarters in NL which are seperate entities.

Yes, UPC NL like UPC Ireland is a subsidiary of Liberty Global's UPC Holding B.V. but the question is which platform will survive the Dutch merger UPC's or Ziggo's and how will this affect UPC's branding and platforms in the 9 other countries? The combined Dutch operation will be available in approx. 4.5m households.

Five Lamps

former legend wrote: »

Very interesting but:



I have no idea what the situation in the Netherlands is like, but if those 90% of homes have no alternative providers open to them, then this is going to come under serious scrutiny for competiton/monopoly.

There doesn't tend to be much competition in the cable market - it tends to be a monopoly in any area.

What's the Ziggo STB's like?

SpaceTime

It doesn't mean they'll keep Ziggo's STB or technology, they're only leveraging the brand.

Their respective markets don't overlap so they aren't in competition with eachother.

I'd say it'll be Horizon + the Ziggo name and UPC's logo or something like that.

I bet you it'll be UPC-Ziggo..

They must think the Ziggo brand has more traction in the NL market.

They look like they're using a lot of 'off the shelf' STBs from Samsung, Humax and Cisco etc.

https://www.ziggo.nl/#producten/televisie/digitale-ontvanger/gecertificeerd/tabs/1/interactief-hd/

Looks like it's a bring your own box service. Maybe there's no ziggo EPG.

I would be very surprised if UPC dropped their name in NL though.

bk

I wouldn't be so sure UPC will drop their own technology and platforms. Broadly speaking UPC now has three platforms:

- UPC Horizon
- Virgin Media and TiVo in the UK
- Ziggo

Ziggo doesn't seem to have any advanced STB like Horizon or TiVo. So I'd imagine it is far more likely Ziggo will end up getting the Horizon platform.

The more interesting question is what will happen between the Horizon platform and TiVo. At the moment they are operating both separately, but in the long term they might eventually decide to merge them.

SpaceTime

I would assume they'll drop TiVo if they've their own technology and TiVo licencing is uncompetitive with it.

Bear in mind there may be a couple of generations of Horizon before that licence runs out with TiVo so it's likely to be more polished than it is now.

I would bet in the Netherlands Ziggo will end up as a merged brand.

My guess is they'll use Ziggo for a bit then drop it. they've invested too much in a pan European band to just chuck it in a major market.

Ziggo is also a new brand relative to UPC.

I wouldn't be surprised if the press release came from Ziggo rather than Liberty Global.

I think they might need a stronger brand though. I think UPC is very bland branding compared to Virgin media etc but then again Sky and BT branding isn't much better.

They're UPC Cablecom in Switzerland and Kable BW with a multicoloured UPC/Liberty logo.

Dave..M

I wonder will they gradually rebrand to Horizon, a lot of their new products are called Horizon X (their mobile apps currently launch with the UPC logo and Horizon under it with no mention of UPC), in time I'd imagine this will become ubiquitous across their various territories, even without an official rebrand, given their saturation advertising Horizon will probably become synonymous with their various services (e.g. People will say Horizon BB, Horizon TV etc similar to how people refer to SKY products who are owned by British Sky Broadcasting)