Say Yes For IceTV to Continue

[Fester1952]

I assume you have all got the email:
Dear IceTV subscribers,

We, Amanda Lott and Tim Heesh were appointed Voluntary Administrators of the Company on 6 October 2015.

The following request has been written by the Director to the company Mr Colin O'Brien. We as administrators have continued to maintain the ICE TV service to the subscriber base since we were appointed on the 6th October 2015. We know that the service will need to be sold or licensed to another provider for it to remain operable as the company in voluntary administration cannot continue to provide the service indefinitely. Mr O'Brien, in attempting to assist the Voluntary Administrators in finding an alternative service provider, would like to know how many of the current subscribers would immediately renew their subscriptions and pay a new monthly fee if the ICE TV service was to continue. Your immediate response, by midday Tuesday 13 October 2015, will be of assistance in determining whether that service can continue to be provided.

Although we, as Voluntary Administrators are forwarding this email to you as written by Mr O'Brien, we do not express a view as to some of the personal sentiments he conveys in the message.

"To say we are sorry for the mess that has ensued is trite in the extreme but nevertheless I hope you can believe how saddened we are by the events of the past week. Our Skippa project is defunct but it may be possible to licence our complete IceTV EPG and Smart Recording service to a new party. Before we can go ahead with discussions about saving that business we must know how many current subscribers would be prepared to re-subscribe to maintain their enjoyment of the ease of use that it brings to managing TV recording. Unfortunately I must state that your current subscription value is lost although you may he able to recover the unused proportion if you used a credit provider.

Our proposal is for a monthly subscription of $7:99.

We believe our 24/7 accurate EPG data, produced in-house, and integrated smartphone apps, website and PVR hardware for just $2/week represents extremely good value.

If you would subscribe to this service we believe we can get it running so that your current EPG data and PC/Smartphone functionality will not be interrupted.

Colin."

Looks like auto timers for me then, not paying again as I am already paid up until the end of 2019!

[Star6key]

Looks like auto timers for me then, not paying again as I am already paid up until the end of 2019!

Even though I'm paid up to 2019 as well, I would pay again if it was the SAME service.

[tezza007]

Dear IceTV subscribers,
We, Amanda Lott and Tim Heesh were appointed Voluntary Administrators of the Company on 6 October 2015.
The following request has been written by the Director to the company Mr Colin O'Brien. We as administrators have continued to maintain the ICE TV service to the subscriber base since we were appointed on the 6th October 2015. We know that the service will need to be sold or licensed to another provider for it to remain operable as the company in voluntary administration cannot continue to provide the service indefinitely. Mr O'Brien, in attempting to assist the Voluntary Administrators in finding an alternative service provider, would like to know how many of the current subscribers would immediately renew their subscriptions and pay a new monthly fee if the ICE TV service was to continue. Your immediate response, by midday Tuesday 13 October 2015, will be of assistance in determining whether that service can continue to be provided.
Although we, as Voluntary Administrators are forwarding this email to you as written by Mr O'Brien, we do not express a view as to some of the personal sentiments he conveys in the message.
"To say we are sorry for the mess that has ensued is trite in the extreme but nevertheless I hope you can believe how saddened we are by the events of the past week. Our Skippa project is defunct but it may be possible to licence our complete IceTV EPG and Smart Recording service to a new party. Before we can go ahead with discussions about saving that business we must know how many current subscribers would be prepared to re-subscribe to maintain their enjoyment of the ease of use that it brings to managing TV recording. Unfortunately I must state that your current subscription value is lost although you may he able to recover the unused proportion if you used a credit provider.
Our proposal is for a monthly subscription of $7:99.
We believe our 24/7 accurate EPG data, produced in-house, and integrated smartphone apps, website and PVR hardware for just $2/week represents extremely good value.
If you would subscribe to this service we believe we can get it running so that your current EPG data and PC/Smartphone functionality will not be interrupted.
Colin."
Please answer "Yes" or "No" here

[tezza007]

For what it would cost me to get a weekly paper for the guide, it's YES, YES, YES!!! for me

[mkwilson]

Yeh, got this email too. As galling as it was that my annual subscription auto-renewed 2 weeks ago, I'd rather have continued access to their service.

[tezza007]

I'm paid til 2020. Stuff mucking about with Autotimers

[Rockets]

It's a Yes for me. I think autotimers would have a low WAF and that's all that counts.

[Fester1952]

I would probably consider it IF I hadn't paid up until the end of 2019, admittedly at a discounted rate, so I'm basically around $200 in the red.
Just would leave a sour taste in my mouth to have to pay all over again at the full rate.
I will certainly miss the service but I got burnt in the Solarshop collapse as well to then see the managing director
start up all over again with another solar company!
It's the workers I feel most sorry for, this type of thing happens all too often, they suffer for poor management decisions.

[tezza007]

This will probably keep the workers in their jobs
I'm paid up til 2020, but when i see what the dismal alternative is with Autotimers, I didn't hesitate
Actually less than the cost of buying the Sunday paper for the weekly guide and a hell of a lot less hassle

[simoncasey]

I'm paid til 2020.

Not any more.

[tezza007]

Exactly

[prl]

I've received the email, too. As I've said before, I'd already decided my paid-up subscription was effectively gone. I intend to say that I'm interested in the new service. It's about the same cost as the full-price subscription for the "old" IceTV.

[MrQuade]

This is a tough one.

I am not sure I am getting enough value from it to justify something that is almost the same price as a basic Netflix subscription.

But as has been said, the Autotimers cannot compare to the set-and-forget ease of IceTV.

[simoncasey]

I've received the email, too. As I've said before, I'd already decided my paid-up subscription was effectively gone. I intend to say that I'm interested in the new service. It's about the same cost as the full-price subscription for the "old" IceTV.

Yes, if you've already come to terms with the loss of the subscription either way, then it just becomes a value decision on icetv for $8. I suppose the other risks are; it doesn't deliver required service (eg the new company just rebundles the FTA epg without doing the rpt flag), some key functionality is missed (eg the coming soon list) or the FTA channels make a play to stop it as they tried before and the new company doesn't have the drive to fight.

[prl]

...
Yes, if you've already come to terms with the loss of the subscription either way, then it just becomes a value decision on icetv for $8. I suppose the other risks are; it doesn't deliver required service (eg the new company just rebundles the FTA epg without doing the rpt flag), some key functionality is missed (eg the coming soon list) or the FTA channels make a play to stop it as they tried before and the new company doesn't have the drive to fight.

If it is packaged as a $8 month-by-month subscription as suggested in the email, the risk is small.

I'm not particularly concerned about the risk of a copyright action by the FTA EPG copyright holders. The IceTV model for building the EPG received the High Court's stamp of approval. If they remember to play by those rules, I think they'll probably be OK.

[prl]

From the "glass half empty" perspective, I've also saved PDFs of my My Week and My Series IceTV pages.

[coref1]

My intitial thought was "no it's not worth it" but after playing around with my T4 autotimers for about an hour I'm starting to wonder. Ice tv is so much easier, even easier then my Tivo.

[rfmoore]

I had paid up till 2018 and I've said yes. It's so convenient. The cost of less than two cups of coffee a. Week.

[prl]

My intitial thought was "no it's not worth it" but after playing around with my T4 autotimers for about an hour I'm starting to wonder. ...

I've been wrestling with AutoTimers since the notice about IceTV going into administration was posted on the IceTV forum last Wednesday, in an attempt to be in a position to offer people help with them. I'm still not certain I know all the ins and outs, and I haven't enjoyed the experience much.

[Ozzyla]

What a pain in the ass, payed up for another 4 years, so much for that. I wonder where the money went? How much could it possibly cost for a web EPG?? I guess it was miss management of there Skipper PVR? On that note I just got me a new PVR and was tossing up between the Skipper and the T4, Ended up with the T4 and love it... Thank F^%# for that!

Ill hit the YES i guess but will see what happens... What a FAIL!



Oz

[mkwilson]

What a pain in the ass, payed up for another 4 years, so much for that. I wonder where the money went? How much could it possibly cost for a web EPG?? I guess it was miss management of there Skipper PVR?

Hmmm $500k a year as a cost of doing business I guess wouldn't be unreasonable? Give or take 15%.

Yeh, the whole Skippa project looked curious to say the least, right from the outset.

[tezza007]

With 10 staff I'd call that very conservative, so they're gunna need a lot of new $2pw subscribers out of the 16,000 already paid up

[mkwilson]

With 10 staff I'd call that very conservative, so they're gunna need a lot of new $2pw subscribers out of the 16,000 already paid up

Yeh, I'm workin on half that number of staff to run the EPG business only.....but you're right, it's probably still going to cost more than 500k. Depends on the identity of any potential acquirer though.

[Star6key]

...Depends on the identity of any potential acquirer though.

Channel 9?

[mkwilson]

...Depends on the identity of any potential acquirer though.

Channel 9?

I was thinking of someone who already sells complementary products.

It can't possibly work as a 100% stand alone business (given the v.short time left before projected administrators fees mean they have to pull the plug).

[mister_bimbo]

I've said "Yes" as well ...

I've received the email, too. As I've said before, I'd already decided my paid-up subscription was effectively gone. I intend to say that I'm interested in the new service. It's about the same cost as the full-price subscription for the "old" IceTV.

Yes, if you've already come to terms with the loss of the subscription either way, then it just becomes a value decision on icetv for $8.

^ This is really the key question - the $'s are already gone. So while I understand people (quite rightly) thinking that I'm paying twice for the same service, the question really is, is this worth $8 per month..?

In relation to what I've lost (probably about 4 years of subscription), I'll have a crack at recovering it via my credit card. And while on that subject, has anyone else noticed that the information on when the subscription is (was) paid up to has disappeared from the IceTV My Account section..? I was trying to find it to help figure out how much of my subscription I'd lost, but its not that difficult to reconcile.

Cheers,
David

[Star6key]

And while on that subject, has anyone else noticed that the information on when the subscription is (was) paid up to has disappeared from the IceTV My Account section..? I was trying to find it to help figure out how much of my subscription I'd lost, but its not that difficult to reconcile.

Cheers,
David

In My Account, go to My Recorders, then hover your mouse over the IceTv symbol next to the device name.

[jlowe73]

Hover over the Ice TV logo to see your expiry here:

https://www.icetv.com.au/cgi-bin/webmem ... bscription

[bpratt]

I'm not too badly off with my icetv subscription (August 15 2018), but it's the only reasonable way to run my PVR's that I can use my phone to program shows to record whilst out and about.

I'd like to think that they could also add in the TVSN extra channels too, or is there a way on the T4/T3 that you can tell it to use over the air epg for those specific channels, whilst keeping icetv for the others ?
Not for recording them, but so that the on screen epg is full populated.