Sky deal lifts Meridian

Blurb1: Another bundling offer for consumers looms, says FIONA ROTHERHAM.

Meridian Energy gained 15,000 customers through its marketing initiative with Sky Television - the first national bundling deal offered to electricity consumers.

It is now in talks with Sky to repeat the offer in August.

Under the six-month promotion last year, consumers were offered a cheap Sky digital installation in exchange for switching from their existing electricity retailer.

For consumers it represented a saving of $200 on the normal $499 installation cost.

While Meridian and Sky cite commercial sensitivity on details of the deal, it is understood that the power company paid the bulk of the discount back to the pay TV company.

Meridian is the largest of the three state-owned enterprises formed from the split of ECNZ in April last year.

It said it had increased customer numbers from 70,000 to 100,000 since that time through a variety of marketing initiatives.

Meridian has come in for strident criticism, particularly from Northland consumers, over billing and switching problems.

Meridian spokesman Allan Seay said it was not keen to introduce any new marketing campaigns until those issues had been "ironed out."

He said new industry protocols for switching customers should improve the situation, along with the company's new centralised retail operation in Christchurch.

"The partnership with Sky was our first foray and is a sign of things to come."

Sky chief operating officer John Fellet said the electricity companies were at one stage paying crazy prices for existing customer databases up for sale after the Government-imposed reforms. Industry players say the price paid for these databases was on average $350 per customer and sometimes up to $450.

Mr Fellet said under Sky's offer, the cost to the electricity retailers was a lot less than what they had been paying for new customers. The profile of the customer attracted to the deal - a high-residential electricity user - was what Meridian was looking for.

Sky and Telecom will next month trial bundling digital TV, residential line, mobile phone and internet services. Selected householders will be offered a discount on what those services would cost them individually.


"We'll be everyone's pay TV partner," Mr Fellet said. "We'll sell guns to all sides."