Missing a Trick?

I heard earlier today that Orange is to show the England’s World Cup qualifier on its website at a cost of £4.99 for anyone who signs up before midnight tonight, rising to £9.99 if you sign up between tomorrow and midnight on Friday, and rising again to £11.99 for anyone who signs up after that.
Hats off to Orange for showing the game, but I was slightly surprised when I emailed the press office to find out if Orange customers get any sort of discount, to be told that no, the price is the same for everyone.
Now Orange may tell me that the logistics involved would have been too unfathomable, or that their servers would not be able to handle the traffic, but I can’t help thinking that the network is missing a fantastic opportunity here to engender some real loyalty among its customers. Give them a couple of quid off, give it them for free even, so long as they sign up before a certain deadline. Anyone who misses the cut would have to pay.
Sure, it would mean Orange would make less profit from the exercise, but since when has it been in the business of broadcasting live football matches anyway? The business it is in depends heavily on its ability to attract new customers and then, 12 or 18 months later, keep them. This, to my mind, in an industry plagued by customer churn, would have been a great way to do it.

David Murphy
Editor