"of these, intended to differentiate it from its competition" (Jobber 2010 cited by Gavris &McLeod 2014. To analyse the brand that is 'Sky Sports' the report finds the following; thename Sky infers strength and dominance in the market sector having traditionally been theleading industry player (Ofcom, 2015), The design of how Sky Sports delivers its contentoffering is distinctive in the creation of renowned programming that cannot be replicated,examples of this are 'Super Sunday' and 'Soccer Saturday', these programmes are widelyaccepted by Premier League fans as staples of the weekend Premier League programming, infact they can be considered as mini brands of their own, as they are instantly recognisablenames to fans without the prefix of Sky Sports. The reputation of the brand is cementedthrough the use of celebrity experts and well known footballers as presenters and analysts,who by association are promoting the brand of Sky Sports, this could be considered as sellingby star status whereby a celebrity uses their status to promote a product or service, thisanalysis asserts that Sky Sports uses the star status to promote their brand, and products(Hollensen 2012, cited by Gavris & McLeod, 2014).This analysis finds that Sky holds the balance of power over the buyer in each of the threeseparate entities examined concerning bargaining power of suppliers5. The bargaining Power of buyersIn contrast to the analysis of suppliers given above, buyers tend to be more powerful in thesupply chain when they are more concentrated than sellers, there are readily availablealternative sources of supply, and buyer switching costs are low (Hooley et al, 2004), theevidence presented thus far in the 'five-forces' analysis indicates the opposite; that thebalance of power lies with the seller, in this case Sky Sports. Appendix III SWOT AnalysisTo make the best use of the SWOT framework: the SWOT will be applied in the context ofthe Pay TV market, in the case of the company Sky, and focus on the specific productsegment of Sports broadcasting (Wilson & Gilligan; 2005). Rather than encompassing all ofSky Sports operations the SWOT is specific to marketing, and focused on the customer-entric approach - marketing is the management process responsible for identifying,anticipating and satisfying customers requirements profitably (CIM, 2007). The analysistakes this focus because strengths and weaknesses are largely irrelevant unless they arerecognised and valued by the customer (Wilson & Gilligan: 2005). Strengths must be linkedto opportunities as strength without opportunity is of lithe strategic value (Wilson St Gilligan,2005).StrengthsBoth strengths and weaknesses analysis will be focussed on the marketing factors adaptedfrom Kotler, 1988, and cited by Wilson & Gilligan in the 2005 work Strategic Ma rketingManagement (P,58, Fig 2.8). Strengths and Weaknesses will also be looked at relative to thecompetition: to identify areas of distinctive competence that either provide competitiveadvantage or if managed properly are the basis for competitive advantage (Wilson &Gilligan, 2005). Sky Sports main /only competition is considered to be BT Sport as the onlyother owner of key Sports content rights (Ofcom, 2015)Market ShareIn terms of the wider Pay TV market, research by Strategy Analytics shows there are 17,4mPay TV subscribers in the UK, Sky and Virgin have a joint market share of 81%, BT TV has6% (Broadband Choices, 2015). Sky's published annual report has their customer base at 12m which equates to 68% (Sky, 2015) while BT TV has 1.2m customers (Financial Times.2015). Whilst BT Sport is available on Sky, and vice versa, both Sports offerings are alsoavailable via other pay TV providers, therefore obtaining accurate market share informationspecific to the sports broadcasting segment is difficult; particularly since Sky Sports does notreveal its subscription numbers (BBC, 2013), As the wider Pay TV market share data provesSky is the dominant market leader, from that it follows that they are also the segment leader,this is further evidenced through the PESTEL and Five Forces analysis presented inAppendix I & II, that is; live premier league rights stand out at the most important content forconsumer subscription decisions in Pay TV (Ofcom, 2015), sky currently holds 75% ofpremier league rights and BT 25% (Ofcom, 2015). Therefore Sky has supremacy in overallmarket share and in the key Sports content that influences consumer subscription decisions,ReputationSky Sports reputation has been built over the last 24 years, having been first broadcast in1991 (Sky, 2015), Sky has a long standing strong position in the supplyof retail Pay TV (Ofcom, 2015) this can be seen from its market share and subscriber basegiven above, Sky is the longest serving Pay TV provider in the UK (Sky, 2015), Thereforethis provides Sky with strength derived from incumbency advantages, related to existingcustomer base due to subscriber inertia and low subscriber switching (Ofcam, 2015), Furtherevidence of its strong reputation is the results of Ofcom's Pay TV customer satisfactionsurvey, which as Sky's performance as 81% versus an industry average of 80% (Ofcom,2015) Product RangeSky SportsNo of channels = 8 (incl Sky Sports News and Sky Sports Extra)Content116 live Premier League gamesLa Liga - Spanish Footballnpower Football LeagueCapital One Cup InternationalsWorld Cup 2018 QualifiersUEFA Euro Championships 2016Every F1 Grand Prix race and qualifyingRugbyLive Test CricketGolf: World tour events as well as major's US Open and The Masters, plus Ryder cupNFL American Football CoverageDarts World ChampionshipsHuge suite of other minority sportsBT SportNo. of channels 4Content38 Live premier League games (42 from August 2016) FA Cup "