Ofcom - SKy may have to share sports channels

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Soldato
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8120296.stm

Could be crap, but we should be safe for the next few years.

So it isn't bad enough that to see all the prem league games you had to subscribe to setanta, BT vision welcome ofcoms statement. So if this is pushed through then to see all games you must have Virgin, BT vision, Sky, and maybe something like ESPN too.

Well done ofcom, it will really offer people good value for money you complete tards. Bring back Prem Plus season tickets and give it all back to sky.

:D
 
bibalasvegas said:
You clearly haven't even read the article.
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I cleary have, and am just a sky fanboi :D

I'm just not optimistic of other channels putting on a good service like sky. But hopefully by then there will be a lot more HD channels available from the various suppliers to show the games.
 
-Ad- said:
I cleary have, and am just a sky fanboi :D

I'm just not optimistic of other channels putting on a good service like sky. But hopefully by then there will be a lot more HD channels available from the various suppliers to show the games.
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Sounds more like you didnt really understand the article and have only just worked it out. The OP suggests you need all platforms to see all games.
 
-Ad- said:
I cleary have, and am just a sky fanboi :D

I'm just not optimistic of other channels putting on a good service like sky. But hopefully by then there will be a lot more HD channels available from the various suppliers to show the games.
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sky have the rights to the game, sky film the games, sky broadcast their stuff, making it available on all platforms probably, from a perspective of competition, simply means they'll have to make the sky sports package available on Virgin, just like they withdrew permission for Sky 1 but gave it back eventually.

Having the same tv, on offer elsewhere breed's competition, while Sky would set the price(albeit fair-ish) for Virgin to broadcast it, its completely up to Virgin to offer it at a loss in other packages to encourage people to go Virgin instead, which will force Sky's hand in offering their top packages for cheaper, which is good for everyone.
 
drunkenmaster said:
sky have the rights to the game, sky film the games, sky broadcast their stuff, making it available on all platforms probably, from a perspective of competition, simply means they'll have to make the sky sports package available on Virgin, just like they withdrew permission for Sky 1 but gave it back eventually.

Having the same tv, on offer elsewhere breed's competition, while Sky would set the price(albeit fair-ish) for Virgin to broadcast it, its completely up to Virgin to offer it at a loss in other packages to encourage people to go Virgin instead, which will force Sky's hand in offering their top packages for cheaper, which is good for everyone.
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never thought I would do this but this man speaketh the truth :p
 
It's probably 'good news' really as it means that Sky will continuing doing coverage, just you won't need to Sky to see some of it. Good news for anyone without Sky, certainly. And to be fair Sky arguably have the best football coverage so you could say it's better for this to happen than some other jokers like Setanta getting rights to games.
 
Whilst I like the fact it should promote competition in the long run, I dislike the ofcom's stance on this situation. I find it is not Sky abusing a market position but rather Virgin and BT's ineptitude to do anything about it. I do not think it is fair that Sky should use their equipment, presenters, all the production side, then be forced into selling the shows to other broadcasters. Virgin and BT will then be able to undercut sky since they do not have any of the costs involved with making the programmes. Sky will not be able to lower the prices without costs exceeding revenues.
 
dante6491 said:
Whilst I like the fact it should promote competition in the long run, I dislike the ofcom's stance on this situation. I find it is not Sky abusing a market position but rather Virgin and BT's ineptitude to do anything about it. I do not think it is fair that Sky should use their equipment, presenters, all the production side, then be forced into selling the shows to other broadcasters. Virgin and BT will then be able to undercut sky since they do not have any of the costs involved with making the programmes. Sky will not be able to lower the prices without costs exceeding revenues.
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The sun yesterday had a really funny article saying how it was disgraceful that ofcom was helping incompetent companies like virgin and BT who refuse to take risks.

The problem is that setanta took risks in the form of massive borrowing so they could compete, there is no way to match sky without finding hundreds of millions of pounds, and even then it didn't work. There is currently no way to compete with sky at without some form of regulation as they have so much money, it's a monopoly really, as the guy with the most money makes it impossible for anyone else to match them without going bankrupt.

We've also seen recently how sky behave when setting their own cost of channels when they hiked up the cost of sky1 for virgin last year to stupidly high levels and virgin lost thousands of customers as a result; personally i think this ruling is a result of that, so sky can only blame themselves.

This is the only way to do it really, let ofcom set the cost and force sky to make their channels available (remember it will be at a profitable level for sky, just not obscenely profitable like they enjoy now). Virgin and BT won't be able to undercut as they'll have to pay sky for the channels, plus sky can charge more for advertising with the increased viewer numbers.

Good news i think, then sky can buy all the football packages but you'll have the option to watch it on whoever your tv provider is, it's better than breaking up the packages between companies.
 
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This will be bad for the premiership as there is now no incentive for Sky (or anyone else) to offer large sums of money for exclusive rights.
 
I think its bad in some respects as Sky have no obligation to bid massive amounts and produce high quality broadcasts if they can just piggy back someone else's feed.
Also it does seem slightly unfair to punish sky for being so successful, if they didn't want a monopoly OFCOM should have acted earlier, and their ineptitude shouldn't be the reason to force sky to sell at regulated prices to competition.

At the same time, paying for all the channels and HD it would be nice to get a discount :)
 
drunkenmaster said:
Having the same tv, on offer elsewhere breed's competition, while Sky would set the price(albeit fair-ish) for Virgin to broadcast it, its completely up to Virgin to offer it at a loss in other packages to encourage people to go Virgin instead, which will force Sky's hand in offering their top packages for cheaper, which is good for everyone.
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I heard something about this the other day and I was under the impression that the price would be set for Sky and not as you're suggesting. I may be wrong though.
 
dante6491 said:
Whilst I like the fact it should promote competition in the long run, I dislike the ofcom's stance on this situation. I find it is not Sky abusing a market position but rather Virgin and BT's ineptitude to do anything about it. I do not think it is fair that Sky should use their equipment, presenters, all the production side, then be forced into selling the shows to other broadcasters. Virgin and BT will then be able to undercut sky since they do not have any of the costs involved with making the programmes. Sky will not be able to lower the prices without costs exceeding revenues.
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Man oh man, this is a perfect replica of what is happening with the Post Office and Royal Mail being forced to handle TNT Mail, UK Mail etc etc at prices that are set for them, yet funnily enough no-one seems to side with Royal Mail on that :eek:
 
Jokester said:
This will be bad for the premiership as there is now no incentive for Sky (or anyone else) to offer large sums of money for exclusive rights.
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Good. Let the big boys squirm, I'd love to see a few of them go bust because they've spent ridiculous amounts of money that they shouldn't have.
 
Jeff Lynne said:
Good. Let the big boys squirm, I'd love to see a few of them go bust because they've spent ridiculous amounts of money that they shouldn't have.
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Sadly I think the clubs that'll be hurt most will be the smaller clubs where TV fees are a larger percentage of their income. Can just see it widening the gulf between the big clubs and the rest.

Jeff Lynne said:
I heard something about this the other day and I was under the impression that the price would be set for Sky and not as you're suggesting. I may be wrong though.
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No you're right Ofcom are looking to regulate the price of the channels as part of the deal.
 
It would have to be regulated to some extent, otherwise Sky could just say "you boys can have it for £99999999999999 per match".

I'd imagine that any deal put in place would still leave Sky in the driving seat though, in that their offering would be the cheapest unless rival broadcasters use the Sports as a loss-leader (i.e. sell it for less than cost to try and attract subscribers and then make money on their other products).
 
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