BT issues formal whinge to Ofcom over Sky dominance in pay telly Former state-owned telecoms giant BT has formally whinged to Ofcom that archrival Sky should be subject to regulatory intervention over its dominance in the paid-TV market. BT has asked Ofcom to change the scope of its review into digital communications, citing "high prices and poor outcomes for consumers arising from a lack …
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BT tries to move into a market that where Sky, and to a lesser extent Virgin, have operated for many more years, and then complains that guess what? The company that's been there longest has dominant share.
Sadly this seems to be the default position. Rather than, oh I don't know, compete, try to manipulate the regulator to damage the competition.
Sky only supplies BT with Sky Sports channels 1,2 and 5 in standard definition. So what, you may say, but some sports, notably Golf, is exclusively on sky sports 4. Sky uses this as a bait to get golf fans to sign up to Sky.They also play tricks with other niche sports like NFL where they will put most of the season on channels 1 and 2 but then put one weekend of the end of season playoffs on sky sports 3, just to annoy BT customers.
I know BT has got exclusivity to European football, but any sky customer can stay with sky and buy BT sport. I choose to do the opposite - I stay with BT and subscribe to Sky Sports 1,2 and 5 through BT for £20ish per month. This way I get to see most sky events but not golf. I make do with this by finding a way to watch the majors, but many golf fans choose to go to Sky because of this.
Sky likes it's dominant position in sports and Murdock will use every trick in the book to keep it. BT is far from perfect, but don't be blind and let Murdock get away with complaining about tricks he has used or wouldn't hesitate to use himself.
What needs to be done to BSkyB is to separate out the different parts of the system into independent entities. Ownership and operation of the satellites should be run like Openreach, offering service to alternative providers of content. Similarly, supply of the set-top boxes should be an open market so that we could legally have CAMs which would allow media PCs or other devices to front-end the digital satellite platform. Sky should be a business that provides content - its own channels and other peoples in bundles. This would enable companies like BT to do deals with ther channels to create their own bundles, with the STB or other device receiving those channels which are part of whatever bundle you subscribe to.
This would be a truly open market and would introduce true competition into digital satellite boadcasting. Something similar could probably be done with digital cable, although as that has less universal access, the economics would likely be significantly different. Some way to encourage the increase in cable coverage would have to be built in to the solution.
Sky don't own or operate the satellites as far as I'm aware - Astra do
Some Sky channels channels listed on the Sky EPG used to be carried on a Eutelsat bird (Eurobird 28 as it was called then) but according to Wikipedia that satellite isn't carrying anything any longer.
I think Sky also hold the rights to the uplink software/equipment that most channels use and the standard encryption software but I could be wrong there. Either way as you say it comes down to whether being the owner of an EPG makes you a monopoly. They aren't the only such EPG available since FreeSat has one (that's much more feature rich at that) and a lot of channels are listed on both EPGs. The only really unique thing about Sky's EPG is that it supports encryption whereas Freesat deliberately chose not to.
Firstly, dominance of a couple of brands is hardly surprising when only two of them have actually existed for more than a couple of years. Sky has been around for over 25 years and Virgin have been around for nearly a decade (in both cases as mergers of older companies). In comparison, BT and TalkTalk have only existed as TV providers for a couple of years. You don't get to start up a brand new company and immediately start complaining that the well established competition has more customers.
Secondly, the market share claims appear to be based on entirely arbitrary and meaningless distinctions. Sky operates broadcast TV that is only really similar to regular free broadcast TV. Virgin, BT and TalkTalk all operate internet TV which functions in a completely different manner. Given that TalkTalk doesn't actually have its own hardware and operates over BT's network, there doesn't seem to be any good reason for having these four listed as the only pay-TV providers in the UK (not counting a couple of small regional ones), since there's no meaningful difference between them and Netflix, Amazon, and so on. There's no difference between having a BT or TalkTalk internet+TV contract, or BT internet + Netflix contracts separately.
So the 64% claim is really nonsense. Either Sky have a 100% share because they're the only ones actually operating broadcast pay-TV, or they have a much smaller share because they're competing with a bunch of other services that just aren't being counted for no apparent reason.
Boy what a load of rubbish.
Firstly unless there is some way to start compition then you will only ever have one or two Big Ones, its the cahnges that wre made to how premier league football was bid for that led to others apart from Sky having some and we having some compitition on it. The same is true for everything else, don't forget for years Sky had the streming rights on most movies in this country and never used them which is why we have so little on Netflix or Amazon compared to the USA.
Secondly Sky are not the only broadcast service. TalkTalk and BT carry it over DSL and Virgin over their network. This is the same exactly as Sky just with wires / fibre. Add to that Netflix etc who you quote are purely stream on demand and not live broadcast then they are not part of the same system
What is needed is for Sky to be broken up the same as BT, Openreach was split off and must treat everyon equally, Sky subscription channels should be the same, a seperate company selling to Sky TV, BT etc on an equal footing. Then we would have real compitition with any company able to offer everything to customers and compete to get out business.
I agree,
I'm not sure breaking up the sky 'monopoly' would result in benefits to the average customer unless there is regulation about channel exclusives.
I don't want to have to pay for a separate subscriptions to 10 different providers
If all providers had access to the same content and fought it out over prices or they all offered a la carte deals then that would be another story.
Good, I only pay for the licence and get my content from streaming services, just get a good VPN or unblock US and you can stream content from US TV companies just as easily as you can the BBC etc.
Add to that Netflix or whatever and you get a hell of a lot of stuff for way less than Sky charge for the cheapest service.
Cut costs even more, get a £10 A month SIM from BT Mobile (link below) and use it for access to BT Wifi and dump your landline & broadband to save mega bucks.
My monthly cost is £10 for the SIM and £4.99 for Netflix and £2.99 for Eurosport, I use an old PC for the streaming and Hola in Chrome (Only use PC for this) and I have more content than hours to watch it plus a backup phone in the glovebox of my car just in case I need one.
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/4g-sim-only-plans/bb.html
Just forbid any one group having exclusive rights to anything. Then real competition would ignite.
Just look at the mess that the new music streaming services are entering into. Instead of offering everything, the customer has to subscribe to all to hear everything regardless of the price of each service. Services should be like supermarkets you can get everything from everywhere. If one upsets you, you just shop elsewhere. With Sky and co. you have no choice but abstinence.
Oh good, now that the Samsung vs Apple patent wars are over (or at least, in a temporary ceasefire) BT and Sky step up to the plate and give us a new legal drama to watch.
I'm not denying both sides have points, Openreach should be split from BT, and Sky should stop taking the piss when it comes to wholesale provision to rivals.
Both sides need to be very careful though, and recognise the threat of the over-the-top providers. Other than live sport, or programmes like GoT (where they are so popular you can't avoid the spoilers) most people I know series record from Sky/YouView and then binge watch Netflix style.
Judging by the painful phone call I went through last month when cancelling my Sky subscription, I think Sky are already cr@pping themselves about the threat from Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thirty minutes of my life that I'll never get back having to repeat the request to cancel over and over and over as the customer service agent kept asking why I wanted to go. Thankfully it worked in the end but they sounded desperate. Freesat here I come.
Had that myself when I left. Had to fight the urge to tell them that if they kept the prices lower ALL the time instead of just when I threaten to leave I might have stayed.
Sky's insistence on all or nothing with sport is what made me leave. I want some football, and the rugby league. I don't want golf (only ever watch the Ryder Cup), Rugby Union, Cricket and especially F1 but have to pay for the lot or none. BT Sport was free until now, and is still only £5 a month and gets me most of what I want.
I have nothing against BT but this is becoming fragmented, I need two subscriptions, it reduces my bargaining power come renewal time, this is not good for the customers.
Virgin, SKY and BT should be made to sell all of their channels at fixed price (including HD) that way all of the providers can create complete competitive packages
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