Sunday, February 15, 2009

Sky to remain the dominant pay TV player in UK for the foreseeable future?


BskyB have recently unveiled remarkably good figures ahead of the UK going into a full blown recession, arguments that economically challenging times encourage households to concentrate on domestic living (watching TV and enjoying M&S meals at home) may give the company further comfort but in the longer term is there going to be a more competitive for home entertainment?

Sky has recently signed a £1.7bn new deal for UK Soccer and remains strong across the sporting spectrum but competitors are unhappy with the media giant's dominance in Sport and Film rights and OFCOM has already warned over its' "Market Power".

While Sky can be applauded for their efforts to create a UK HD TV market and their interest in a 3D service should earn them further brownie points a 2 way high speed connection to the home will offer yet to be fully envisaged wealth of virtual excitement.

If and when home connection speeds are sufficient to deliver full motion live HD content over cable perhaps BT or Virgin Media (or perhaps it'll be google?) will be able to gather sufficient content to provide a viable alternative then the limits of satellite delivery may become rapidly apparent.

At this time homes will be able to browse across all forms of media and download music, books and movies as well as watch live sport in breathtaking detail. To hasten this new dawn UK competition authorities need to widen the market for media content and ensure that a realistic wholesale market exists.

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