Monday, April 05, 2010

that Ofcom ruling



The ruling by OFCOM that BSkyB should drop the price which it offers Sky Sports 1 & 2 to Virgin and BT might seem like unnecessary market intervention for the simple reason that it is.


Despite what some people might think Sports TV channels are not a necessity and in a capitalist market (ish) if Sky choose to charge too much for the channels they will lose customers, they will then have an opportunity to re visit their charging structure if ultimately they are unable to create a profitable proposition they will go out of business (like ITV digital did a few years back and more recently the way Setanta did) and another operator will then be able to put together a bouquet of channels buy some rights that they hope will meet/desires/needs of viewers.




This sort of intervention by OFCOM (an unelected regulator/quango) is a reason that politicians (and not just those of the right) are calling for OFCOM to be trimmed back, one can not help but be cynical of the objectives of government in that it fulfils an agenda relative to News International/Sky.
Be interesting to see how the issue is tackled post election.

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