Update on Football Setanta

[Dark Orb Choir]

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santa says bye

 

[soze]

BBC NEWS | Business | Sky may have to share TV channels

This makes me laugh if i ever start a firm i will make sure im never number one i will just stay small and wait for Offcom to fix all my problems.

 

[Ch3tan]

Yes and no soze, sky have a huge dominance and such financial muscle that they are close to be anti-competitive in this country.

I am all for choice, this will enable you to have a choice in your home. Don't want sky tv phone and net, but still want sky sports? Well hoepfully this will let you get it via freeview, free sat, bt vision etc.

I think that the financial impact on sky from loosing the small percentage of people that would in the past have taken a full sky package as a migration to enable them to get sports and movies, will be nullified by the massive subscription uptake to individual channels offered via their rivals.

It is about time we had decent alternatives to bskyb.

Also remember what happened with sky and virgin a couple of years ago -sky demanded more money for their channels (sky 1, sky sports news) and virgin said no. Sky essentially used their power over the rights to take mainstream shows such as Lost and BSG away from Virgin customers -hell their own advertising after the even said "the only place to see Lost is now on Sky".

I'm not trying to come over as a sky hater, but you guys need to think this over in more depth. We've had throw away comments about setanta dying being good, with no thought of the impact to sports or employees. So think about why this is a good and bad thing maybe?

 

[Ch3tan]

BBC NEWS | Business | ESPN to launch UK sports channel

Sky's residential customers will have to pay a premium of £9 a month for the new channel if they already pay for Sky Sports or £12 a month if they do not.

 

[Talivar]

Hope virgin make a deal aswell

 

[Corran]

Sky to produce the sport for them, bet sky loving that deal as they get money for nothing extra as they have the staff do the games setanta had anyways and sold their commentry to foreign channels as was.

I wont sign up for it, just not enough games to warrent it. Even worse the following season. Would think virgin/bt might get a throw of the dice as well.

As for sky being forced to provide their content on other media, i really cant see how that can be forced upon them at a price they cant decide. Afteral they pay all the money out for the rights, the producing, the staff etc so if others dont want to put in money to get the channels then tough luck. Yes SKY pay alot for the games, but nothing to stop virgin buying all the rights to pull all the sky sports subscribers over to virgin tv instead. Yes they will need to find a way to find the original financing but SKY had to do the same in the initial cases, and how many businesses would an outsider be allowed to come along and say "you have to give all your products to your competitors at a price that we set! We dont care if it ends up costing you more to provide it then you recieve from it, you got to do it anyways"

 

[Ch3tan]

As for sky being forced to provide their content on other media, i really cant see how that can be forced upon them at a price they cant decide. Afteral they pay all the money out for the rights, the producing, the staff etc so if others dont want to put in money to get the channels then tough luck. Yes SKY pay alot for the games, but nothing to stop virgin buying all the rights to pull all the sky sports subscribers over to virgin tv instead. Yes they will need to find a way to find the original financing but SKY had to do the same in the initial cases, and how many businesses would an outsider be allowed to come along and say "you have to give all your products to your competitors at a price that we set! We dont care if it ends up costing you more to provide it then you recieve from it, you got to do it anyways"

That is not what they are saying. Currently sky sell their channels to virgin for a set-price at wholesale, enabling virgin to resell it. What oftel are saying is that sky should not be allowed to refuse sales to other networks /broadcasters as they currently do. Would you subscribe to sky or virgin if you could pay for the channels you want, i.e, sports, and get it on freesat?

As for nothing stopping other broadcasters buying the rights - bskyb are huge, they have more money than any of their rivals, virgin inherited all the ntl debt -they cannot afford to get into the footy market. Sky have a near monopoly, I do not understand why as a consumer people are actually against this? This ruling is fantastic for you and I.

 

[soze]

Just look at what’s it’s done to the development of Internet speeds in the UK when someone steps in and makes the big guy share his toys. That is why Ofcom should fuck off if BT can’t afford Sky’s wholesale price then they should not be allowed to show Sky TV. And why when you want Sky channels you would get the BT box instead of Sky boggles the mind unless you can’t have Sky.

 

[Ch3tan]

Just look at what’s it’s done to the development of Internet speeds in the UK when someone steps in and makes the big guy share his toys. That is why Ofcom should fuck off if BT can’t afford Sky’s wholesale price then they should not be allowed to show Sky TV. And why when you want Sky channels you would get the BT box instead of Sky boggles the mind unless you can’t have Sky.

It's called choice for the consumer -you know that thing that allows you to save money and get the things you want, not having limited choices at high prices? It's not just BT, and from what I understood it's not sky restricting the wholesale price-it's sky refusing to sell to everyone.

Now either you and corran are extremely short-sighted or work for sky, but if you cannot see the gains in this as a consumer then you are a lost cause. If you think monopolies are a good thing then you need your head looked at.

Also please explain the broadband comment -because I think you will find that if BT where left to sell adsl exclusively that it would still be as slow -the nature of broadband means that once you get more users on any one exchange the service becomes worse. The fact you have a choice means you are not limited to what BT decide to offer you -you can go to different isp's for different levels of service / quality, and better or worse customer service.

 

[Corran]

ofcom were stating that they are going to be the ones to set the prices that SKY have to issue their services to other companies for. Sky is a business, they have a right to retain a competitive edge, this is the reason why you have copyrighting etc. To prevent others from just using that which is yours.
If it can be done in regards to this then government organisations will basically be turning the country into a dictatorship when it comes to business practice. No a monopoly isnt generally good, however sky do provide some their premium packages to other companies so it not a strict monopoly. Yes they keep some to theirself for a competitive edge, and yes they do refuse to provide it to other companies however it their perogative to do so.

I dont work for sky, and i am not short sighted. I also know that I stick with sky because I have the full sky package and use it all that it unlikely that another provide with additional overheads could provide it for less.

And though the idea of telling sky that they have to share their productions may well be all well and good, I dont like the fact ofcom feel that they can dictate the prices etc. If they do this then I want them to tell the BBC to stop spending my fecking money stupidly (ie why do we need more BBC staff at the olympics then competitors?). Also the government should be told to stop wasting billions of pounds on the olympics when in a poor financial situation, if they want to help the local business it be cheaper to give them free money or a tax break then hold the olympics (they always use the extra tourism and money into local business as reasoning to hold them)

 

[Jeremiah]

It seems that Virgin have struck a deal with ESPN. All XL customers get ESPN and ESPN HD as part of the package! Woot! I am soo looking forward to the first game of the season - Everton vs Arsenal in HD!

Link

I just thought I'd post in this thread rather than make a new one =)

 

[kiliarien]

ofcom were stating that they are going to be the ones to set the prices that SKY have to issue their services to other companies for. Sky is a business, they have a right to retain a competitive edge, this is the reason why you have copyrighting etc. To prevent others from just using that which is yours.
If it can be done in regards to this then government organisations will basically be turning the country into a dictatorship when it comes to business practice. No a monopoly isnt generally good, however sky do provide some their premium packages to other companies so it not a strict monopoly. Yes they keep some to theirself for a competitive edge, and yes they do refuse to provide it to other companies however it their perogative to do so.

I dont work for sky, and i am not short sighted. I also know that I stick with sky because I have the full sky package and use it all that it unlikely that another provide with additional overheads could provide it for less.

And though the idea of telling sky that they have to share their productions may well be all well and good, I dont like the fact ofcom feel that they can dictate the prices etc. If they do this then I want them to tell the BBC to stop spending my fecking money stupidly (ie why do we need more BBC staff at the olympics then competitors?). Also the government should be told to stop wasting billions of pounds on the olympics when in a poor financial situation, if they want to help the local business it be cheaper to give them free money or a tax break then hold the olympics (they always use the extra tourism and money into local business as reasoning to hold them)

You've gone well beyone the confines of this thread - government spending lots of money on the olympics isn't a point that should be made here. I don't really want the olympics in England - it does show promise as producing some urban regeneration projects during and after the games but that's about it. Oh and btw, the first bid went in sometime during 2003, way before this financial crisis.

More to the point Ofcom is GOOD for the consumer - they aren't dictating prices as such, they are creating a maxim based on which prices are resonable. And witholding your services you produce/support yourself and selling them to other broadcasters at an uncompetitive fee is almost a monopoly tbh. It can't really be an oligopoly - only one broadcsater (SKY) holds most of the rights, that's the point of the system of a govenment regulatory body to avoid abuse of market share. Ofcom move in to stop these issues, you could get the MMC doing so but then it gets nasty.

Also - as a suscriber why should I pay for the fucking adverts?? If you want to cross the arguments on Olympics/BBC we can, but I'm glad I don't see adverts on the BBC channels.

It seems that Virgin have struck a deal with ESPN. All XL customers get ESPN and ESPN HD as part of the package! Woot! I am soo looking forward to the first game of the season - Everton vs Arsenal in HD!

Link

I just thought I'd post in this thread rather than make a new one =)

Wooha, I have XL

 

[soze]

To go real off topic lets start talking about if we should ditch the Olympics and use the money to send helicopter to the troops in Afghanistan.

 

[Ch3tan]

There is lots that could be done with the olympics budget to be honest. What about using it to bail small businesses out when the banks refuse to lend them money? The problem is that we bid for the games in better times.

As for the virgin/espn deal, fantastic, finally a proper HD channel on virgin.

Customers who subscribe to Virgin Media’s XL TV pack will be able to watch ESPN and ESPN HD at no additional cost. As part of the deal, these subscribers will also receive ESPN Classic, featuring the greatest moments of UK and European sport.

Dedicated sports fans who are on Virgin Media’s M or L pack will be able to subscribe to ESPN and ESPN HD for a great value price of £8 a month if they already subscribe to any combination of the Sky Sports channels, or £10 a month if not.

As a special introduction to the new ESPN and ESPN HD channels, Virgin Media will make these ESPN channels available to all of its digital TV customers, for no additional cost, during August.

 

[Calaen]

That's great news.