no worries pal

Eh? Going nowhere is not the same as going elsewhere. You do know that, right?

The problem with allowing Sky to swallow its only real rival in satellite broadcasting is that they now have the monopoly on just about everything (sports, movies, US TV series) because of their size. Whilst the BBC might love to have the rights to live Premier League games, there's no way they'd be allowed to spunk that much of their budget on one item. Other companies just haven't got the financial clout to compete with Sky mainly because their main competitor at the time was assimilated into the Sky machine, and they're too big for anyone else to outbid. The one glimmer of hope is that BT have started to offer some Premier League games for free, but I suspect that this will be a token gesture as they're unlikely ever to be a big enough broadcaster to start outbidding Sky for other sports.

Monopolies only ever benefit one group of people, and it's not the consumer. Would you be so blase about the whole thing if there was only one mobile phone provider in the country?

There isn’t a monopoly in any way shape or form you have other options, you have Virgin media, BT, TalkTalk, youview, freeview, Top up TV. There are high barriers to market, but those barriers were likely higher back when BSKYB first started and they were pumping in £10m a week just to keep going.

If anybody else wanted to put together a viable pay TV package they are free to do so, other companies have done. The fact is it would be very difficult for them to do so, and very expensive, and very risky. But when BskyB created the Pay-tv market in this country it was even riskier, and the costs where still huge and the barriers to market still massive.

I'm glad you said that, as I was confused by that post about America. I always thought that it was set up that you could only watch non-local games live. For a usually purely capitalistic country a always found that idea quite a refreshing one as it encouraged people to support their local club in person. Given our game attendance vs TV attendances it wouldn't be the craziest of ideas to explore here.

Has it changed now?

You don't have other options to watch live sports or the latest movies unless you wish to take Sky's channels. That you purchase Sky Sports from Virgin or Top Up TV makes little difference, Sky are still getting (the vast majority of) the money, and the consumer still has no choice (unless you call sports/no sports a choice).



BSKYB didn't 'create the pay TV market in this country'. There was BSB and Sky. Sky then swallowed BSB. This, in my view, shouldn't have been allowed to happen because it eliminated any competition Sky might have had and created a monopoly in the pay TV market. This monopoly benefits only Sky.

For movies you have lovefilm, Netflix, blinkbox, virgin media have an on-demand service. For live sport you have eurosport, premier sports, BT Sports, previously ESPN and Setanta. Both BBC and ITV show live sport. You have other options on which to watch live sport. They just aren’t anywhere near as good. And that isn’t down to Sky’s size. BT Is a far bigger company, ESPN is owned by the Disney corporation which dwarfs Sky

Separately both would have gone bust. It was either merge or both die.

I did say 'latest movies'. The fact that Sky are so big means they will nearly always get the rights to whatever they're bidding for (ESPN might be a different kettle of fish, but I suppose their business model is largely focussed on the US). The likes of BBC, ITV, Eurosport, Setanta and Premier simply couldn't compete with Sky's purchasing power. And whilst BT might be a 'bigger company' (not sure about that, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument), the vast majority of their turnover is in telecommunications. As a broadcaster they're tiny compared to Sky.



Not necessarily. Both had invested a huge amount in the venture, true, but it's impossible to say definitively that both would have died without the merger. In fact, it's far more likely that one would have died at the other's expense. According to Wiki, BSB were ahead of Sky in terms of advertising revenues and whatnot at the time of the merger, so there's every chance they'd have made it.

I think that more choice [iis[/i starting to appear now (for example, I have cancelled my Sky subscription in favour of Netflix) and I hope that that will continue as more stuff is streamed rather than broadcast via Sky's platform.

Now TV, owned by sky, is currently showing films up to a year before they appear on Netflix or Lovefilm.

And yes, Sky’s offering is better. But that doesn’t mean they have a monopoly. All sky have a monopoly on is Sky’s content. If you want to watch Sky’s content then yes, they have a monopoly on it, like every other company in the world. There are other providers of live sport, other providers of new movies. Skys offering is just better.
.BSB had massive loans and estate costs which were a millstone. It is likely both would have died.

And there has always been competition to Sky, it just isn’t very good. The only reason people argue Sky have a monopoly is because Sky are the only, out of many broadcast companies, that offer what they actually want.

That was kinda my point. If you want to watch the latest movies (I'm not that bothered personally), then you have to have Sky (or Now TV, owned by Sky).

And I know it's only Wiki, butBSB's shareholders and News International (Murdoch) all made huge profits on their investments, the 50effective multi channel quasi monopoly on UK satellite pay TV.'"

So does Blinkbox owned by that bastion of independant business Tesco.

And its pretty silly for lovefilm to try and hide behind big bad sky hovering up all the content considering they are owned by a tax-avoiding internet behemoth which a turnover multiple times that of Sky.

They have an effective monopoly on pay TV broadcasting in this country. And as I've pointed out before, the other providers of movies don't have the financial clout to outbid Sky for the latest movies, the other broadcasters of live sports don't have the financial clout to outbid Sky for the rights to certain sports. Of course their content is going to be 'better' if no one else is able to compete for rights to the best movies/sports events.




It's possible, I suppose, but that doesn't necessarily mean that pay TV would have been dead.



There hasn't always been competition to Sky at all. Not in any meaningful sense, anyway. Up until the EU stepped in a few years ago and ruled that Sky having the sole rights to all live Premier League games was contrary to competition laws, they had a more or less total monopoly. It's only since then that there's been any choice whatsoever.

There are 6 platforms of pay-tv in this country. That clearly isn’t a monopoly. The fact only one offers what you want, doesn’t make it a monopoly. There are many more providers of paid for content in this county.

The other broadcasters, bar the BBC, are all more than capable of outbidding Sky. Lovefilm is owned by amazon, a far bigger company than Sky. BT Vision is owned by BT, again a far bigger business than Sky.
Companies can compete with Sky, they choose not to.


And that resulted in what? Instead of customers taking out Sky and getting all the EPL, they had to take out Sky + then pay for setanta, then ESPN, now BT. That competition ruling did nothing but increase costs for consumers.