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.

The EU disagrees with you. As does Ofcom. Both have adopted the position that Sky having the exclusive rights to live Premier League gave it an unfair advantage over its competitors. As I said before, things are starting to change, and the European Commission ruling has probably had a big bearing on that.



As I've pointed out, BT is a small broadcaster. That it has other business interests in other areas does not mean that it can compete with Sky in the business of broadcasting. ITV is much smaller than Sky. Amazon, again is primarily an internet retailer. I'd imagine Lovefilm's turnover is a fraction of Sky's.




Well, for a start, when Sky had all of the rights, they charged for some of the games on PPV (£6 a game?), so it wasn't just a case of 'have Sky, have all the EPL'. Secondly, there is/was nothing to say you had to have Sky [iand[/i Setanta/ESPN/BT, so it didn't increase costs there. Thirdly, BT are offering the games for free to their broadband customers and at a lower cost than Sky on their own platform. So the ruling did absolutely nothing of the sort. It has brought some much needed choice to a market that previously had none without increasing costs one jot.

As I said earlier in the thread. This could be somewhat mute anyway as the rumour is that SKY is considering a reduction of the combined movie and sports package.

I blame sky for all the keyboard warriors and those #intheknow

also blame Sky for made up phrases like the "collision" and the "wrestle", it just makes people look sad when they use such terms.

That is specific to premier league football. That doesn’t address a pay TV monopoly or any of the other things you accused sky of.
BT is a small broadcaster because they choose to be. Sky was at one stage a much smaller broadcaster. They only reason for the difference in size between BT and Sky as broadcasters is because Sky invested massively in their product. BT didn’t. There is no reason BT couldn’t be a broadcaster as big if not larger than Sky, they aren’t because they didn’t take the risk, they didn’t take the losses, they didn’t invest in their product and as such they don’t take the profits or the market share. The argument is the same for lovefilm. The reason lovefilm is a smaller broadcaster than Sky isn’t because Amazon can’t compete with Sky for content or in the market place. Its because they choose not to make the investment and take the risk Sky chose to.

Of course it has. You are right, you aren’t forced to buy both Sky and BT. But also you weren’t forced to buy Sky to begin with. If you do want to watch all PL football you now do have to buy both. Also its pretty disingenuous to present moving from an offering where you could purchase only the matches you wanted from a larger selection (prem plus had 50 games to choose from) to one where you have to purchase a years subscription from a different broadcaster with fewer games (Bt have only 38 games) as an increase in choice.

with regards to ppv football both sky and NTL bought right to broadcast a package that the premier league had allocated as ppv only so it wasn't just done to sky that prem plus games where ppv.

BT sports hasn't really brought any choice to the tv market
but it has made a difference to the broadband market