Sky forced to free Football

Nice to see a regulator getting teeth at last and forcing BSKYB to reduce the price of its Sports packages to rival operators.

The TV industry has been held back by BSKYB's dominance, which is a credit to SKY's fantastic management and skill over the years, but good technologies like ADSL and Cable have been hampered by the competitors inability to provide the quality content needed.

Look what happened to ITV Digital when it had no good content to show- a total loss making failure.

More competition will be good for SKY too and the new ruling allows it acces to Freeview and other platforms. Not often I see a UK Regulator making a sensible decision!

I do though wonder if Ofcom are pushing this now in fear of a change of Government?

If you can't beat them, whinge like Virgin Media

The title effectively sums up the arguments by the cable/adsl media industry against Sky Television and in particular Sky Sports.

I don't have Sky myself, but have done in the past. I find it very expensive and a luxury - but the service is very good. The content is the best of all the possible providers. This is because Sky is the best run business with the most capital available to it.

Contrast Virgin, the old NTL business nearly destroyed by Lord Carter in a former life. This itself was an amalgamation of two failing cable networks (Telewest and Cable & Wireless).

Even with the advantages of cable broadband, these legacy companies just can't cut it. And new entrant BT is just as bad. Expensive and long contracts for poor content; deliver the truly awful firm that is BT - perhaps soon to expire under the weight of pensions obligations in any event.

So what does the competition do; they whinge, they have their insiders like Lord Carter, they go on a regulatory offensive.

Now proposals are out to force Sky to demand less for its expensively assembled content. This in itself is market abuse. it is not Sky's fault the competition has been rubbish for over 15 years.

Sky costs you nothing if you don't have. No taxpayers are harmed in its creation (well, OK, they do pay very little corporate tax).

This new approach just shows the Government does not understand markets still; there are winners and losers in all functioning markets.