Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Good. Virgin were too far too late. It was purely done to upset the process.
It hasn't been outright rejected though, Ofcom will look at it at a later date.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Good?? Do you know what the complaint was about? It was an attempt to bring down costs to us, the consumer.

Ofcom said it expects to publish a further document in March into the complaint by Virgin Media that the Premier League's joint selling means domestic consumers pay too much to watch matches on TV. The current three-year deal with Sky and BT Sport is worth just over £3billion to the Premier League clubs.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

I agree sports costs are getting ridiculous and whilst the premier league benefits the consumer loses out with ever increasing costs.

The problem for pay tv platforms now is that they are having to offer substantial discounts to retain customers , BT and Sky generally have more scope with discount being that they own the rights to the sports content. Its been reported many times on here that VM make very little on the Sports channels so when they are forced to offer discounts it doesn't give them as much headroom.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Was it really? More like Virgin aren't happy being priced out of the bidding process. These companies don't care about their customers, they care about their bottom line.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

They have never bid for the rights? The quote above is from Ofcom. The other part of the complaint is that customers are short changed in the UK as they pay a hefty charge for x amount of games whereas in Europe Customers pay less and all the games in their respective premiere leagues are on TV.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

I never said they have. I said they have been priced out. Virgin know they cannot afford to bid, there would be no point going to auction without the same sort of money BT and Sky have.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

See what I mean? Not only has Virgin been priced out of bidding, but just about any other company around the world have been as well. £5bn is just ridiculous.
No company is going to attempt a winning bid against Sky when they know they don't stand a chance at winning. What company could possibly make a profit? I think Sky will struggle themselves to make this purchase viable!

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Then that's sky's business, isn't it. If they want to pay all that money, let them. Virgin could instead spend their money on other content.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Some sheeple will pay whatever Sky asks. They'll complain about it but still pay it. Seems it would be easier for them to wean themselves off morphine than to stop watching 'The Beautiful Game'.

Never mind that they're paying so over the odds that massive Premier League club Burnley burn as much cash as the similarly placed, internationally unknown Dutch club Ajax.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Or as it seems now, spending money extending their network. Their money is much better put to use that will help them turn a profit. If this was always in the pipeline I don't know why they bothered to kick up a stink about football rights.

---------- Post added at 21:11 ---------- Previous post was at 21:09 ----------

Well said.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

It's quite telling, £5Bn for football rights is like £2Bn more than Virgin is investing to expand the network by another 4million customers.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

It's unbelievable isn't it? Sky have been played by the premier league big time. It's not a matter of the Premier league needing Sky anymore it's the other way around, but £5bn? It's just ridiculous. The Premier league will expect the same price next time round as the reserve price for each package will go up too! Sky may be able to find the money by the skin of their teeth this time, but I don't see how they will be able to next time as there won't be the jobs to cut and put online!

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

It is facinating where these companies are spending their cash though. Sky on content, VM on infrastructure and BT on both content and infrastructure.

Re: Ofcom rejects VM Premier League rights complaint.
 

Well, Sky don't have nearly as much infrastructure to actually spend on. Sky don't run any actual infrastructure anywhere near end users' homes.