Being tied to Sky is actually a bad thing really it destroys viewers choice..........once they have shelled out £200 on a box, even if they recieve crap service they will be less inclined to switch providers due to them ending up with a £200 door stop, they are more likely to sufffer which is exactly what Sky want, people to be tied into a 'contract' until the £200 box dies or devalues sufficiently for it not to matter which is £800 of subs income for Sky if you say a box life on average in 2 years with a subscriber on Sky World (In reality to most people a £200 box should last longer than that, so thats even more than £800 income for Sky)
Cable also now has an Interactive system that works.......certainally on Bromley it works a treat, and im sure this time next year it will be working well on Langley, in fact it already is in a lot of cases.
Also with the Cable Phone Service the basic line rental is now cheaper at £9.50 this allows the use of the best value services like
http://www.call18866.co.uk which are now becoming available on Cable due to BT putting all their customers on to option 1.........even if they dont want to use it...meaning CPS and Indirect services look less attractive.......anti competative move by BT not sure how they get away with it. Now would be a good time for ntl to allow more Indirect Providers to use their network.
http://www.mgsuk.co.uk/tvshow.AVI
Im not so sure about the Murdoch ideas either, ive never met him so cant judge him as a person but what he has done is generally bad, Now the gutter press like the Sun can build people up and knock people down, they can also change Public Opinion if someone in government upsets them.....of course some of that is down to the Sheep like behaviour of the majority of the British Public but should the press have the power to make and break careers, win elections and even bring people to their deaths prematurely (in the case of photographic harrasment like Princess Diana)
Also not convinced about providing the channel selection to the British Public, Sky actually do virtually nothing except design software for set top boxes, they use third party uplinks, third party Satellites, the majority of Channels on Satellite are from a third party, UKTV, Flextech, Discovery, BBC, CH4 etc.
Most of the channels on Satellite that are free and not available on Cable are there because Sky dont own the Satellites, The Satellite companies (Eutelsat and SES Astra) are free to rent out space to whoever they wish...........if you were to have a Free DSAT reciever (not even sure if such a thing exists in the UK due to Skys monopoly, I know analogue did) You would still recieve these free extra channels and Free Interactive Services.
I suppose Sky have made sure that live football is only available to those who wish or are able to pay ridiculous amounts for it, they can also pay big bucks for the latest films, and imported series from America as well as producing Ibiza/Greece/Blah Uncovered Brit Drunks abroad programs, and awful low budget drama/soaps like Mile High and Dream Team.