Quote:
Originally Posted by ahardie
You can see from the quote in my post above that Sky have no intention of doing so.
No it wont. A monopoly will lead to an increase in prices. Whilst Sky has some exclusive content it gives them much less incentive to compete on prices. Which is probably one reason why they do it.
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The quote you posted specifically referred to Sky Atlantic HD and not the SD version. There is no evidence from that quote that Sky want to withhold the content.
Sky isn't a monopoly though. And pay tv prices are very reasonable in the UK. Comparing it to other activities, it is cheap.
Taking the example of Sky Atlantic, it is free to Sky customers. It costs them nothing. Under regulation, if this was made available to all platforms at the same price then either Sky's sub would go up or profits go down. Either way Sky is worse off for paying for HBO content and putting it on to a channel.
Like I said Sky isn't a monopoly. Regulating a company that isn't a monopoly is like punishing it for being too successful. And regulation in non monopoly situations will inevitably be to weaken that company's position which will one way or another lead to higher prices.