[Chad]

In an ideal world that would be a great solution.

Every TV platform has access to the same rights for the same price. So for example HBO sell their rights to Virgin, SKY and BT resulting in each provider launching their own channel to carry the content i.e. Virgin Atlantic, SKY Atlantic and BT Atlantic. All sports rights sold at the same price to all providers so you'd have SKY Sports, Virgin Sports and BT Sports.

As each would have access to the same standard channels, such as the Discovery Channel and ITV, and the same content you should start to see some fantastic innovation from each provider trying to make their service more attractive than the others.

Sadly I can't see it every happening, but in theory it would be great for customers.

Surely it would be more beneficial for content providers to sign non-exclusive deals? SKY are paying HBO £30,000,000 per year for the next 5 years for exclusivity. Surely it would have been better for HBO to sell it's content for say £7,000,000 per year to Talk Talk, BT, SKY, Virgin and Smallworld. This would mean their shows would be seen by millions here in the UK rather than the figures they achieve on SKY Atlantic. It would help boost HBO DVD and Blu-ray sales here in the UK. It's a win for HBO and fans of TV in general. They could even sell the content on to terrestrial TV 12 months after shows have had their UK premier on pay TV netting HBO even more money.