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Originally Posted by Neil
And what's wrong with that? 
They are just protecting their investment.  |
What's wrong with it is that Sky are using their monopoly in one area -- broadcasting of live sports -- to influence another sector, namely the supply of digital TV to the home.
It's the same as if Microsoft produced an all-singing, all-dancing version of Word for Windows, but charged the same for a Mac version which was just a basic text editor. They would be guilty of anticompetetive behaviour, namely using their dominance in the field of Office applications to try to force people into using Windows.
The solution is to split BSkyB into separate broadcast and delivery companies, and let market forces take their course. Then Sky Broadcast would charge both Sky Digital and NTL per subscriber per channel -- and result in Sky Digital customers paying more (or, alternatively, Sky Broadcast offering the extra streams on NTL so as to increase their revenue).
In fact, it doesn't even have to be done. Just the threat of it would be enough. It's the threat of being split up that keep Microsoft making version of Office for the Mac that are equal (and some might say superior) to the Windows versions.