Quote:
Originally Posted by JustaBloke
Hands up. You're quite right, it's not a true analogy. However Weetabix (for example) will often provide a 50% extra free pack exclusively to ASDA or one of the others. ASDA (or McDonalds, or anyone) will also seek to sign exclusive deals with suppliers such as farmers wherever they can so as to exclude their competitors. It's the way of the world.
I sound like I'm a Sky fan. I'm not, I just have no reason to hate them. I want SA on VM as much as anyone. But I can understand why it's not, and it's nothing to do with nastiness and everything to do with sound business practice.
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OK, it's pushing the supermarket analogy at bit further, but in the examples you quote, customers still have a free choice where they buy the product itself. If say Tesco not only obtained the exclusive rights to sell Weetabix but then said, by the way if you want buy it you also have to get your entire year's (or week's) shopping here too, there would quite rightly be an outcry.
The problem is not Sky per se, who just do what they can get away with, it's exclusivity coupled with the enforced bundling of channels, which take away the ability of customers to pick and mix what they want to see.