Quote:
Originally Posted by andy_m
It's free to view, but not free to air.
I'd obviously welcome this, and it's nice to see Sky Sports fighting on two fronts, but realistically I see Sky breaking the bank to maintain its position and the viewer picking up the tab.
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1) I wouldn't call Eurosport free to view as you can only view it by paying, be it online for £4pm or as part of another package on Virgin and Sky. I think examples of FTV are only on Sky and would be the channels you can view with a viewing card with no subscription but are not on Freesat. One example being Horse & Country.
2) Sky is a profit-maximising company. Does anyone think that if Sky could charge more for Sky Sports and keep enough customers to increase their profits they wouldn't have done so by now? Rights costs have shot up over the last couple of years but Sky has taken a hit on these and its profits have been squeezed. Sky is not like a builder which adds a margin to its costs, it has sophisticated models to work out the best prices to charge. In terms of sports rights, these are pretty much a fixed cost whether it's selling to one million or seven million subscribers.