Quote:
Originally Posted by gizuk
That is not at all how it works. Companies sign multi-year deals. If the deal is not renewed then the channel(s) will disappear.
The issue here is sky make the channel and sky supply the service. They externally want to charge others MUCH MORE for the channel rather than the internal charging. This is anti-competitive and is EXACTLY what OFCOM ruled on and why they introduced the rate cards.
|
Wrong.
Ofcom forced a rate card on Sky Sports 1 and 2 in 2010. It threatened to do so for movies as well, but backed off in 2012 because of the launch of services like Netflix. There is no compulsory rate card for the Sky Basics channels that I have been able to uncover. Sky and VM thrashed out a mutually acceptable deal for carriage of Flextech and Sky Basics channels in 2010 after the debacle of Sky One etc being pulled from VM for a period of months.
The anti-competitive charges against Sky have been upheld in a very narrow part of its business.
Sky do indeed both 'make' Sky Atlantic and distribute it via their own platform; they are entitled to do so and it is not anti-competitive because there has never been a ruling to say that it is. Virgin Media were free to make a deal with HBO but they didn't. Channel 4, ITV or the BBC could have done so, but didn't.
Sky is under no obligation to water down its investment in its brand. If you want SA, you know where to get it.