No Picnic ?

From this morning's press and broadcast coverage, Ofcom need someone to help them explain things more clearly. The general tone has been incredulous - if Sky, for example, had gone into solely into arts, and bought the live tv rights to every opera in this country, why shouldn't they charge what they like to viewers ?

Ofcom's argument, I think, is that, if all live opera relays were only available on Sky, then everyone who liked opera would have to buy a Sky dish. That, in the case of more popular entertainment like live sport or first run films, would essentially drive a monopoly of transmission. Currently Sky can "bless" rival operators with deals to re-transmit Sky's premium channels. But the Murdoch organisation has a record of spats with other providers, such as the 2007/8 row with Virgin. And it can't see why anyone should undercut their direct subscription costs.

Ofcom's basic first intervention was to rule that Sky should be made to offer wholesale rights on live sport and first-run films to any re-broadcaster prepared to pay the price. Over the three years of the review, clearly Sky's attitude has led Ofcom to believe that, unless the regulator went further, Sky would offer wholesale rights at such a price that no-one would buy.

Less reported in the current ruling is conditional approval from Ofcom for Sky and Arquiva to run a premium mini-bundle of channels on Freeview. This is logical - Ofcom is trying to stop any one company from establishing a monopoly on tv transmission in this country, and thus, where possible, all content should be available through as many paths as possible. A wider market has to be to the benefit of everybody - and Sky, who clearly want access to make money via Freeview, can't have things both ways.