The fallacy of competition. UK sports consumers to suffer.

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ockel

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#36339 23-Jun-2009 11:13

Its times like these that I'm glad the Digital Broadcasting Review was put on hold rather than let the loony left force regulatory change for "consumer benefit".

With the EU directive to force the English Premier League to split its broadcasting packages UK consumers effectively had to buy from multiple sources at higher total cost to watch all their EPL matches.

Now with Setanta failing to make its rights payment for the EPL 09/10 season it looks like the company is going to fail. And now consumers will have to suffer the uncertainty of where, when and how [much] it will cost to see all their games live.

Just imagine if Sky was only allowed to buy some of the rugby games for NZ and the other player went bust. That second STB you wouldve had to buy would be a great door stop.

Some markets can only sustain a certain number of scale players to justify a business case, why do regulators not understand this basic economic prinicple?

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

compost

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#227819 23-Jun-2009 22:47

Better would be to eliminate exclusivity by ensuring that all matches are broadcast by at least two networks.

In terms of business case, a large amount of your monthly subscription goes straight into Wayne Rooney's pockets. Does he really need an income of $250k a week? Struggling sports fans the world over would be a lot better off if elite sportspeople could find a way to make do with five digit weekly incomes.

NZ seems to have a large contingent of tediously simple-minded free market puritans who believe that Sky can do no wrong while TVNZ is the Great Satan, just because of their different ownership arrangements.

A time-poor geek is hardly a geek at all

ockel

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#227843 24-Jun-2009 07:24

Eliminating exclusivity is a certain way to reduce player salaries. And drive talent to other regions/codes.

Lets get the movies stars to take a philanthropic haircut to reduce the price of watching movies, maybe politicans can work for free as they represent the people and dont get me started on the overpaid paper-pushing idiots that perpetuate the financial industry. There are worse travesties than overpaying sports stars as "entertainers". But fair opinion.

As for Sky doing no wrong - it is a lazily run Newscorp puppet that could be more proactive and more innovative. FTA television is not evil. It is however another self-interested party looking to change the rules to improve its economic position. No different than Sky, Telecom, Vodafone, Orcon, Telstraclear or any other debated organisation on this forum.

I think what you've failed to grasp is that the UK is insufficient in size to justify 3 paytv operators (BSkyB, Virgin Media and Setanta). Australia is profitable with only 1 (essentially 1 given the geographic carveup by Foxtel and Austar) and was woeful with 2 operators in the late 1990's early 2000's. And yet we were pursuing a path that implied content splitting which could only justify the economics with another pay style model which NZ cannot support.

I still pity the UK soccer consumer who will now wait to see what ESPN will offer and how they can watch their old Setanta matches.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

allstarnz

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#228701 26-Jun-2009 23:29

the problem is also that there can be no competion in NZ really from an external provider.

Setanta is now no longer allowed to take subscribers from NZ as there are a few events that Sky hold rights to (British rugby mostly) and TVNZ hold (FA Cup), that now mean Setanta will not take on NZ subscribers. This then means the other sports - GAA, Football/Soccer (German, Dutch, Russian, U21 etc) can now not be viewed in NZ.

That is what annoys me.

ockel

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#229243 29-Jun-2009 16:47

You cant subscribe to setanta-i? I imagine given there are no geographic rights to infringe for those sports then subscribing online shouldnt be an issue?

Rugby, EPL, FA Cup might get tricky but it would be hard to argue that you'd choose to watch these via a PC given the substitute of watching them via Sky/TVNZ on a large screen. I will note that I've had heated discussions with someone who would rather watch via PPV on his mobile than pay for Sky Sports. Until he tried to watch a whole game......

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

allstarnz

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#229258 29-Jun-2009 17:21

though I am quite techy, i hate watching stuff over the internet unless i have no other choice. Low quality, constant buffering and it eats into my broadband cap. I'd rather watch it on a TV, nice quality, nearly no drop outs, and always decent quality.

maybe i'll make enquiries about Setanta-i anyhow.