Ofcom consultation on BSkyB terrestrial pay-TV
Ofcom consultation (55 pages, PDF) on BSkyB's proposal to operate a pay-TV system using digital terrestrial broadcasting.
Ofcom's choice of options for consultation suggests that its preferred approach would be to consent to Sky's proposal subject to conditions to address competition issues. Mooted conditions include:
- Requiring Sky to provide the channels broadcast on its terrestrial pay-TV service to other platforms (apparently meaning other terrestrial pay-TV retailers) at regulated retail-minus prices.
- Requiring Sky to follow specific technical standards (encoding, encryption) to promote set-top box inter-operability and permit distribution of channels by multiple terrestrial pay-TV retailers without wasting terrestrial spectrum.
- Preventing Sky from operating its own retail operations for terrestrial pay-TV packages, or for packages that include specified channels (presumably Sky Sports 1).
Responses by Friday 14 December 2007.
For further information or advice please contact Franck Latrémolière.
