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Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
Who paid for Sky's platform, which has a requirement to have competitors on its' EPG at a regulated rate, and is forced to wholesale a selection of its' content at regulated rates?
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It's a bit a thin as a counter argument. Your not talking apples and apples.
Your talking the broadcast arena here, as far as I'm aware BT do not "have" to open up their network for purely Broadcast purposes.
Sky has to wholesale some of its content, namely the football, because it has monopololised it. Same way BT has to open up its Access Network because it has a monopoly on it. Anyway Sky do alright out of that arrangement, remember the spat they had with VM ver Sky 1 etc. Thousands of subcribers failed to flood back to Sky when they took it off VM.
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Virgin are purely protected because they aren't selling that well in their covered areas. If they covered any more of the UK than they do or were selling better in their covered areas they would be subject to closer scrutiny. As it is thanks to Sky and Freeview they don't have 50% of the TV market in their areas and don't have 50% of the telco or broadband market so don't have Significant Market Power in any market
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That's *******s. Virgin are not protected by anything. The only thing that "protects" Virgin as you put it, is the fact virgin are not a monopoloy and there is healthy competetion in this sector, but that goes the same for everyone (except BT of course). Virgin are not getting special treatment from anyone.
If Virgin was to outbid sky (not going to happen) for all the premier league rights, I can guarantee you that virgin would be constrained by the same rules currently in place for sky.
I don't understand why you think Virgin should thank sky??? It's just about competition that's all, and nothing more, nothing less.
The whole public/ private thing, as you say, isn't the reason - it's just competition.