Quote:
Originally Posted by montehampster
Interesting piece of hypocrisy in the Guardian article from Neil: -
"So why not a free market for a content supplier who has the incentive to invest? BT and Sky have invested heavily in content so they should also not be free to charge what they wish and we as customers of whichever platform have to decide whether we are prepared to pay that price?
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There is.
However unrestricted competition for content rights is not necessarily best for the end consumer - it possibly just leads to greater profits for the rights owners (e.g. US TV studios, UK Premier League) and higher subscriptions for customers, and/or 'binary choices' between platforms to get all the content you want.
You don't want to end up having to have Sky, Youview and Tivo boxes all connected to your TV, not to mention the overlapping subscriptions that go with them, to get 'everything'.
It seems sensible from everybody's point of view for there to be arrangements whereby at least the most attractive content is wholesaled between suppliers at a reasonable cost. The 'content investors' reap the benefits of income from their indirect as well as direct customers, and the profile of the content itself is enhanced by its wider coverage.