Britain’s dominant pay-TV group BSkyB must make its premium sports channels available to rivals at a more than 20 percent reduction after a regulatory ruling marking one of the greatest shake-ups of the sector.
The British Office of Communications (OFCOM) said it aimed to give greater choice and lower prices to customers, following a three-year review prompted by complaints from rivals Virgin Media, BT, Top Up TV and the now-closed Setanta, that BSkyB sought to suppress competition.
BSkyB, which has Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp as its largest shareholder and James Murdoch as its chairman, said it would appeal “the unprecedented and unwarranted intervention,” but it is not clear whether that would prevent the changes from being introduced while the legal case is heard.
BSkyB will have to cut the wholesale rates for its individual Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels by 23.4 percent, but by just 10.5 percent for a bundle of Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels, which was better than expected.
Numis analyst Paul Richards said he estimated that BSkyB had £150 million (US$226.1 million) of premium subscription income, with perhaps £100 million coming from sports.
Assuming an even mix of single channels and bundles sold, this would imply a 17 percent hit on these revenues, assuming there is no increase in subscriber numbers, he said. Numis said this would equate to less than 2 percent of its June 2011 pretax profit forecasts.
OFCOM also said Sky could also launch a paid-for TV service on the digital terrestrial TV (DTT) platform.
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