BSkyB has dominated the UK’s pay-TV industry since its inception more than a decade ago. As Britain’s, and Europe’s, largest pay-TV company it has also been under the near-continuous scrutiny of European regulatory and competition policy authorities since at least 1994. It came as no great surprise, therefore, when the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched its current Competition Act inquiry into the company’s wholesale pricing (and other) practices late last year. The stated purpose of this investigation is to determine whether BSkyB’s position in the pay-TV market is having a damaging effect on competition. The clear focus, however, is on the contracts under which BSkyB resells socalled “premium programming” to its competitors in the UK’s pay-TV retail market. When the authors were asked by one of BSkyB’s competitors to advise on their response to the OFT inquiry, we felt that an economic analysis of BSkyB’s controversial contractual arrangements with its competitors was long overdue. The purpose of this article is to describe the results of that analysis, and our recommended remedies for the competition policy problems diagnosed.

Anticompetitve contracts in the UK pay TV market

OTTAVIANI, MARCO M.
2002

Abstract

BSkyB has dominated the UK’s pay-TV industry since its inception more than a decade ago. As Britain’s, and Europe’s, largest pay-TV company it has also been under the near-continuous scrutiny of European regulatory and competition policy authorities since at least 1994. It came as no great surprise, therefore, when the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched its current Competition Act inquiry into the company’s wholesale pricing (and other) practices late last year. The stated purpose of this investigation is to determine whether BSkyB’s position in the pay-TV market is having a damaging effect on competition. The clear focus, however, is on the contracts under which BSkyB resells socalled “premium programming” to its competitors in the UK’s pay-TV retail market. When the authors were asked by one of BSkyB’s competitors to advise on their response to the OFT inquiry, we felt that an economic analysis of BSkyB’s controversial contractual arrangements with its competitors was long overdue. The purpose of this article is to describe the results of that analysis, and our recommended remedies for the competition policy problems diagnosed.
2002
D., Harbord; Ottaviani, MARCO M.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11565/3735092
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