Originally Posted by THOMO:
“In the daily telegraph reported yesterday is that BT Sport could lose Sky Sports as Ofcom scraps rules. You can see the link to the article in the thread Sky and Satellite Weekly News Thread Week 47 in post number 5 in the Sky Forum area on Digital Spy.
Ian.”
Ofcom have, however, heavily hinted that should Sky withdraw Sky Sports 1 and 2 from BT's platform then they will look into reinstating a similar rule.
I can see both sides of this argument. BT aren't giving Sky what they are requesting from them currently. Sky are not able to retail BT Sport channels (BT Sport is on the satellite platform, obviously, but that's completely different), whilst BT have it legislated that they are able to retail Sky Sports 1 and 2. Should BT allow wholesale access to their channels to Sky, then I'm sure Sky would reciprocate with a commercially-viable deal (as they have done with many other platforms). Of course, BT are currently in a strong position as the sole distributors of their content. They have to weigh up as to whether it is better for them as a company to receive the Sky Sports channels to sell on the BT TV platform or to retain control of BT Sport across all platforms.
At the same time, at the time of the first WMO appeal it is easily argued that Sky were in an extremely dominant position both in terms of content and platform and were arguably abusing their platform dominance when it came to selling on content. Indeed, Sky weren't interested in doing a deal with BT re Sky Sports distribution/wholesaling until BT had the content with which to reciprocate.
Indeed, it is my understanding that BT realised that their TV offering had previously been wholly reliant on commercial relationships with companies in competition with Sky who were unstable (i.e. Setanta) and a regulatory position with regards retailing Sky Sports 1 and 2. Thus they came to the conclusion that they needed to own content themselves in order to 'play the game' more successfully. They certainly have a stronger hand as a result.
Question is, if it comes to it, is it worth BT giving up their position as sole retailer of the BT Sport channels if that is the only way in which they can retain Sky Sports 1 and 2 on their platform. IMHO, no.