Originally Posted by Radiomike:
“So if BT lose their complaint to OFCOM about being able to wholesale Sky Sports from Sky without reciprocation are you saying they won't then look to do a reciprocal deal with Sky and will simply drop providing Sky Sports from their plans for their You View service.
I think BT are using that complaint to try to maintain or gain an advantage (where they can retail Sky Sports but Sky can't retail BT Sport) but if they lose will negotiate with Sky for each to wholesale to the other. I could be wrong - but so could you. Clearly BT want Sky Sports as part of their You View offering - after all their whole argument is that it is sports that drive payTV subscriptions.”
First, bear in mind that Sky is currently obligated to wholesale SS1 and SS2 to BT Vision under the OFCOM Pay TV ruling. The CAT has overturned this but it remains in force for now whilst BT goes to the Court of Appeal.
The answer to your question is that I don't know. I would personally be very surprised if BT did wholesale BT Sports to Sky - though if they did I'm sure it would be standalone premium like ESPN was.
The reason I say I would be surprised is that very few BT YouView customers would take SS - so it isn't that important. Whereas I would have thought it was important to BT to retail BTS themselves on the Sky platform.
But I'm happy to accept that anything could happen because there are so many variables and of course circumstances and strategies can change over time.
As for your last point I would say that sports drive
some Pay TV subscriptions:
- They're hardly driving TalkTalk TV subscriptions - 2% take SS
- They're hardly driving BT Vision subscriptions - 4% take SS
- They're not even driving VM subscriptions to that great an extent - under 20% take SS