Sport Bodies Rally Behind Sky Against Ofcom Move

A number of leading sport governing bodies, including the RFU, the ECB and the Premier League, have come out in support of BSkyB over the move by media regulator Ofcom to force the pay-TV broadcaster to wholesale its sports channels to its competitors at a lower cost.

The sports bodies have reacted strongly in responding to Ofcom’s consultation on its plan to ensure Sky makes its premium sport and movie channels available to rivals including Virgin Media, BT and Top-Up TV at lower prices.

The organisations have claimed that the move to force Sky’s hand will significantly reduce the amount of money they receive from selling media rights.

The Rugby Football Union said that forcing this move on Sky would reduce the value of its exclusive live, terrestrial TV and mobile rights by 60%.

The England and Wales Cricket Board, supported the RFU’s stance claiming that the regulator ‘has predetermined its views on this subject and will seek a remedy that could have a very damaging impact on cricket in this country’.

Furthermore, the Premier League said that the regulator’s consultation is ‘fundamentally flawed’ and claimed that the proposed remedy would reduce the value of rights and lead to less money coming into the game.

The Premier League argued that it would ‘reduce or remove the incentives on others to bid for content rights including live PL rights’.

‘This will devalue PL rights which will harm the PL’s member clubs, football and most importantly consumers. The same is true for other UK sports and this can only lead to less investment in UK sports, to the detriment of consumers,’ the league said.

The Premier League also criticised the companies whose complaint triggered the Ofcom investigation, claiming that they had ‘been unwilling to invest in content themselves and who simply want to free ride on the back of investments in content and development/innovation made by Sky’.

Virgin Media, Top-Up TV, which makes premium channels available to Freeview customers, BT and Setanta complained to Ofcom in 2007 about what they claimed was Sky’s dominance of the UK pay-TV market.

Ofcom is due to make a final ruling early next year after considering the responses to the consultation.
Sky has said it will use all ‘available legal avenues’ to prevent Ofcom from enforcing its decision.