Ofcom opens consultation on Sky’s pay-DTT proposal

Ofcom has published a public consultation on a proposal from British Sky Broadcasting Ltd (Sky) and National Grid Wireless Ltd (NGW) to replace Sky’s free-to-air channels with pay TV services on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform.
Sky currently provides Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three on the DTT platform on a free-to-air basis. Under the proposal, these channels would be replaced with Sky Sports 1 and, in the evening, Sky One (including an hour of Sky News content) and Sky Movies SD1. Sky would use the remainder of its capacity to retail two further channels from third party providers in the daytime: a factual channel and a children’s channel.
The BSkyB proposal for pay-DTT services provides viewers with an increase of choice and availability of pay television services, but it may have an adverse impact on competition since BSkyB could emerge as the main supplier of pay television services on the DTT and satellite platforms.Ofcom seeks views on whether it should allow BSkyB and NGW to make these proposed changes, and if so, under what conditions.The consultation closes on the 14th December 2007.
Source: Ofcom website
Item added: 9th October 2007