Life’s not always a Picnic for satellite broadcaster BSkyB (NYSE: BSY). The company, which is 39.1 percent owned by News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), may be the UK’s largest pay-TV provider, but it is also under almost constant scrutiny by regulators as a result. Yesterday, Ofcom opened its latest consultation on BSkyB, this time on the broadcaster’s proposals to offer pay-TV channels over Freeview digital terrestrial as part of its proposed Picnic TV-and-broadband bundle (see release). The consultation is the second regulatory story for BSkyB this week – on Tuesday, the Competition Commission decided the company’s 17.9 percent stake in commercial broadcaster ITV (LSE: ITV) was indeed anti-competitive and that it would now make recommendations to the government over how to deal with the matter, leading to a possible forced sell-off.
Although The Guardian calls the consultation a “rebuff” for BSkyB, this most recent Ofcom probe is neither an endorsement nor a condemnation of the intended pay-TV service. On the one hand, even at this early stage the regulator is raising the issue of whether allowing pay-TV over Freeview will result in it dominating there as it already does in satellite TV. However, it’s also worth noting that Ofcom has pointed out the obvious benefits of Sky offering pay-TV services, too, as it would increase choice over the platform. There are already other providers delivering pay-for TV over Freeview – the sports broadcaster Setanta and Top Up TV – and any ruling against Sky being able to use the platform in such a way could also impact their businesses. In online terms, if Ofcom blocks Sky’s Picnic proposal, the company will have to ask itself whether to go ahead with the broadband offering under that name.
Earlier this year, DTT surpassed satellite as the most-used digital TV platform in the UK. Given a third investigation of BSkyB is also pending (Ofcom’s review of the whole of the UK’s pay-TV sector was prompted by the BSkyB-Virgin spat), it could be a case of three strikes for the broadcaster.
Comments have been disabled for this post