Ofcom launches Pay TV consultation

The Ofcom press release is here.   Some of the nuggets:

‘Ofcom is consulting on its view that BSkyB has market power in the wholesale supply of this content, and that BSkyB has an incentive to limit the distribution of this content to competitors, in a manner that favours its own satellite platform.’

and…

‘Ofcom is also consulting on a proposal to require Sky to make this content more widely available on a wholesale basis to other retailers.’

‘This proposal should enable consumers to access this content regardless of their choice of Pay TV platform, and provide consumers with an increased choice of service bundles’

My take: This should be interesting.  Ofcom lately has taken a big turn towards a deeply interventionist stance in television.  Already, of course, the UK television market is badly distorted by public ownership, huge amounts of public subsidy, numerous advertising restrictions and ownership limitations.  At this point, it’s really hard to detect a market that remains.

I also noticed a big disconnect with Ofcom’s approach:  Sports and movies get top billing in the Pay TV review from Ofcom, but they don’t really seem to matter in the PSB review.  So if this type of content is important enough to merit a large intervention to ensure that it is distributed amongst more retailers, why is it not important enough to be considered PSB?  Ofcom seems to want to have it both ways.

Seems odd…

I haven’t read the underlying documents yet, but what I will be interested in seeing is the evaluation framework Ofcom is developing to measure the success or failure of this proposed intervention.  In both the junk food advertising restrictions and the BT Undertakings it was some months after the interventions that the regulator created an evaluation framework.  In the HFSS / BT matters the evaluation frameworks placed more emphasis on easily-measured industry data.  The question of whether those interventions had the desired impact on society was vaguely addressed, but not as important.

With respect to the junk food television advertising restrictions Ofcom’s Impact Assessment claimed that measurable public health benefits would flow from its decision, but it is my understanding that the regulator’s evaluation framework does not really attempt to follow up on that claim.  The same approach should not be repeated here.

So, in this case, I am hoping Ofcom can clearly specify the goals it has for the marketplace and for viewers.  Ofcom should also specify what measurable outcomes it expects to develop that will determine success or failure.  Those should be consulted on, contained in the impact assessment, and eventually form part of an evaluation framework.