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Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV For the last six years, I have answered many thousands of personal emails that you have sent to UK Free TV.
Sadly, I am unable to offer this personal service at the moment.
Until I can restore this service, please can you leave any questions you have on an appropriate page, where they will be answered as soon as possible, or below, if you can't figure out where to ask.
I look forward to your questions!
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In this section
Saturday, 27 August 2011
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Mike Dimmick3:52 PM
My view is that Sky are exercising significant market power and should be investigated by the Competition Commission.
My preferred solution would be a separation of the platforms business (i.e. encryption, operating transponders on behalf of channels, subscription collection and distribution) from the channels business. At minimum this should be an arm's-length separation similar to that imposed on BT with Openreach, but preferrably BSkyB would be required to sell one or other of these businesses. As it is, Sky can cross-subsidise their channels with revenue obtained from viewers who intended that revenue to go elsewhere, and particularly the massive figures they bid for sports are subsidised from the entertainment pack subscriptions, not covered by the sports pack prices.
Subscription revenue should be divided based on viewing figures, including distributions to the PSBs.
The PSBs removing their channels from the Sky EPG - firstly, they can't. In fact Sky are required to carry PSB channels in the EPG. Secondly, it would be a pyrrhic victory - the households affected, about 30% of all homes in the country, would get angry at the PSBs, not at Sky.
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Ted Handan3:52 PM
the TV in the lounge causes interference on TVs in two other rooms (bedrooms).
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NottsUK7:21 PM
Mike Dimmick: When you say "Subscription revenue should be divided based on viewing figures, including distributions to the PSBs". Does that mean that SKY are getting the BBC for free, when the BBC trust are having to make cuts.
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Les Nicol
9:23 PM
9:23 PM
Notts Uk - The BBC neither Pay for carriage on SKY nor do they get any return from SkY for content carried on that platform. This was made clear by Mark Thompson BBC DG following his past Lecture at the Edinburgh TV event (currently this year being addressed by Eric Schimdt from Google) - I can't remember clearly whether he commented on Channel 4's position but he did make it clear that it was costing ITV to go out on the SKY platform and commented quite forcefully his view that SKY really needed to plough back some of it's vast profit's into UK generated programming content.
I certainly concur with Mike Dimmick's views in his last paragraph, but broadcasting and SKY's position has changed considerably since Satellite Broadcasting's conception here in the UK.
Without the PSB's and ITV going out on that platform it certainly wouldn't be in the position it is today without the effective "shoring up" it had from the afore-mentioned's inclusion and let's be quite frank - yes it was a gamble on Murdoch's part and it did give a massive kick start to Satellite Broadcasting in the UK and further a field, but it has created for itself a ruthless monopoly - not to mention a pricing cartel that makes the vast majority of the British viewing public disadvantaged in Television viewing choice.
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Sunday, 28 August 2011
Les Nicol
8:03 AM
8:03 AM
P>S>> Mark Thompson's more direct comments wcame from his follow up interview after Edinburgh,in his appearance on the Andrew Marr Sunday morning program.
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NottsUK: It is probably worth pointing out that for most non-premium Channels, the cost of "providing the EPG, and the free dish and box offer" is set by Sky to ofset the money that SSSL takes from the viewer.
Basically, the "platform access cost" of £234 a year is 100% per home taken by SSSL as their "basic operating costs" and the next level of access (all the basic channels) of £60 per home per year gets ofset too - the costs of encryption and EPG are charged against the subscriber collection.
A few broadcasters who were on the platform from the beginning, which includes UKTV and Viacom get a few pennies per viewer, everyone else gets their channel carried.
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Les Nicol: I'm not sure if I really buy the "a gamble on Murdoch's part" for several reasons:
1) The gamble was at "small change" levels by comparison. Sky when it was "loosing money hand over fist" was in the terms of about a million-quid-a-week. Sky now takes in about £115 million-quid-a-week.
2) It wasn't just Murdoch's money. When BSB and Sky Ltd merged to form BSkyB, the majority of the money was the BSB shareholders. As I am sure you may recall, BSB held 90% the movie rights, for example. It was BSB that had the sports rights too, and the sports channel. Sky Television used Eurosport before the merger. The idea that it was all "down to Murdoch" is an often-repeated lie.
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Tell you what makes me laugh every time I see it, is the "20 years of Sky Sports" promo with all the logos, because they miss out their original one!
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Rosie3:22 PM
Bury St. Edmunds
Can you please help. Until the end of February we received all the normal tv channels plus the freeview ones. Then nothing, only the analogue ones. On 6th July after retuning yet again, we were able to receive at least 40 channels. Two weeks alter on the 20th July we were able to get at least 65. That however was shortlived and since then we cannot get any freeview channels at all and analogue channels (2) are two week to watch. We cannot get live tv at all and have to watch all programmes the next day via our vision box. Can you help please? Thank you.
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Rosie's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Les Nicol
3:32 PM
3:32 PM
Briantist - Yes I probably should have worded that somewhat differently, as I was highlighting what is often portrayed by the pro-lobby as a defence for the outrageous pricing of their current subscriptions.
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