![]() Poor Sky is in an invidious position, in that it has been able to boss around other pay TV players in the UK in the past, using Movies as one of its key plays, but suddenly it is faced with a complete shift to OTT viewing, as the same time as the regulator has finally got around to fixing the movie situation with respect to other pay TV players. ![]() ![]() Sky has gone on record this week saying that the Competition Commission has failed to consider the impact of competition from LoveFiLM and Netflix arguing that although these companies have traditionally not touched movies in the first subscription pay TV window in the UK until now, they have both done so in other countries and are bound to try it shortly. When you add that to these movie exclusives it’s a compelling reason to buy the service and the reason Sky has around 40% of UK homes as customers, in a market where only 55% take pay TV. Sky, like Comcast in the US, and both Vivendi and Orange in France and other pay TV operators elsewhere, has constantly added to its own content offering, as well as fighting tooth and claw to land key sports rights. Some of the money would go to Sky, but it would lose all the incentive to subscribe to high priced Sky pay TV. It will also mean that both Netflix and Amazon should be able to offer the same movies online. This not only means that both Virgin and BT, its traditional pay TV rivals, will be allowed to offer Sky Movies as a TV channel wholesale, but that both would also be allowed to offer the same films VoD. The suggested remedies will not be imposed until Q3 next year but those being considered include restricting the number of major studios from which Sky may license exclusive rights and by this is means first subscription pay TV window rights restricting the nature of the exclusive deals so VoD systems could still offer them or forcing Sky to offer them on a wholesale basis, which could include offering its subscribers movie channels created with these movies on rival services. This it says is leading to higher prices and reduced choice and innovation for subscribers. Sky this week has also spoken out about the unfairness that regulators are placing on it in Europe in regard to movies, specifically referring to the findings of the UK Competition Commission inquiry, which said that it had found that Sky’s control over pay TV movie rights in the UK is restricting competition between pay TV providers. There are another 10 million Xbox devices at least across the rest of Europe and BSkyB already offers its Sky Go services, complete with its exclusive movie hoard from Hollywood, on the Xbox and other games consoles. The critical attraction to the Xbox is that using Kinect consumers have access to voice and gesture based remote controls for the TV. So it should be able to launch it in the UK in relatively short order and it will have to, now LoveFiLM has it. While Netflix actually announced Xbox Live service for its Latin American operation, this means that there are not technical issues, it has previously offered the Xbox platform early on in the US. ![]() The first blows were struck this with two events ‘ first the launch of both Netflix and Amazon’s LoveFiLM online movie services on the Xbox, and its 4 million or so UK customers. The backdrop is a successful launch in OTT services by the free to air broadcasters, with tens of millions already watching services like the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4oD, etc’ But the pay TV market is now exploding with OTT intent. Now it’s not quite so clear cut and many organizations, including News Corp and its BSkyB subsidiary, have too much at stake here. Had we been talking about his before the September price rise of Netflix in the US, we would have been seeing a convincing and global win for Netflix. This battle will clear the way for dominance of Europe in OTT films, and potential access to not only a massive multi-million plus OTT movie service market, but all the spoils of such a market including advertising, Apps, and huge influence in the tablet and tablet applications market. All hell (or is it heaven for the consumer) is going to break lose in the UK in January in a fight for the Over The Top market, a fight that never really materialized in the US, because Netflix snuck up on everyone and stole a march with its online movie service.Īnd this story has lots of critical focal points involving local broadcasters, pay TV operators, ISP support, Microsoft and Apple, legal actions, not to mention the usual suspects of Netflix, Amazon and its European movie subsidiary LoveFiLM.
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