BSkyB, BT Sport: Ofcom will review the state of competition in the pay-TV market

Ofcom, the UK's independent regulator of telecommunications competition, will reconsider the competitive situation in the UK market for pay TV, it announced on 16/04/2014.

A previous study, published in March 2010, led Ofcom to institute a "wholesale must-offer" — requiring broadcaster BSkyB to distribute its Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels to other pay-TV operators at wholesale in order to mitigate the dominance of Sky on the market and to ensure "fair and effective" competition. Telecommunications group BT was thus able to distribute Sky Sports channels in its TV-over-ADSL offer, "Vision", and Virgin Media was able to do the same in its cable TV offer.

Ofcom will review the state of competition in the UK market for pay TV, including business and technological changes since March 2010. Since then, Virgin Media was acquired by the cable operator Liberty Global (in February 2013) and BT launched its sports TV channel, BT Sport. Since its launch in June 2013, BT Sport has competed with Sky Sports, with commitments of £2bn (€2.4bn) for TV football rights, notably for Premier League…