Football Rights
Although Sky’s monopoly over UK Premier League football runs for only two more seasons, the jostling between other broadcasters eager to transmit top tier football matches has already begun. Persistent rumours suggest that broadcasters are trying to build a consortium to bid for Premier League matches. We believe, however, that such a consortium might well run foul of the competition law, and would in any case be fiercely resisted by the Premier League.
Although the service includes the latest features such as user-customisable channels and the ability to skip tracks, adoption will be limited by the widespread availability of cheap or free substitutes and the massive drain that it will place on the handset battery
In order to make the service affordable, data is priced at an effective 95% discount to current high-usage data tariffs, further highlighting operators’ difficulty in offering attractive data services at economic pricing levels