Sky has made a purchase from Virgin Media worth £160Million to get the Virgin TV services. How this has not lead to an OFT investigation of breach of competition rules I do not know. With the sale complete, Sky has managed to secure itself a major monopoly on pay for TV service.
Sky have in the past been in trouble or at least been threatened with being in trouble on a number of occasions. Europe threatened to take legal action against the Premiership Football League unless Sky’s Total Monopoly was broken on the games. The Office of Fair Trading expected to find Sky guilty of breach of anti-competition laws on at least one occasion.
As part of the agreement however, it seems that Virgin customers will soon be able to get access to a wide range of Sky HD channels and the company has assured us that there will be no change to service. How long that remains true is still uncertain.
References
VirginMedia
MediaWeek
The Gaurdian
The Independant
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