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13|05|08

Ofcom announces update on its Pay TV market investigation and its assessment of Sky's pay DTT proposal

Ofcom today published all of the non-confidential responses to its consultation on its market investigation into pay TV in the UK, following receipt of a number of late responses.

Since publication of the consultation in December 2007 Ofcom has undertaken a number of actions, including:

• extensive engagement with industry parties and other stakeholders to explore in further detail the operation of competition in the pay TV market and the effect on consumers;
• an initial review of the responses; and
• an assessment of the proposal from British Sky Broadcasting Ltd (Sky) and National Grid Wireless Limited (NGW) to replace Sky’s free-to-air channels on digital terrestrial television (DTT) with pay TV services, which is closely linked to our market investigation.

Next steps

In the consultation Ofcom recognised that there are issues raised by the Sky/NGW proposal that will inform the market investigation and vice versa. Engagement with stakeholders has confirmed that the issues regarding the Sky/NGW proposal, such as access to premium content, need to be considered alongside the wider market investigation.

Ofcom therefore intends to publish a further consultation document on each subject simultaneously by the end of summer 2008.

The responses to the consultation on the market investigation can be found at: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/market_invest_paytv/responses/

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