Pay TV phase three document - Stakeholders - Ofcom

Pay TV phase three document – non-confidential version
Note that the table shows the launch year for particular services. The description of the services,
however, aims to reflect the current situation.
VoD
7.87 VoD is a particular example of a delivery mechanism that does not favour satellite.
As noted in our Second Pay TV Consultation, VoD services accounted for a smaller
proportion of pay TV revenues in the UK than in other countries including Spain, the
US and France.
7.88 As noted above, Sky told us that 498 that there had been strong innovation in VoD,
among other services, in the UK (although much of this was for basic FTA content).
Sky argued that Ofcom’s analysis of VoD services in the UK was seriously flawed. It
argued that there were multiple sources of VoD services carrying a wide range of
content.
7.89 VoD services were excluded from PwC’s innovation index. Sky provided a second
report from PwC, to supplement the first. It said that the revised report incorporated
VoD and near-VoD services into its innovation indicator and found that this did not
significantly alter the ranking in its first report, with the UK remaining among the four
leading countries. Sky said that this was hardly a surprise, as the number of VoD
services available to UK consumers had increased substantially in the past few
years.
7.90 Sky presented this as evidence that Ofcom’s analysis of innovation in VoD provision
was flawed. We do not consider this to be an accurate description of the PwC report.
PwC’s innovation indicators combine two sets of indicators – one based on the
introduction of a service, the other based on its penetration in the country
concerned 499 . PwC considered whether robust VoD and nVoD indicators could be
developed. However owing to the lack of data, it did not develop such penetration
indicators 500 . As a result, its final ranking takes account only of the date of
introduction of VoD and nVoD services in each country, not the penetration rate 501 .
7.91 Sky also told us that VoD movies were available from Virgin Media, BT Vision, Tiscali
TV, Top Up TV, Sky, 4oD, Apple TV, iTunes, Microsoft Xbox Live Marketplace and
Lovefilm 502 .
7.92 Of the nine platforms which Sky mentions (other than Sky itself), we note that
Lovefilm does not appear to supply VoD movies, while iTunes is not a TV platform
but rather a means of downloading movies to Apple TV. Among the remaining
platforms, none provides Core Premium movies on VoD, and none is an SVoD
service.
7.93 Virgin Media argued that consumer demand for SVoD movies was strong and
growing, but that it had been unable to negotiate SVoD rights to premium first-run
498 Sky response to Second Pay TV Consultation, Section 2, paragraph 2.2.
499 Second PwC report, page 76.
500 Ibid, page 68.
501 Ibid, page 77.
502 Sky response, Annex 2, paragraph 2.7.
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