BT lashes out at ‘lop-sided’ pay TV regulations which allow Sky to dominate
Telecoms juggernaut BT has lashed out at a ‘lop-sided’ regulatory environment for pay TV in its latest salvo against its competitor, as it seeks to prevent the forced break-up of its own telecoms infrastructure business on competition grounds.
BT is desperately trying to convince regulator Ofcom to allow it to retain the lucrative Openreach business by describing it as a vital piece of national infrastructure.
In an attempt to further its case however BT has used its submission to the latest 10-yearly review of the telecoms sector to blast rivals Sky for their own dominance of subscription TV.
BT chief executive Gavin Patterson commented: “Ofcom has the opportunity to level the playing field by tackling Sky’s dominance of Pay TV. That dominance has led to poor outcomes for UK consumers and it is about time that converged regulation was introduced to deal with a converged market.”
Sky immediately hit back however with chief financial officer Andrew Griffith commenting: “BT mustn’t get away with trying to deflect attention away from the essential debate around the future of broadband.
“It is desperate stuff to draw a comparison between Openreach - a national, un-replicable, infrastructure asset – and pay TV content.”
BT argues that it needs to retain Openreach to justify its £500m per year spend on research and development.