The Government on Friday announced that pay-TV providers
like SingTel and StarHub will have to carry exclusive content
purchased by another player, a move expected to make such content
more accessible and cheaper for consumers.
GOOD news for pay-TV viewers.
Whoever wins the rights to the 2014 English Premier
League (EPL), they will be able to watch it on their current
set-top box.
The Government on Friday announced that pay-TV providers like
SingTel and StarHub will have to carry exclusive content purchased
by another player, a move expected to make such content more
accessible and cheaper for consumers. This is unlike the situation
today where EPL matches - exclusive to SingTel - are only available
on its mio TV service.
Under the revised Media Market Conduct Code, pay-TV providers
must also charge all viewers the same fee for exclusive content
they have the rights to, whether they are its customers or another
player's.
The new regulations, though, will apply to all contracts signed
from Friday, said Acting Minister for Information, Communications
and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew, who announced the changes in Parliament.
He added that the new measure will not apply retrospectively to
existing agreements such as the 2010 to 2013 BPL broadcast
rights.
This means that SingTel will not have to share its 2010 to 2013
English Premier League live broadcasts with StarHub, although the
company that wins the right to show the 2014 EPL will have to do
so. The Straits Times understands that most pay-TV contracts are
for two to three year durations, so most pay-TV programmes should
be viewable on all set-top boxes by 2013, and many before that.
This move, a major overhaul to how pay-TV content is bought,
sold and distributed, is also acknowledgment that the intense
competition between the two rival pay-TV providers has hurt
consumers in convenience, choice and cost.
A Government study on the pay-TV market, for instance, found
that out of the 179 pay-TV channel, only seven are common to both
players. And of 16 channels popular with viewers worldwide,
Singapore was the only country that had exclusive arrangements for
all the channels.
Costs to watch sports programming too, had risen, from about $33
in 2000 to $74 today. This situation, said Mr Lui, was 'unlikely to
self-correct in the near future, and steps need to be taken to
address this market failure'.
