SingTel
SINGAPORE: Pay television operator SingTel said the authorities'
latest move to enforce cross-carriage rules may lead to a situation
where no operator will want to secure sought-after content in
future.
On Wednesday, the Media Development Authority asked SingTel to
share the next three seasons of Barclays Premier League
matches with rival StarHub.
SingTel said there's now no incentive for first movers to
secure, for example, future deals for World Cup soccer or European
Football Championships.
It's a point that telecoms analyst Ajay Sunder agrees on.
He said: "If in the long run SingTel or StarHub, if they both
know that they will have to share whatever the exclusive content -
earlier used to be exclusive content, then there might be a
situation in future where none of them actually want to pay a bit
higher and they don't want and they might lose out on - users
(subscribers) might lose out on all the content possible."
SingTel said it played by the rules when securing Premier League
rights, which is why it will be appealing the cross-carriage
decision.
SingTel has also said that football fans will end up either not
getting future content, or having to pay more for it.
- CNA/ck
==========
having to pay more in the future?
didnt we end up paying much more because singtel
outbidded starhub???
