NTL chief executive Barclay Knapp has sought to deflect blame from his company’s own management and accused TV regulators of failing to control the dominance of BSkyB in the pay-TV market.
Speaking at last week’s Westminster Media Forum, Knapp claimed that the lack of regulation in the television industry had contributed to the collapse of ITV Digital and the ongoing problems faced by UK cable companies.
“Costs for pay-TV have gone up, while telephony charges have year on year gone down. The conducive regulatory environment in telecoms created competition and consumer choice – regulation hasn’t caught up yet in the pay-TV market,” said Knapp
He also appealed to Lord Currie, chairman of the new super-regulator Ofcom, to speed up the decision making process. The Office of Fair Trading has been investigating Sky’s pricing policy for the past three years during which time NTL has amassed huge debts and failed to attract sufficient subscribers.
The cable companies are particularly aggrieved at the amount BSkyB charges for access to its premium sport and movie channels and both NTL and Telewest have been losing customers while they concentrate on restructuring their finances (see NTL And Telewest Press Ahead With Refinancing Plans).
Just recently, NTL announced that earnings had increased by 44% to £182 million in the third quarter but it was forced to concede that subscriptions had dropped by 300,000 in the same period (see NTL Earnings Rise As Cost Cutting Continues).
Nonetheless, Knapp is bullish about the future, claiming that refinancing is almost complete and that NTL has “highly competitive products ready to go and ready to compete vigorously against BT and Sky.”
