Virgin Media Submits Sky Complaints To High Court

Virgin Media has submitted papers to the High Court in support of its argument that it is the victim of a deliberate strategy by BSkyB to stifle competition in the UK pay-TV market.

The papers outline Virgin Media’s side of the argument, which centres on its view of Sky’s behaviour during channel carriage negotiations.

Virgin Media alleges that Sky more than doubled the asking price of the rights for Virgin to carry its basic channel package, including Sky One and Sky Sports News.

Negotiations broke down and Virgin’s 3.3 million subscribers had the channels switched off at the end of February (see Virgin Media And Sky: The Story So Far).

Virgin Media’s case claims Sky’s action was “designed to stifle the emergence of greater potential competition… to strengthen BSkyB’s dominant position in the pay-TV retail market and pay-TV purchasing market”.

Virgin is fighting for unspecified damages and for the court to force Sky to agree a “non-discriminatory” deal.

Meanwhile, Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) will today hand reports to the Department of Trade and Industry giving their views on BSkyB’s purchase of a 17.9% stake in ITV (see Regulators To Hand Sky Share Reports To DTI Today).

Sky bought the stake in November, which originally enraged Virgin (then NTL), who said the move was not in the public interest (see BSkyB’s Acquisition Of ITV Not In The Public Interest, Says NTL). The acquisition effectively blocked NTL’s attempt to merge with Britain’s top commercial broadcaster (see ITV Board Rejects NTL Merger Bid).

Virgin Media: www.virginmedia.com BskyB: 0207 705 3000 www.sky.com