Issue of the week (and a bit) has to be digital television, with three relatively big stories finding their way on to our news pages. The first two were, unfortunately, all about the Sky/Virgin spat, although the third gave us hope of a more serious debate about the future of the media.
The battle between Richard Branson and Rupert/James Murdoch has been criticised heavily by almost every commentator. I'm sure the National Consumer Council are right to defend the interests of Virgin customers who have lost some channels from their cable package, but in general I think the whole thing has been taken a little too seriously. Two rival companies trying to outdo each other in pursuit of market share - welcome to capitalism.
Obviously, it looks like Sky are winning. They've prevented Virgin taking over ITV, and also forced some popular channels off the Virgin platform. Two caveats, however. a) Ofcom will be reviewing Sky's ITV purchase... doubtless it will lead to not very much, but the investigation alone will encourage other new companies to enter the market with some assurance that Sky's monopoly will be limited. b) If Sky really think that generalist channels like Sky One and Sky News are really most successful when they restrict access to them, they're mistaken... and I bet we'll find more than adequate replacements soon enough. (This episode also helps explode the myth that BBC News 24 isn't worthwhile, by the way.)
Then there was the EDM tabled by John Grogan, calling for spectrum to be available to put HDTV on Freeview after the digital switchover. Good move - it will be interesting to see how this one turns out... one suspects Branson and Murdoch might manage to find some common ground.
RB
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