The English football league season started over the weekend without any sign of progress in the efforts to enable Maltese enthusiasts to watch televised games on both Go and Melita Cable. Go bought the transmission rights for three years from now and they triggered them off on Saturday. I was one of those who had hoped a combined decision could be reached. But I realised from the outset my hope was forlorn.
Go and Melita Cable are competitors to an extent. Competition is essentially about differentiation. For years, Melita enjoyed a monopoly and transmitted to its subscribers what suited it most, meaning what give the highest level of profits. That included the UK Premier League, with rights to do so acquired at a considerable cost. Then Go came along. In reality, the monopoly became a duopoly. But limited competition crept in. Ironically, it began messing up sporting enthusiasts’ lives.
For it now transpired that Melita Cable was not able to transmit all the football games enthusiasts wanted to see, including the Championship League. Go had began making inroads. In due course, confusion was compounded. Go bought the rights to screen English and Italian football while Melita has the right to screen the rest.
That is how competition works. In addition, it seems there are external difficulties constraining the possibility of both networks showing all the games. These have not been explained in detail but I’m told they exist. In any event, Melita and Go have their own disagreements standing in the way of some form of collaboration.
The position is, therefore, as frustrated football enthusiasts well know, that one cannot subscribe to one network and be assured of watching all the foreign games in the comfort of one’s own home. The outcome was not that exactly expected. A few people have retained both services. A number of others have switched to Go, not least in the knowledge that one might be able to view games it cannot transmit on one’s own laptop. Access is easy, free and of reasonable quality – so long as it isn’t blocked.
But then a substantial number of other viewers have called a curse on both the networks and opted for satellite television using a tool which is on everybody’s lips, the Dream Box. Up to this stage it is a question of football enthusiasts having to use their wits and dig into their pockets to find a reasonable solution to view the games they hanker for and, in particular, the teams they support. Tennis enthusiasts are similarly hit.
Yet, the situation goes beyond sporting life. It is spilling over into what matters most: Are consumers getting what they opt for at the best price? That key measure of competition seems to be covered by the various special offers trumpeted by both networks. Is that really so?
Fact is that, special offers or not, pay television is coming at what seems to be an inordinately high price in Malta, at least when one compares to what Italians and Britons pay for their selection from the various competitive offers available to them.
This is of interest both to sporting enthusiasts as well as to more general viewers. It is a matter for the Malta Communications Authority to look into. Maltese viewers need to be told how what they are paying for their TV viewing compares to that paid by viewers in a few other selected countries.
Such an independent review would take into account any prevailing special circumstances, as it should. The net position should be reached and advised to the public. In the process, we might also be enlightened as to what exactly it is that Go and Melita Cable are differing about.
Is it huff and puff to cover up the situation of an apparently costly duopoly? Or are there factors which can be adjusted through the intervention of the regulator? Aside from having a right to know, there is a need to be told, unless more people are going to switch to satellite provision, which bypasses regulation and taxation in Malta.