Pushed by Mr Bewkes, this would make pay-TV channels like HBO available online to all who can prove that they subscribe to them on television.
In addition the failure to include Sky Sports 3 and Sky Sports 4 in the ruling, and no "meaningful restrictions" around what channels BSkyB might make pay-TV on Freeview through Picnic, means that there is "plenty of room for Sky to entrench further its control of the pay-TV market".
Sky and British Satellite Broadcasting traded blow for blow, as they tried to make pay-TV pay.
What a la carte would do is make pay-TV channels work a whole lot harder to attract and hang on to viewers.
The apps also would have to make pay-TV content searchable alongside other types of programming, although the licensing body could require device makers to filter out pirated material.
Of course, the answer is to fight back, or as Bisson puts it, "by making pay-TV less TV-centric – ie, allowing access on tablets, laptops and smartphones, and enabling TV to be moved around the house and on the road – multiscreen becomes an attractive alternative to OTT".
For what looked like a setback to Sky when it was forced out of the OnDigital consortium – making it hand out millions of subsidised digital boxes – in fact simply highlighted the abject failure of the ITV companies to make their pay TV operation work and ultimately left Sky the winner.
They are looking to make the pay TV service more interesting, the destination for sport".
Some recent studies showed that, in reality, consumers were doing more "cord shaving" (making their pay TV bundles cheaper) than "cutting".
At the same time, the implementation of usage-based pricing changes the potential cost of online video services and makes bundled pay TV and broadband services a lot more attractive as a result.
