ACCC poised to block pay TV deal - SMH article

Under the terms of the mooted pay TV deal, Foxtel and its competitor Optus will share content and Foxtel will assume Optus's $619 million US programming liabilities. Telstra will be granted the right to sell combined telephony/Foxtel pay TV packages, to compete against the bundled service offered by rival Optus.

This is getting interesting, in all likelihood the ACCC will knock back the deal..... Telstra/Ziggy has indicated it is not going to sell down 50% Foxtel ownership to PBL/Murdoch which may silence the ACCC....so where do we go from here.

In a bid to ensure their program sharing alliance is approved, the Foxtel partnership and Optus have asked the ACCC to consider the proposal for Telstra to bundle pay TV with telephony as a separate matter from the content deal.

Singtel have made it clear that the current status is not finacially viable with losses $300m annually. If the ACCC does not approve the deal or part thereof, expect that Singtel will offload/close its pay TV business...with $300m annual losses forecast who will buy it!!!!!

Either way Telstra look like the winners out of this.

Opinions welcome
mycall101
I hold TLS shares