Sky gets tough with NTL in carriage talks

Flextech.

Media Week reported (12-19 December) that the satellite giant had
slashed the amount it was offering for carriage of Flextech channels,
such as Living and Bravo, which are part of Sky's subscrip-tion
package.

It is understood that Sky is now also demanding far better terms for
cable's carriage of Sky channels such as Sky One, Sky News and Sky
Sports News, with Murdoch having instructed his negotiators to take the
gloves off in its dealings with the newly merged cable company.

According to one senior industry insider: "Whereas Sky normally goes
into negotiations to win, it's now going in to kill."

There is speculation that Sky may threaten to withdraw channels such as
Sky One from the cable platform if it does not get what it wants from
negotiations. However, Sky would lose three million potential viewers to
its ad sales efforts if it did.

Also this week, Sky launched a massive marketing campaign to promote its
triple-play bundle of broadband, TV and telephony.

Its so-called See, Speak, Surf, claims to undercut NTL on similar
products by £10 per month.

A Sky spokesman said: "Sky conducts negotiations based on a very clear
understanding of the value that a channel brings to our platform.

"As a matter of principle, we never comment on the state of private
negotiations."