Free market and EPL Football

Football fans are angry at having to change set-top boxes in 2010 when SingTel takes over the broadcasting rights to the EPL football games from Starhub.

This is an example of the waste and higher cost suffered by consumers through free market competition. Starhub and SingTel have be compete aggressively for the broadcasting rights and pass the higher cost, including the additional infrastructure cost, to the consumers.

Consumers have a choice. They can give up watching EPL football. I will take this choice in my family. Goodbye, EPL.

I wish to suggest the following approach to the Media Development Authority. Ask Starhub to set up a separate company to operate the cable infrastructure, and to allow all content providers to rent the channels to broadcast their contents. SingTel can rent the channels to broadcast the EPL games.

This approach is similar to what is being done for the distribution of electricity. One company is responsible for the distribution and billing the power that is generated by different operators.

There is a need for the distribution monopoly (for broadcasting or power supply) to be public owned or to be publicly regulated. We need to develop the expertise to handle these regulated matters, rather than take the easy way out to "leave it to the market". We cannot expect market forces to work when there is no true market, such as the case of a monopoly or similar structures.

In the regulating bodies, the consumers should be adequately represented by consumer advocates, rather than selected from the "establishment".

Tan Kin Lian