Premium sports monopoly key to Sky-Vodafone merger rejection

Wed, 22 Feb 2017

By Pattrick Smellie Feb. 23 (BusinessDesk) - Ownership of “all premium sports content” by a “strongly vertically integrated pay-TV and full-service telecommunications provider” is the key reason for the Commerce Commission’s rejection of the proposed merger between Sky Network Television and Vodafone New Zealand. “Had the merger not included all premium sports content we would likely have cleared this merger,” commission chair Mark Berry told a media briefing in Wellington. The Sky Sports channel was a “unique circumstance” in the New Ze...

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