Letter: Sky bid does pose threat to pay-TV

Sir: Nigel Walmsley's letter (14 March), in reply to Polly Toynbee's perceptive article on digital television, obscures the important issues involved. The facts are as follows:

If the Sky/Carlton/Granada bid is awarded the licences to operate digital terrestrial television, it will smother any realistic possibility of effective competition in the pay-TV market. (Can anyone seriously imagine BDB, with Sky as a 33 per cent shareholder, bidding against BSkyB for premium pay- TV rights?).

It will reduce new opportunities in the advertising market; Granada and Carlton will do sweetheart deals to the benefit of their production companies, and new and independent programme producers will be locked out. Instead of creating greater diversity, the digital age will then concentrate power into the hands of an ever smaller number of players.

The British Digital Broadcasting partners have talked down the prospects for digital terrestrial for some months - and we now see why. They argue that the prospects are so marginal as to make it impossible for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) to thrive against unbridled competition from digital satellite. This is gamesmanship at the expense of the public interest.

At DTN we take a different view, and believe that DTT presents a tremendous opportunity to create a competitive market - offering choice at a lower price to viewers; full scope for interactive services (such as home banking and Internet access); and great opportunities from independent producers. We believe this opportunity can best be realised by full-hearted competition.

JEREMY THORP

Digital Television Network

London SW1