Sky's the limit
Rupert Murdoch is worth $7.2billion. He owns Britain’s most popular newspaper, the most popular non-terrestrial television provider and the largest cable television network in the United States. Last week Sky, one of his flagship companies, decided it could no longer afford to allow college common rooms to suspend their subscription during the vacation. This decision will double the price of Sky subscription for common rooms. JCRs have now declared that Sky is facing a big switch off.
JCR presidents have asked Student Union President Emma Norris to appeal to Sky on behalf of all common rooms. Sky’s decision is ridiculous and void of purpose. Murdoch’s empire is hardly short of money and the restrictions reek of mindless corporate bureaucracy. Pricing out common rooms, which will also have an impact on other term time subscriptions outside Oxford, serves no tangible purpose.
However, a quick glance down the satellite listings for this evening suggests that Oxford students should not lose too much sleep over missing out on Sky’s substandard programming. Surely most Oxford students are too busy with writing essays, playing sport or simply having a life to care much about missing the screening of sci-fi drama Stargate SG-1 on Sky One.
In case you think that this is an unfair attack on one isolated programme, a sample of the other shows screening today should prove the point. Or perhaps Kirsty’s Home Video’s, The Dog Whisperer or yet another Simpsons repeat proves a bigger draw than one might think. The biggest attraction Sky subscriptions hold for both individuals and JCRs is their live sport coverage.
Sport by sport, Rupert Murdoch has used his large wallet and business tactics to ensure that non-subscription TV viewers have been deprived of live coverage of almost every significant domestic sport over the last ten years. Now we are to lose cricket, a sport that is enjoying a renaissance in Britain, and it seems once again that Sky is to have the upper hand over other providers.
Is the monopoly over live sport enough to make it worth JCRs paying the added fees however? It seems that by pricing them out of the market, Sky has given Oxford students an ideal chance to remove themselves from the isolated fortresses of their own colleges. Now they may venture out into the rest of Oxford and actually mix with local people in one of the many establishments across the city at which such live games are shown.
Or perhaps being protected from the great unwashed of Oxford is worth paying almost £3,000 for.
27th Oct 2005