Commentary: Singapore’s pay-TV content sharing

After all these years, and facing the wrath of football fans deprived of live World Cup matches, Singapore’s media regulators finally decided a fortnight ago to rule out exclusive pay-TV content henceforth and bring an end to one of their most costly mistakes of late.

As Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), Lui Tuck Yew, told Parliament two weeks ago, the authorities will now force pay-TV operators – mainly StarHub and SingTel now – to share their content.

This brings an end to costly bidding exercises that have made it expensive for football fans to watch exclusive programmes like live Barclays Premier League (BPL) matches.

While a positive move, the question remains if this has come too late, and if the authorities, mainly the Media Development Authority (MDA), an agency within MICA, had allowed such a distorted market to develop over the years.

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