duke Posted October 27, 2008 Posted October 27, 2008 http://www.mainevent.com.au/event.asp?id=561 Pricing for each Pay-Per-View Event is determined by your subscription television operator. Main Event has no control over the pricing of Pay-Per-View-Events.Subscribers the event will cost; FOXTEL - $29.95 inc. GST OPTUS - $29.95 inc. GST AUSTAR - $49.95 inc. GST How can Austar explain charging $20 more for the same thing?
OzyDave Posted October 27, 2008 Posted October 27, 2008 http://www.mainevent.com.au/event.asp?id=561How can Austar explain charging $20 more for the same thing? Simple. There is no competition. Complain to the ACCC, but that won't do much I'm afraid. They say that there is no issue.
pgdownload Posted October 27, 2008 Posted October 27, 2008 How can Austar explain charging $20 more for the same thing?Would be fascinated in the reasoning behind it but end of the day ACCCs role isn't really to police luxury goods. The 'competition' is pretty much built into what people are willing to pay. If enough people don't want to pay $40 then Austar will presumably drop its prices (or not bother showing the event).Regards Peter Gillespie
grenadman Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 I have never purchased a Main Event and probably never will so this really doesn't affect me. While the ACCC should not be involved in what each provider charges for Main Event, PPV, or even general programming, they SHOULD require competition. Foxtel and Austar and/or Optus should be allowed to compete against each other. So long as a provider has no competition whatsoever, what incentive is there to provide quality programming? It is cheaper and more profitable to provide the rubbish they do. Your only choice is to cancel it all and if you are like me you are not quite ready to do that because there are certain sports and other programming not available anywhere else. So we continue to overpay for an undervalued service with no choice because we have no competition. Complaining falls on deaf ears and the only benefit is that it allows us to vent our frustrations.
Graeme on the Gold Coast Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 we have no competition. Complaining falls on deaf ears and the only benefit is that it allows us to vent our frustrations. try venting to this guy, Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy minister@dbcde.gov.au
WordLife316 Posted November 1, 2008 Posted November 1, 2008 Probably explains why I download my WWE & TNA PPVs every month on BitTorrent
OzyDave Posted November 2, 2008 Posted November 2, 2008 Would be fascinated in the reasoning behind it but end of the day ACCCs role isn't really to police luxury goods. The 'competition' is pretty much built into what people are willing to pay. If enough people don't want to pay $40 then Austar will presumably drop its prices (or not bother showing the event).Regards Peter Gillespie The issue isn't Austar charging for a luxury item. The issue is that Foxtel are not able to sell into the current Austar regions.
BamBBBam Posted November 4, 2008 Posted November 4, 2008 Someone should be going to court to get a writ of mandamus on the ACCC.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandamus
duke Posted November 7, 2008 Author Posted November 7, 2008 ACCC reply Thank you for your email of 28 October to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) regarding Austar charging more for their Pay-Per-View Events than their competitors.The role of the ACCC is to ensure compliance with the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA), which is designed to encourage fair trading and discourage anti-competitive conduct through a specific set of competition and consumer protection rules. The ACCC is unable to specify to Austar what price they are allowed to charge for the services they provide. Generally speaking, suppliers of goods and services are free to set their own prices and provided that that they do this independently it is unlikely to raise concerns under the TPA. The ACCC has only a limited role in the area of price regulation overall. It does not have a direct role in regulating or setting prices except in the case of products or services that are declared by the Minister under Part VIIA of the TPA. In this instance, the Minister has not declared that Austar is subject to an inquiry under the TPA. While the information you have provided is unlikely to raise concerns, I have made a record of your complaint in the ACCC’s national confidential database which is monitored to assist the ACCC in its enforcement activities. Should you have any questions regarding this email, please feel free to contact me. Yours sincerely
moongoose Posted November 15, 2008 Posted November 15, 2008 And thats not even the biggest rort.... most overseas fans don't have ppv for most of the events we do...Satanta quite often shows big boxing matches yet they mysteriously disappear in our country when they coincide with a main event prodution, i pay 7 bux extra a month for setanta and then i m robbed of their best programming so someone can capitalize on the ppv dollar.
moongoose Posted November 15, 2008 Posted November 15, 2008 (edited) double post Edited November 15, 2008 by moongoose
duke Posted November 15, 2008 Author Posted November 15, 2008 (edited) According to the Foxtel site each Pay TV provider owns 1/3rd of Mainevent http://www.foxtel.com.au/288.htm Austar just seem to like charging more. We need competition FFS. Let people chose Foxtel Satellite if they want. Edited November 15, 2008 by duke
McDigital Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 G'day, What was the Andre Reiu concert charged at on MainEvent this weekend? I noticed it was on Saturday night, but thought it was strange that MainEvent were showing it
DrP Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 Yeah, normally that sort of thing would be on Ovation.
bdude Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 I think it was on Main Event because it was live, and cost about $24 – Probably cheaper than an actual concert ticket.
BamBBBam Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 Woman at my work flew to Melb just for the concert.. she loves Rieu though.. lol
mjt57 Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 It's hardly a rort. What it is are "free" market forces at play. If you want to watch the content (why, I dunno, but that's me) then you pay. Otherwise you can either not pay and miss out on whatever it is, or you can download it via Bit Torrent after it's gone to air elsewhere. It's the same for the pay per view movies. Most are second rate movies or they're cheaper if you get them from the local video library. I don't know why anyone bothers with these services, or the movie channels for that matter.
OzyDave Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 It's hardly a rort. What it is are "free" market forces at play. If you want to watch the content (why, I dunno, but that's me) then you pay. Otherwise you can either not pay and miss out on whatever it is, or you can download it via Bit Torrent after it's gone to air elsewhere.It's the same for the pay per view movies. Most are second rate movies or they're cheaper if you get them from the local video library. I don't know why anyone bothers with these services, or the movie channels for that matter. When Foxtel sets it price at $X and Austar sets its price at $X+Y, then it is a rort. They are divided by geographical regions and are a duopoly and as such it is far from a free market. It is not right that one region is charged more than another region only because of where they live. The consumer cannot choose the provider. This type of behaviour is legislated against but in the case of Pay TV, the ACCC allows an exception. The fact that you may be able to get it on Bit Torrent is irrelevant (and most likely illegal).
mjt57 Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 It is a free market. You are free to either buy the product or not buy the product. Further, under the law they are entitled to set their own pricing. We don't have fixed price laws in Australia. I'm not saying "good onya" to Austar. Sure, it sucks. But it will continue to charge the way that it's been doing as long as people are prepared to pay for the services. People stop paying for PPV then Austar will do one of two things. (1) reduce its charges or (2) drop the service. Anyway, here's one definition of "rort". rort noun 1. (Australia) A scam; a fraud. Dunno how Austar's PPV pricing comes under this.
OzyDave Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 It is a free market. You are free to either buy the product or not buy the product. Further, under the law they are entitled to set their own pricing. We don't have fixed price laws in Australia.I'm not saying "good onya" to Austar. Sure, it sucks. But it will continue to charge the way that it's been doing as long as people are prepared to pay for the services. People stop paying for PPV then Austar will do one of two things. (1) reduce its charges or (2) drop the service. Anyway, here's one definition of "rort". rort noun 1. (Australia) A scam; a fraud. Dunno how Austar's PPV pricing comes under this. You have your opinion, I have mine. The fact that there is an exception allowed, and admitted by the ACCC indicates to me that it isn't a free market and as such, is a rort.
dryfry Posted November 19, 2008 Posted November 19, 2008 Quite often you can see the event often boxing free to air on a satellite feed.
mjt57 Posted November 20, 2008 Posted November 20, 2008 It's more than an "opinion". A rort or a scam is where you are tricked into paying for something that you don't want, or that you are relieved of your dough without being aware of it. None of this applies to PPV. Austar has its charges. We are free to either pay them or not pay them. Perhaps you could say that it's a "ripoff" in terms of overpricing. Thing is, it's hard to justify a case when the product that we're talking about is essentially a luxury, not an essential service such as power, water or whatever. Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm not sticking up for Austar. I'm just saying that it ain't a rort or any other kind of scam, fraud or whatever. Market forces drive the pricing. FREE market forces. ie. you're free to choose whether or not to pay for the product. Not whether you have a choice of pay TV providers. That's another issue. If no-one did choose to buy the PPV then Austar would either drop its prices or cease the service altogether.
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