OK, just once more then I'm done, cos this is really interrupting the footie; it's the principle that's exactly the same.



Read it again; I didn't. I'm not.



Absolutely. But if they bought the rights to sell all the milk, bread etc... for a ten year period, then it isn't a monopoly. It can't be, because the contract ends, at which time other companies can bid for it. Sky bought the rights to Premiership football until the 2012/13 season, at which time they'll have to bid for it again (assuming they want it, of course) in competition with whatever other companies are interested in acquiring those rights.



<sigh>No it isn't, not if they're acquiring rights for a set period in an open market. The contracts are worth what someone is prepared to pay for them, and if one company is prepared to pay more for those rights than another, so be it. Which part of that don't you understand? (rhetorical question)

OK, now I'm done.

Pete.

Yes but you can have temporary monopolies as well.

The principle for a homogeneous item and a brand item is very different so saying the principle is the same isn't correct on a fundamental basis. The underlying economic principles are completely different.


So a company is not a monopoly if it has monopolistic control for 10 or fewer years? Right...........



Apart from the fact it's not an open market, IIRC they bid for them, so one company who has more spending power can pay far above the market cost (again, this does not happen in an open market) to prevent competition from securing it. It's not an open market, by definition

Are you sure you don't mean a free market, because I don't think we are talking about dealing with banks.