LETTERs

Why is Setanta so costly?

Having dispensed with Sky TV in April 2007 (for the obvious reasons) I recently telephoned Setanta to find out the cost of taking their broadcasts.

The outcome of my telephone conversation raised a number of annoying questions.

1) Why do I have to go to Sky Business for Setanta when Setanta is broadcast on freeview?

2) Why, when Setanta advertises a domestic package that requires no annual contract, do I have to pay the full amount up front?

3) Why is the Setanta package, relative to my old Sky fee, more than twice the price of Sky?

Question three is based

on the following price comparisons:

A domestic package at Sky of £45 per month versus a pub package at just over £400 per month (both including VAT) would make my package nine times the domestic rate.

At the same time a domestic package at Setanta of £9.99 per month versus a commercial rate at £200 per month (again, both including VAT) would make my commercial Setanta package 20 times the advertised domestic one for my premises.

It would appear at first sight that Setanta is merely Sky Business with a bigger mask. I believe that the unfair discrimination shown by this example should be looked at by the Office of Fair Trading.

When it was announced that some of the sporting events should be divided up to allow for fairer competition, it would appear that nothing changed and that, as the operator of a public house, I am still being taken advantage of. Needless to say, Setanta and his Rupert reindeers are not on my roof.

Miles Vaughan FBII

Chairman of Rhyl & District LVA and BII Wales region

Counting the cost of the ban

I was drawn to your article "Counting the cost of the ban" (MA, 23 August 2007) by the photograph of a smoking structure that actually contravenes the planning laws entirely (centre picture, green cover), as the open sides have less area than the closed ones (the 50% rule).

While I can understand the disappointment of your readers in the level of support they received from their local authorities, a strategy of not involving those authorities in the development of smoking shelters - as is presumably the case with the owner of the pub you show - could well be a very expensive option.

If in any doubt about smoking shelter plans the safest and least expensive option is to seek approval from your local council, however long and tiresome this may be.

Trevor Ruddle

Managing Director, Indigo Shading Solutions, Wallasey, Merseyside

Pubs will need to up food offers

The article by The PMA Team

"Pub food: going from strength to strength" (MA, 16 August 2007) gave an accurate insight into what's happening in the pub-food market.

However, there are some other issues that will begin to dominate this sector in the future.

As pubs put on more and more food business, they inevitably steal shares from other sectors of the eating- out market - from restaurants, coffee shops, hamburger outlets and the rest. Pubs already serve more meals than restaurants - 1.1 billion in 2006, compared to 753 million restaurant meals in the same year. Pubs are also catching up on the quick-service sector, which served 2.1 billion meals last year.

Operators in these two sectors will not take this competition from pubs lying down. Pubs will have to keep upping their food offers, which they are well placed to do, given their good locations, multi-income streams and their ability to trade across the day.

Currently, most pub meals are served at lunchtime, or as snacks, with only 29% of their food sales served in the evening or at breakfast. These two times of the day are opportunities for pubs to continue growing market share.

Peter Backman

Managing Director, Horizons

FS Ltd, north London