Foxtel May Soon Control Australia’s Internet Market

The Sydney Morning Herald report that News Corp and Telstra have teamed up to launch a new broadband service, which will be rolling out in the coming months.

The plan seems to be to broaden the reach of Murdoch’s pay TV service, Foxtel. It is reported that the network will soon start offering “triple play” bundles, with internet, pay TV and telephone packaged together for a price “under $100 a month”.

While Australia’s Communications Minister and its Attorney General continue to squabble over who should take responsibility for Australia’s piracy problem, there have been calls for content providers to make prices more competitive with those in the rest of the world.

Murdoch’s move could be an attempt to do just that, with the caveat that, to enjoy Foxtel’s content to its fullest, subscribers will also need to be connected to its internet service, where they will reportedly have “more options” to play Foxtel shows across different devices.

Murdoch has already made significant inroads into the British internet market, where, through incentives like giving away pay TV free with broadband subscriptions, they became the nation’s second largest internet provider in a period of just five years. 

The deal between Foxtel and Telstra was announced late last year, and Foxtel’s CEO called it a “transformative event” for the company, opening up “significant opportunities for growth” within the country.

Australia, all your internets may soon belong to Rupert Murdoch.