BSkyB was told by Ofcom yesterday that it will almost certainly be forced to supply Premier League football to rival pay-broadcasters. The price will probably a bit less than Sky charges Virgin Media at the moment for the right to show Sky Sports and Sky Movies, although it is unlikely that any reduction in prices, such as there are, will be passed on to consumers. Watching football, whether in the ground, or on pay television, will remain expensive.

Sky, meanwhile, can console itself with the larger prize of avoiding the Competition Commission picking over its business - with a view to enforcing a structural separation or even a break-up. That was the publicly stated intention of Virgin Media and its allies BT, Setanta Sports and Top Up TV. It would have taken another 18 months or more before that process was concluded.

The debate about how the pay-television market operates is as polarised as a session of Question Time. So carefully did Ofcom weigh its words that it dared not let Ed Richards, its chief executive, speak yesterday - because one stray utterance could have been pounced on by one side's lawyers. But in truth, it is not hard to see what a sensible outcome to all this regulatory probing should be.

Sky is the leader in premium sports and movies and ought to be obliged to supply rivals in a way that Ofcom thinks is reasonable. Ofcom ought to set the price, too - squabbling between the parties would otherwise drag on for ages. But neither side can claim a major victory; football fans might think of it as a scrappy one-all draw.

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