OfCom has said it will consult interested parties about Sky's plans to use its channels on Freeview to launch a new terrestrial pay-TV service called Picnic, after publishing a 111 page report on the proposals.
The media regulator plans to investigate the proposals further despite Sky's decision to dump the Picnic project, blaming OfCom for the project's demise by saying the slowness of their review of their proposals had made the whole thing unviable.
Despite denying it was to blame for delays in the review, and despite raising a number of concerns in its report, OfCom says that ultimately they would anticipate giving Sky permission to launch a pay-TV service on the Freeview network, though probably with conditions, because not to do so would be "highly interventionist".
Sky have said that while the Picnic project is on hold, they may consider "whether to reactive the project when we have regulatory clarity". With the consultation process now planned, it's not clear when that clarity will be achieved.