I agree that that seems like a bad choice, or at a minimum, one is choosing to do business with a company that has to internally negotiate an apparent conflict of interest. (Or, vertical integration if one has a generous take on the situation.) I am not so familiar with the layout of ISPs in the UK, but if other choices than Sky are present in a given locale, then, yes, the choice (I would make) is clear.
However, how does the Sky situation differ from the Comcast (content delivery) / NBCUniversal (content production) relationship? Verizon, AT&T, and TWC, as far as I can tell, are only content delivery services. I don't have specific statistics on hand, but I assume that for some people in the United States, Comcast is (unfortunately) the only viable broadband service provider.
However, how does the Sky situation differ from the Comcast (content delivery) / NBCUniversal (content production) relationship? Verizon, AT&T, and TWC, as far as I can tell, are only content delivery services. I don't have specific statistics on hand, but I assume that for some people in the United States, Comcast is (unfortunately) the only viable broadband service provider.