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Sky News objected to the breaking of its monopoly, complaining about the costs associated with running a channel that only a minority could view from the licence fee.

Sky News claimed that a number of British cable operators had been incentivised to carry News 24 ( which, as a licence-fee funded channel was made available to such operators for free ) in preference to the commercial Sky News.

However, in September 1999 the European Commission ruled against a complaint made by Sky News that the publicly funded channel was unfair and illegal under EU law.

The Commission ruled that the licence fee should be considered state aid but that such aid was justified due to the public service remit of the BBC and that it did not exceed actual costs.