Home Ashes series to be 'free-to-air' once more

Will piss off Sky and the ECB no doubt
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/8356391.stm

Rhys Jenkins last seen running through his local town stark bollock naked shouting 'yipeeeeeeee'

Rightly so. The free-to-air bit, not Rhys stark bollock naked.

Geez, it's going to be eight years before this takes effect. That's a hell of a long time, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

The ECB should consider this a positive and wake up to the fact that keeping the game off terrestrial TV is a long-term money loser!

When the next TV rights deal comes up for negotiation the ECB could do worse than push for a half-and-half set up. Award Sky the rights to show every day of every test. Then award one of the free-to-air channels the rights to show the last session of each day.

Sky would still attract subscribers because there are plenty of people who want to be able to watch the whole day's play. But casual fans and the rest of the masses would still have access to two hours of cricket a day.

The ECB might lose some revenue in the short term due to Sky's exclusivity being diminished, but it would still be raking in more than when C4 held the rights. It would also be much better for the health of the game overall.

Thank fark for that, I'll be in my 30s when it's next on free to air but I thought it would be on Sky for the rest of my life so I can't complain!

Really fantastic news, has put me in a good mood.

vilkrang wrote:
Really fantastic news, has put me in a good mood.

Vilks in needing excuse for a drink shock

I forgot to add, I'd also float the idea of having every session of the main Lord's Test on free-to-air each year.

It would allow casual fans to be exposed to the full rythym and flow of at least one Test each summer.

I'm not sure how much that would cause Sky to knock off their price, but it would be worth including it as an option during the bargaining process.

taipan wrote:

vilkrang wrote:
Really fantastic news, has put me in a good mood.

Vilks in needing excuse for a drink shock

I still haven't drunk since that incident with my housemate a few months ago... Gonna go mental at Christmas again no doubt though.

Must have missed that

vilkrang wrote:I still haven't drunk since that incident with my housemate and a gerbil a few months ago...

We've all been there...

There does have to be a balance though, as Sky's 'dirty money' has helped no end of clubs out there and has afforded people who would not have had access to playing the game to do so. So there must be a balance found as stated.

Hass' idea isn't a bad one, although I might have just said run them parallel a la 2005.

And this one.

Brass Monkey wrote:There does have to be a balance though, as Sky's 'dirty money' has helped no end of clubs out there and has afforded people who would not have had access to playing the game to do so. So there must be a balance found as stated.

I'm sure it's also prevented a lot of youngsters from becoming interested in the game over the last four years as well, so it is a balancing act they have to get right.

Hopefully the BBC can get involved in televised cricket again now they have the digital multi-stream capacity that they didn't have when they let it go in the late 90s. It might be earlier than 2017 as well, with hints about the Ashes moving to a three-year cycle with evenly spaced home and away series?

As it'll be way past the digital cut-off point and the old four terrestrial channels will instead become something like forty, perhaps by 2017, Sky will have it's own terrestrial free-to-air channel. (Actually, it already has Sky 3 on Freeview, so it's more than a possibility.)

In which case, Sky can keep the rights to all cricket, but just have to show the Ashes on their free-to-air channel (and still clean up on the advertising revenue).

They might even be able to use their broadcasts to woo a few new subscribers if it's all exciting and spangly enough - use the Ashes as a the ultimate promotional tool for their product.

They might not like it, but I can see them settling for that compromise.

beamer wrote:

Hopefully the BBC can get involved in televised cricket again now they have the digital multi-stream capacity that they didn't have when they let it go in the late 90s.

Didn't even bid for the highlights the last time the contract came around (fairly recently).

The Beeb don't want cricket because it's eats up too much of the scheduling.

The ECB already having a big mince about half the counties going to the wall....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/8357194.stm

It's bollocks. Like I said, Sky will more than likely have a terrestrial channel up and running by then, and it'll just be a bit of an inconvenience for them - slightly compensated for by selling their Ashes advertising space at a higher rate given that their broadcast will reach a wider audience.

That'd be my move if I were some smarmy, bespectacled, television oligarch.

That and bringing Monkey Tennis to prime-time...

Not only that - the Murdoch press weilds massive influence over the government. Look how Blair allowed Sky's exclusive bid to be ushered through in return for support for his war in Iraq. Looks like the Sun has the same thing lined up by getting Cameron in its pocket in case the Tories get in. Well, when the Tories get in if the campaign against Brown goes according to plan.
As Cameron's only job outside of politics was for ITV he may not be too inclined to support the Beeb's right to screen the Ashes.
At best I imagine we might get simultaneous broadcasts..

But it's not about the Beeb, is it? "Terrestrial" channels won't exist in a couple of years, so the term will merely cover free-to-air TV that is widely available: digital Freeview, I guess.

So, in theory, anyone could broadcast the Ashes under the new proposal - even the shopping channel.

Only if their bid is accepted. I doubt the shopping channel would be fronting up enough to get much more than the pitch inspection.

But will the Beeb? They didn't even bid for the highlights this time around.

There is some hope ... Mark Nicholas and Charles Colville may not be recruited to the new commentary team. So, only 8 more years of OOOOH YES THAT'S SIMPLY GORGEOUS!!!!

Dello wrote:But will the Beeb? They didn't even bid for the highlights this time around.

But by the time the Ashes returns to free to air, whether that's 2017 or a bit earlier due to schedule changes, everything will be digital and the BBC won't need to take up all their main channel schedules with it - they can put key sessions on BBC1 or BBC2 and the rest on the red button. They're better placed than any other free to air broadcaster to do that.

The BBC's lack of bid had a fair bit to do with the way the ECB didn't even tell them they had competition for live coverage until they'd awarded it to Channel 4. So the ECB's bleating on that score has a lot to do with the underhanded and devious way they've dealt with the corporation in the past. Given that, it's not surprising the BBC didn't feel they were genuinely interested this time.

As for the "half the players to lose their jobs" bollocks, isn't this just typical of the ECBs mendacious approach to everything? How did they cope all these years without Sky money? Amazing. Of course they'll also talk about grass roots getting destroyed, which is interesting to those of us in the clubs, considering we get bugger all help from the ECB now and have to do it all ourselves.

[This is Rachel]

"half the players to lose their jobs" <-- isn't this what cricket fans have wanted to happen for yonky-donks?