(27-04-2022, 05:30 PM)Steve Williams Wrote:

(27-04-2022, 04:15 PM)Brekkie Wrote: It does raise questions as to why England are sold separately and the other home nations are not.   It looks like UEFA treat England as the "home" team for the UK market and lump the others together with the rest of Europe games.

I suspect this should bring the issue about whether qualifiers should be on the protected list once again.   The argument is probably stronger for the nations other than England at the moment given how in recent years the Scotland, Wales and NI games have often been crucial whilst England have somewhat steamrollered their group.

As mentioned, England are not part of this deal because they are a big enough nation to be able to opt out of this centralised deal.

What I always thought would be a good idea would be something like the deal England had between 2001 and 2004, and indeed I think Ireland still have, where Sky had the rights to all England home matches, but the qualifiers were also on the Beeb. That seemed a decent compromise to me, in that Sky could still promote themselves as having absolutely everything but the really big games were available to everyone. I thought that would have been very useful for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where they could have everything on Sky but the qualifiers on FTA in the relevant nations (especially as you had the scenario where you had England on FTA in Wales, Scotland and NI but their own national teams behind a paywall). Sky would have still had some benefit from having the rights to everything and you would still get a decent audience for the qualifiers from ex-pats like me living in England (assuming the FTA broadcasters didn't shout about them outside the respective nations).

Of course it's not going to be the first time the home nations, including England, would not have qualifiers FTA. For Wales it's a bit of a repeat of what happened in 2004, when Sky first had the rights. The only highlights rights they offered were for S4C (and I think it was a while before they offered those, with Sky doing Welsh language commentary on the red button after complaints they were no longer available in Welsh) and it was several seasons before there were highlights in English.

There have been several England qualifiers that haven't been FTA either. The famous example was when Setanta got the rights to the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup and initially didn't offer highlights rights, and there was a massive backlash. This wasn't entirely fair on Setanta as in the qualifying for the 2006 World Cup, Sky had all the away games and there weren't highlights (including Wales vs England) but obviously Sky had many more subscribers. Eventually Setanta did offer highlights but it was a right PR own goal and you could argue it did as much as anything in hastening its demise because it gave it a bit of a ropey reputation among football fans.

So you would assume that Viaplay would want to offer a fairly large FTA element, for PR purposes if nothing else.

(27-04-2022, 10:11 PM)bkman1990 Wrote: Having the same broadcasting team for W Series from Channel 4 to Sky sounds very interesting. If both Sky Sports F1 & Channel 4 get to broadcast W Series British Grand Prix from this year. Would it be simulcast on both stations or not?

(27-04-2022, 10:11 PM)bkman1990 Wrote: Having the same broadcasting team for W Series from Channel 4 to Sky sounds very interesting. If both Sky Sports F1 & Channel 4 get to broadcast W Series British Grand Prix from this year. Would it be simulcast on both stations or not?

(27-04-2022, 06:34 PM)Tom Wrote: I am right in saying for the Croatia v England (first qualifying game for the 2010 World Cup), ITV grabbed late minute highlights and Matt Smith had to present the highlights from the Granada Reports studio. Also, for the last England game of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers (Ukraine away) was rhat the game with was broadcast on the internet after Setanta went bust and BBC had highlights and again a last minute deal was struck

(28-04-2022, 08:58 AM)Steve Williams Wrote: Everyone's forgotten about Setanta these days, haven't they?

(28-04-2022, 08:58 AM)Steve Williams Wrote:

(27-04-2022, 06:34 PM)Tom Wrote: I am right in saying for the Croatia v England (first qualifying game for the 2010 World Cup), ITV grabbed late minute highlights and Matt Smith had to present the highlights from the Granada Reports studio. Also, for the last England game of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers (Ukraine away) was rhat the game with was broadcast on the internet after Setanta went bust and BBC had highlights and again a last minute deal was struck

Yes, the Ukraine highlights were offered very late in the day, I assume one of the conditions of getting them was that it wasn't announced until the match had kicked off to grab every last potential customer, so the news there would be highlights was announced by Bruce Forsyth on Strictly. A great moment, that.

To be pedantic, England's first qualifer for 2010 was Andorra away, on a Saturday night, and there were no highlights of that, with the crowd chanting "we hate Setanta". There was still no deal in place for Croatia away on the Wednesday, and then the clamour got even greater when England won handsomely, and they did a last minute deal with ITV for highlights on the Thursday. As you say, they were presented from the Granada Reports studio and as they'd replaced two half hour shows in the schedule, there were ad breaks during the halves. I remember reading Clive Tyldesley did an off-tube commentary on the Wednesday before the deal was struck, just in case.

Would be fascinated to see Setanta's coverage of that Croatia match again, as they were at the ground but their studio was actually overlooking the car park rather than the pitch and you could see endless buses arriving behind Angus Scott's head. Looked bizarre. Pretty much the last thing they showed was Khazakstan away in June 2009 and I remember that at the last minute they'd decided Khazakh TV coverage wouldn't be good enough so they flew over their own crew to do it all themselves.

Everyone's forgotten about Setanta these days, haven't they?

Quote:Plans to change the digital broadcast rights for major sporting events such as the Olympic Games, men's World Cup finals, men's FA Cup final, Grand National and Wimbledon singles finals, are also set out.

Current broadcasting rules state that events of national interest should be available to view live, and for free, by the widest possible audience. As a result, broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 currently air most major sporting events.

However, digital rights are not covered by the current legislation, known as the listed events regime. That means PSBs can broadcast events live, but do not always have the catch-up rights.

The Paper says that if, for example, the Olympic men's 100m final took place overnight and a different broadcaster owned the catch-up rights, a wide audience may miss out on watching it for free.

The proposals will strengthen the position of PSBs at a time when many are struggling to keep some of their biggest sporting events.

Last year, viewers complained that BBC coverage of the Tokyo Olympics was less than in previous years, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) struck a deal with US broadcast giant Discovery.