Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12355022


---------- Post added at 11:39 ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 ----------

This could have serious implications for Sky and ESPN

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Is the bubble about to burst?

Sky have been being more forceful recently with pubs where I work starting legal action as more and more of them turn to foreign channels for coverage instead of forking out thousands each month to Sky.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

What worries me is that if Sky lose the exclusive rights to the football, then they may push exclusive content much more on other channels e.g. no Sky Atlantic ever on VM etc

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

This is a possibility.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Nah - things will just calm down Ben.

Sky paid over the odds to obtain PL football, clubs got more money, players got paid more and when the next round of bidding came up the whole cycle started again.

It's just like the housing market :)

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

It won't have a massive effect on football. They may pay less but not drastically so. The smaller clubs whose dependence on the TV money is the vast majority of their income are the most likely to suffer.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

In some aspects yes they over paid for the rights. With this "ruling" it could cause some major damage to the league itself with the rich clubs getting richer and the poorer getting poorer. A club (say Utd or Liverpool) now could set itself up in a country with rights to its matches and then charge a money to access the rights. This ruling has Sky scared.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Or it might go the other way, Sky Atlantic is used as a carrot to get people on there network, if the money made from that is less than say the VM payments + extra advertising revenue from the larger view figures then I'm guessing they will start to pimp it out. They would need to make up the shortfall in revenues from somewhere.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

No they can't.

Part of belonging to the premier league means you're part of the collective bargaining agreement, which means a club hands over ALL rights to it's games to the premier league. There is no situation in which a club can "go it alone" without first pulling out of the premier league.

What this does mean though, is a broadcaster could buy the rights in a European country cheaply, then market them in the UK, IF and only if the entire market based bidding system wasn't changed.

Instead what is FAR more likely to happen is there will be one company that holds the broadcast rights for each package in the entire EU, and then other countries can obtain the matches from them, or they can offer up channels in those areas themselves.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Either way. The ruling will probably hit some smaller clubs hard if the TV revenue goes down.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

If I understand this correctly it's not a proper ruling yet just a suggestion that will be put forward to the judge in charge.

Not sure I fully understand this, I know she has used a Greek decoder to view their sat channels. The articles keep going on about Sky but has she used this to view Sky via the Greek decoder and so pay less, or is she doing what some pubs do and show 3 PM matches via other channels that are allowed to broadcast them ?

Either way I expect this to drag on for years before anything really comes of it. it as suggested it leads to pan Europe broadcasters rather than local ones then we all know really Sky have the money for that not VM

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

She'll be watching a Greek channel that is showing the games

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Could be interesting if the Judge agrees with the legal view that it breaks EU Laws. Murdoch versus the EU that could be fun!!!!

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

I think this is great news for the consumer, and that is the most important thing.

To me Sky and VM charge to much for the product of sport, l read somewhere that Sky charge £80.00 per month for Sport and Movies together, which is absurd.

Clubs won't suffer, as l am sure that other broadcastors will come in and offer there services, what has to happen is that the consumer has to choose, and they are the ones paying the bill.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Yep, but people are clearly willing to pay it..

Whether clubs suffer or not depends on what happens as a result of this. If Sky lose a lot of business, or a lot of cash (and bearing in mind the amount they charge public places for broadcast rates, they *do* stand to lose a lot of cash), they may not be so inclined to play so much for the rights to show any football matches in the future.

If other broadcasters were willing or able to match or beat Sky's bids, they'd have done it by now.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

It will be interesting to see how Sky handle this.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

If this does get upheld then what we will see, when the rights come up for renewal again, is the Greek broadcasters having to pay a lot more than they do now and as such having to increase the cost of their commercial packages.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

well lets wait till the court case actually finishes before jumping to conclusions. With this being the EU I can see it taking years for anything to happen anyway

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15162241

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Thats good news as Sky's charges are a absolute rip off.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

I'd love to think this is a great big middle finger to the football mafia but I expect they'll manage to find a way round it.

One thing that already sticks out in the ruling is that the screening of the actual live game should be allowed, but any associated copyrighted material such as packaged highlights, music or graphics belonging to the Premier League could not be shown without permission from the Premier League as copyright holder - permission they would no doubt refuse to give if asked.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

According to this article pubs still can't use foreign decoders

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...redirect=false

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

That's not quite what the article says. The nub of the issue is this:


If the pub can ensure that only the actual live footy is shown - presumably by switching on for the start of the match and switching off at half time and at full time - then it avoids copyright infringement. However the Premier League may attempt to make it impossibly difficult for the pub by, for example, occasionally slapping its logo (which is a copyrighted work) across the screen.

Shenanigans will ensue however it pans out. But those of you who subscribe to Sky Sports at home for the football should not lose sight of the major victory scored on your behalf today - it is henceforth perfectly legal to subscribe to a foreign broadcaster and watch your favourite team playing on a service other than Sky.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Fully agree Chris but still can't see many wanting a 60-100 cm dish on their house :D with Russian commentary.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Apart from the master and his row of houses.:D

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

If this can be extended to other channels i don't have a problem having that size a dish in my garden, I am not over looked :)

Premier League loses rights battle
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...age?intcmp=239

Excellent! The way these media providers artificially impose geographic restrictions is an antiquated system.

Re: Premier League loses rights battle
 

At a guess, Sky say it will affect profits which will mean they'll pass the extra costs on to Joe Public.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

80cm will pick up all the channels you need unless you live in the furthest parts of Scotland, and isn't really that big. And 90+% of matches have an English commentary soundtrack.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Agreed but its hardly cheap , Tring is about the cheapest and that's 180.00 ish with rubbish pq.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Could this happen ?

or devising a plan to start its own channel

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/ne...card-case.html

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

If it did happen SKY and ESPN would lose a lot of customers?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15162241

So who knows what will happen?

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

As would VM , Top Up TV and BT Vision especially if the channel was available on connected TV's and Youview, In a similar way to the MLBTV.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

I'm sure if they lifted the ban on screening footy at 3pm in this country, less people would turn to these foreign channels.
Honestly, this is one reason I cancelled my sky sports sub and now stream all games from the web. If Virginmedia ever stop including ESPN with the XL package, I'll drop that too.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

But is that legal.:)

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

if they did that it would kill the lower leagues. No one would go to the games as they can watch top flight football instead.

Football is about far more than just the premier league

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Not really if the team you support is IN the premiership ;)

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

it's a bit OT for this thread but without the football pyramid then there would be no talent for the top teams in the Premiership to field any players. Ok I know that will never happen but the top leagues need the leagues below them to survive with just a single league quality will go down and teams will have to import more and more players leading to high costs

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Yes there would.

They already get to cherry pick the kids from the school systems. They aren't going to suddenly have a lack of kids wanting to try out for them. They'll still get the best youth prospects. Kids will still be playing youth level football.

Very few footballers come up through the divisions, the vast majority of decent kids end up in the youth systems for the top two leagues, and those leagues would be fine with televised 3pms.

You could even argue that with just one league, without revenue being distributed down the leagues (because lets face it the Premier League subsidises the rest of the leagues) the teams in the league would be stronger as there would be stability. Rather than the up down yoyoing of clubs they'd be able to really invest for the future from a guaranteed top flight income.

That's assuming that it'd actually kill the lower leagues anyway. Televised 3pms = more TV revenue = more revenue distributed to the lower leagues. It's not a fact that televising 3pms would kill the lower leagues at all, it could actually benefit them as there'd be more revenue to trickle down. I think it's insulting to people who watch lower league football to claim that they only do it because there's nothing else to watch, and they'd drop it in an instant if they could watch 3pms from the premier league on the telly, which is the entire argument against televising 3pms.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

I heard that Sky charge 2k per week to pub and clubs:shocked:

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

Yes the amounts they charge to pubs and clubs is astronomical.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

A local pub from where l live, has had to give up Sky, as they charge per how big the pub is, and the landlady was saying that she had to pay over £1.000 per month, and there is no getting out of it.

Sky have a 'pint beer glass' stuck on the window with a bar code on it.

Sky will be very worried now, as they plan to appeal, but they will lose, as other pubs will get the football elsewhere.

and by the way Who the hell do think Sky are.

Re: Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice
 

You heard wrong, it's high, but not that high.

They charge based on the rateable value of the property, which is a completely ridiculous way to do it as it has no correlation to the income of the business, with a few adjustments.

They cap the RV they take into account at £500,000, and then further adjust it at 100% of the first 15k, 23% of 15-200k, and 5% of 200-500k, so the maximum effective RV you can have is £72,550.

From that effective RV they work out the monthly subscription cost in a pence in the pound method, the highest package (with sky 3d, and all sports and movies) is 5.8 pence in the pound, which comes to £4,207.90, so around a grand a week.

But that's the absolute maximum, I doubt many pubs have a RV anywhere near that high, most will be under 50k and will be paying around 1k a month.