[Merged] NTL & ITV Look at Sky's Premiership Rights

[Frank]

ntl have now apparently given up.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...out-of-bidding

[slug]

If I remember correctly both ITV and NTL have in the passed both broken football rights contracts. So why would any football club want to deal with them.
http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/1420051123.htm

A spokesperson for the club pointed out that both the companies had a history of pulling out of contracts. NTL had backed out of 40 games in 2000 after having second thoughts about the expected viewership numbers. ITV had also pulled out of an earlier contract with the club after its digital set up failed.

[Rillington]

Very true - ITV more spectacularly than ntl.

Hoever, it's really sad that the EU have given in and I think you will find that Sky will get every single game despite them saying that 1/6 will be available to other companies.

The only company which MIGHT get one package will be Setanta Sports. Nobody else will even get a look in.

Highlights will probably stay with the BBC.

[Frank]

Check this out: http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulleti...all-dominance/

LONDON - Government ministers as high up as Gordon Brown intervened ahead of yesterday's deal giving BSkyB the chance to bid for all but one in six of Premiership games, and softened up European competition authorities, according to reports.

The Daily Mail today accused ministers of smoothing the way for a deal that favoured Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB. It quoted a source familiar with the negotiations, who claimed that the Chancellor had met with European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes.

"After that, the commission had a change of heart. It had all the hallmarks of a coordinated lobbying campaign," the source told the Daily Mail.

The EC had initially adopted a tough stance on ending the monopoly that Sky currently enjoys on live Premiership football.

Early in the long negotiation process, it wanted the TV rights owner, the Premier League, to sell two equal packages of 69 games and allow Sky to only bid for one.

As negotiations progressed, the EC ruled this out, but in September it threatened the league with legal action for backtracking. In October, the EC was pushing for five packages of games, of which Sky could only have four.

However, the deal announced yesterday consists of six packages of 23 games each and allows Sky to won all but one of them. Sky's buying power, coupled with NTL's assertion that it is not interested given the terms, is likely to give it 83% of games, with the rest going to a terrestrial broadcaster, possibly ITV.

NTL said yesterday that it was "unlikely" to make a bid, confirming its recent statement that it would need to be able to show half of all games to make the rights viable.

Bloody currupt politicians.

[Chrysalis]

Well we know labour are in bed with murdoch but I dont think its all bad check this.

ITV and NTL had planned to telecast most of the matches on a pay channel and the remaining matches on the free-to-air channels.

So we would be subscribing to sky sports, some of us to premiership plus and also would need to pay for a 3rd channel. How many would ntl and itv have put on free to air channels, and more importantly how many would have been on itv1 the only channel ntl and itv own available to every tv set in the country.