In the same way that bricks and mortar retailers of media like HMV could never survive against legal retailers with better choice such as Amazon and especially against illegal downloading, surely subscription TV, ie Sky, is the next bubble waiting to burst?
TV itself is already a declining medium. With the quality of live streaming having increased almost to TV picture quality and every major sporting event on pay TV being widely available for free on the internet, Sky will have a serious job to keep their subscriber base from falling, especially if the recession keeps going. As with music and movies, why pay for something you can get for free? That would mean massive knock on effects for the amount if money paid out in TV rights money for football.
Ah I dunno, the convience is a huge thing. They will have to continue integrating with internet tv though or risk being left behind. UPC have a couple of hundred movies you can rent now just by hitting a button. The selection is utterly shite at the moment but if they got a decent offering there they’d make good money. It’s basically netflix through the tv without having to be anyway computer literate. You can watch RTE Player & 3 player through UPC on the TV aswell, thats more the direction I see it going.
TV Rights prices will have to fall alright.
The likes of Xtra-Vision are fucked. Their attempts to branch out into Electronics and stuff like that won’t sustain them very long, in fact I’d say they’ll decline quicker.
Lovefilm (owned by amazon) and the likes in the UK have done huge damage I’d say. Flat fee of around £10 a month for unlimited streaming of 10’s of thousands of movies and TV shows along with getting DVD’s in the post with no penalties or time limits. Sure how could video rental stores compete with that.
Ya they are destroying them, never mind the illegal stuff.
Funnily enough I believe Netflix etc. are struggling, they don’t have a great business model, they have to pay a fortune for content, and you’ve to keep updating constantly. You are relying on signing up massive numbers of people to make the numbers work. It’s probably only sustainable for one or two massive companies long term, where they can sell adds etc. and eventually generate their own content. HULU is doing this stateside at the minute.
Two channels starting July 2013. £738m for 38 Barclays Premier League[font=arial][size=1]™ [/size][/font]matches. Doesn’t seem a great deal on the face of it but from reading a bit of background about it they seem to have very deep pockets.
Setanta cool on counties’ hopes to stream games live
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Allianz League broadcasters Setanta TV have revealed surprise at suggestions individual counties may be sanctioned to stream live coverage of games.
Armagh TV was launched earlier this month, with 30,000 viewers taking in live online coverage of their McKenna Cup clash with Cavan. Organisers hope to roll out the same service for their four Allianz League Division 2 home games.
After gaining an apparent green light from TG4, they’re confident of securing the go-ahead also needed from fellow rights holders Setanta as well as Croke Park.
But there was a lukewarm reaction to the initiative from Croke Park yesterday, with commercial director Peter McKenna questioning the general quality of online coverage.
Setanta too appeared unimpressed. “I’d have to check the contract situation on that and double check with the GAA,” said Setanta’s Customer Acquisition Director Brian Quinn.
“But, from our perspective, as the broadcaster who has bought the rights to those live games, I’m kind of a little surprised to hear it (is a possibility). So we’d certainly be keen to look into that a wee bit further.”
BT have announced the purchase of ESPN and ESPN America in the UK and Ireland. They’d previously outbid ESPN for EPL rights from next season onwards and there was talk of launching online channels. What does this mean now? They’ll just show the games on ESPN as normal? Runt, look into this and revert back to the forum.
BT buys ESPN’S UK and Ireland TV channels
At least one ESPN-branded channel likely to remain, but ESPN Classic expected to go off air in Europe, Middle East and Africa
[U]BT[/U][/URL] has continued its expansion into sports broadcasting, acquiring [URL=‘http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/espn’][U]ESPN[/U]'S UK and Ireland TV channels business in a deal understood to be worth in the “low tens of millions”. The telecoms company will continue to broadcast at least one ESPN-branded channel after the deal’s expected completion date of 31 July, as part of its BT Sport package of services.
However, ESPN Classic, which is not part of the BT deal, is expected to cease transmission across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The value of the deal has not been disclosed, but BT is understood to be paying “low tens of millions” to acquire Disney-owned ESPN’s UK and Ireland business.
Disney revealed earlier this month that it was “exploring an exit” from the UK TV sport market after ESPN lost several big broadcast rights deals including live Premier League football.
BT made a spectacular entry into UK TV sports rights in June last year [U]with a £738m deal for 46 live Premier League games annually for three years from the start of the 2013-14 season in August[/U].
Monday’s ESPN deal will add rights to live matches from the FA Cup (for the 2013-14 season), Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League (until 2017) and Uefa Europa League and German Bundesliga (until 2015) to BT’s sports portfolio. ESPN’s UK and Ireland channels business consists of two services – ESPN and ESPN America. The deal also gives BT access to US sports broadcast on ESPN America including NCAA College Basketball, NCAA College Football and Nascar.
The ESPN operation will be moving from Hammersmith in west London to BT Sport’s headquarters in the converted media centre in the Olympic park in Stratford.
All 97 ESPN UK and Ireland staff are understood to have been offered the chance to transfer to BT Sport.
However, the future of ESPN’s presenting team is less clear, as most are understood to have contracts that end in July.
The broadcaster’s Premier League coverage is anchored by Ray Stubbs, with Kevin Keegan as lead analyst and Jon Champion and Chris Waddle commentating.
Until the deal is completed, the service provided to existing ESPN subscribers will remain unchanged.
ESPN will continue to operate UK digital media businesses including ESPN.co.uk, ESPNcricinfo , ESPNFC, ESPNscrum, ESPNF1 and broadband streaming service ESPN Player.
However, like ESPN Classic, ESPN America is expected to cease transmission outside the UK in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
BT Retail’s chief executive of television, Marc Watson, said: “The FA Cup, Scottish Premier League and Europa League rights will allow us to offer customers of BT Sport even more quality live football, including our first games from the Scottish top flight and our first European competition rights. There will also be the best of US sports available courtesy of this deal, which will further broaden the appeal of BT Sport.”
ESPN EMEA’s managing director, Ross Hair, said: “We could not be more proud of the TV channels built and nurtured by our talented team over the past four years. The value of that hard work is reflected in this deal with BT and the continuation of ESPN on television screens across the UK and Ireland. The same passion, commitment and innovation will be at the heart of how we develop our strong digital [U]media business[/U] into the future.”
Baseball is gonna be the big loser here. Gay porn/UFC enthusiasts/muppets will have to have their bullshit excuse of a sport take precedence no doubt. Just when the phillies were about to mount a Lazarus like comeback.
Relationship between BT and Sky is off to a shaky start. There’s no deal to show BT Vision sports channels on Sky and Sky have refused to sell any ads to BT who are now taking legal action. Setanta tried the aggressive route with Sky and it didn’t work. ESPN tried a more cooperative model which seemed more successful but ultimately not successful enough obviously.