Article Taxonomy: Television and Broadcasting

Articles concerning television and broadcasting issues in football.

Radio 5 loses Premiership radio coverage to rival

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BBC Radio 5 has lost a third of its Premier League radio commentaries after its commercial rival TalkSport won the rights to late Saturday afternoon games and early Sunday kick-offs.   Radio 5 live controller Adrian Van Klaveren admitted that there would be ‘significantly less’ Premiership football on the network next season.  ‘We will need to work hard to compensate for this, including thinking about what this means for parts of our programme schedule,’ he told BBC News.

That Was The Decade That Was

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With the noughties ending in the most serious recession in the global economy since the Second World War, there has inevitably been discussion of the impact on football. In many respects, football has turned out to be recession proof, both in terms of gates and television audiences. This is not so surprising when low inflation and falling interest rates mean that the incomes of those in work have not decreased and in some cases have increased in real terms. Unemployment has increased, but not as much as was feared, although there has been an increase in short-term working.

It All Kicks Off Over Sale of Rights to China

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The sale of rights to broadcast Premiership football in China, potentially the largest market for the world’s most successful football league, is forcing league bosses to paper over widening splits between its big and small clubs. The divide pits clubs such as Manchester United and Chelsea, household names and successful brands in much of Asia, but not yet in China, against the likes of Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic.

176,000 Log On To Watch Oldham vs Leeds

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The FA Cup First Round tie between Oldham Athletic and Leeds United, streamed exclusively live on TheFA.com, achieved an audience 176,000. The Football Association are claiming this as a UK record for a free-to-view competitive football match on the internet. The FA’s technical partner in the FATV project is digital sports specialist Perform Group. Oliver Slipper, Perform’s joint-CEO, has said that the match ranked as one of the top five live web sports events in UK history.

La Liga To Change Match Times?

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Kick off times in the Spanish Primera reflects the pecking order of clubs. The least favoured clubs tend to begin their matches at five on Sunday unless they are playing one of the big teams in which case they are given a slot at seven or eight on either Saturday or Sunday. The most favoured slot is tapas time at nine or ten in the evening which is when you are most likely to see Real Madrid or Barcelona. However, the Spanish league is considering moving some clashes to an Asia-friendly 3 p.m.

Internet Screening Does Not Set A Precedent

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As it turned out fans were able to watch highlights of England’s defeat by Ukraine on BBC1 last night, but the contract signed by the terrestial broadcaster preventing them from announcing this in advance. Most analysts do not see the live internet screening of the match as setting a precedent. Even the chief executive of Perform, Andrew Croker, commented, ‘This was a window of opportunity created by that particular match.’ It is more likely that second tier sports will use the internet in an attempt to boost audiences.

BBC Overpaid For FA Cup Matches

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The money of licence fee payers was at risk of being wasted when the BBC paid more than £1m to broadcast FA Cup matches on Radio 5Live, the Corporation’s regulator has ruled. Responding to a complaint from TalkSPORT, 5 Live’s commercial rival, the BBC Trust said that the corporation had not ensured with ‘sufficient rigour’ that the amount it had bid ‘represented value for money’. The BBC controls the radio broadcast rights to all FA Cup matches until 2012, as part of a four year agreement with the Football Association.

Web Broadcast of England Match Angers Fans

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Saturday’s World Cup qualifier between England and Ukraine will be shown live only on the internet, angering many fans. The UK live rights to the match became available after Setanta Sports, which owned them, went into administration. No free-to-air or pay-TV company made a sufficiently large offer to gain the rights for what is hardly a crucial match given that England has already qualified for the World Cup.