Sky customers will have to pay up

Sky customers will have to meet part of the cost of the new Premier League television rights deal.  Some reports suggest that subscriptions could go up by as much as £4 a month.

Sky has pledged to reduce its spending by a further £600m over three years, or 17 per cent of its addressable costs, to fund its bid.  Most savings will come from encouraging customers to make inquiries online, rather than phoning its customer call centres.

Unhappy days at Orient

Last season Leyton Orient were contenders for promotion.   This year they are bottom of League 1.  The Italian takeover of the club does not seem to have worked well.  Even team talks are being given in Italian.

In one bizarre development, the club has been given its own reality television show in Italy which could lead to a player contract.   Owner Francesco Becchetti thinks it will raise the profile of the club and perhaps produce good players.

Did Scudamore score an own goal?

There has been plenty of moral outrage at the amount of money coming into the Premier League under the new television deal and the amount of money being paid to its players.   One political economy blog has already asked me to write a suitably indignant piece which really be a less eloquent rendering of the kind of article that David Conn writes so well in The Guardian.

Championship cash boost from tv deal

Once the overseas deals have been completed, total Premier League broadcasting revenue is expected to exceed £8 billion.   As a result, Championship clubs not receiving parachute payments can expect to receive about £5 million per season in solidarity payments, more than double the present £2.3 million.

With average turnover for clubs in the Championship of about £15 million, the £5 million represents a large proportion of income.   They get about £2 million from their own television deal.   Whether the clubs will regard this as enough is unlikely.

Premiership TV bonanza

The amount paid by broadcasters for three years of Premier League television rights from 2016-17 has exceeded all expectations.   Sky and BT agreed to pay £5,16bn over the period: three years ago they paid just £3bn for the rights.   Sky is spending more on its own that the City estimated the whole auction would realise.

Match of the Day gets new lease of life

Alan Shearer will be able to go on admiring big centre forwards until mid-2019 after Match of the Day won the Premier League highlights package.   The BBC made a bid of £204m over three years, 13.5 per cent more than its current deal.

The BBC”s main competitor, ITV, did not bid.   There had been speculation that ITV would use its financial strength to match the BBC.   Its cash flow has been strong in recent months while the BBC has been making programming cuts.

New bidder for Premiership matches

Bids for Premier League domestic broadcast rights have to be submitted by the end of next week for the blind auction. A potential new bidder has emerged in the form of the Discovery channel which has held talks with Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore.

Discovery is best known for nature documentaries, but it now controls the Eurosport channels and wants to break into Premier League football. This could lead to even more inflation in the cost from £3bn for the last three year deal to around £4bn this time.

Football League show to switch channels

The Football League Show is to switch from the BBC to Channel 5 from next season.  The deal runs for three seasons.  Channel 5 did not offer any more money than other bids on the table, but promised to screen the show at the prime time of 9 pm on Saturdays.

At present the show follows Match of the Day on the BBC.   The late night timing is inconvenient for many fans, although there is a repeat on Sundays.    This will continue.

Friday night games in Premier League auction

Up to ten Friday night games will be included in the new Premier League television rights package to run for three seasons from August 2016.   The Friday night games will form part of the Monday night package. 168 live matches will be available, 14 more than at present and accounting for 44 per cent of all Premier League matches.

No broadcaster will be able to show more than five of the seven packages.    The Qatar based beIN Sports may enter the bidding war.   ITV is expected to contest BBC for the highlights package.