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.
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. Perform, working on behalf of Kentaro, an international agency selling the rights for the Ukranian football authorities, has entered partmerships with most UK newspapers to show the game on their websites. It is planned to charge between £4.99 and £11.99 to view the game, with the price rising as match day gets closer. Most broadband connections should be able to cope with the video stream, but whether online viewing is ‘a realistic alternative to old-fashioned TV broadcasting’ as Kentaro claim will not be really be tested by this match. It will not be a good indicator of potential demand for video-on-demand services or the ability of the UK’s broadband infrastructure to handle them. Analysts think that if they get a six figure audience they will be doing well. As a comparison, the BBC’s iPlayer streams three million to five million views a day.
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