If I remember correctly, Sky almost bankrupted themselves doing that. It was only a couple of years back when they started making a profit.
How does British TV work?
- Thread starter Starfleet Engineer
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^Sky spends half of its total programming budget for all its channels (i.e. anything with "Sky" in the title) on football rights. That should tell anyone interested how important football is to them.
Football is the only thing I want to see live that I can't watch through other means, so I pay for it.
Football is the only thing I want to see live that I can't watch through other means, so I pay for it.
Well technically, you can, but it's a grey area... Point your dish at hotbird, get a proper satellite receiver (not the Sky one) and an ART Sport sub and it'll only cost about a tenner a month, and you'll get more matches, and they even have English commentaries.
In part, they're able to do that because NBC are planning to run Heroes without breaks as well. NBC's trying out something a bit like the UK schedulign pattern, with continuous runs of two or three shows taking a slot over the course of a year, rather than a year round scheduled filled out by repeats.
Which I guess is why Sky can do it with Lost, too.
With the UK and US seeming to get more interconnected, it makes you wonder if we'll be seeing big international productions before long. I mean ITV are in a production deal with Fox, and the Beeb recently said they want to start making things in cooperation with international partners, for broadcast at the same time in many countries.
I prefer Sky's coverage and there's zero hassle involved.
I wasn't recommending it, as it is a legal grey area, I was just saying, there are alternatives.
Well, when you think about it, there is tons more sport on the Beeb than there used to be. Sure it did seem like there was always sport on when you wanted to watch Star Trek, but since Sky made sport a valuable commodity there is more on terrestrial too.
I think their strength is also their weakness, they have to try to be all things to all people, and then you get people complaining when there's sport on, when there's reality tv on, when there's DIY on, when there's "High Brow" stuff on.
So if they try to outbid other providers on sport, they get called out as "using the licence fee to stop competition" and when they don't they get called out for "not serving the licence payers."
It's not a problem that can easily be solved. You simply can't please all of the people all of the time.
I still defend the licence fee despite the fact that the BBC does not do a great deal to serve me.
The only other example I can think of is Channel 4's old Cricket coverage where they did have single advert breaks at convenient times.
Ultimately, if ITV did not show adverts during the race then people would just watch the race and nothing else. They'd skip the other parts of the coverage entirely.
Over the course of a year, the BBC broadcasts more coverage of Eastenders than it does Wimbledon or any other sport. I could just as easily complain about that. It's certainly a lot more healthy watching sport than it is watching people bury their husbands alive.
I remember watching Hamilton in Japan was it last year? The final race of the season. The pivotal race. Hamilton doing well, ITV cut to break, ITV come back from break, Hamilton at the back of the field.
They should have had the F1 rights taken off of them right there. It's like cutting to an ad break in the middle of a football match and coming back to find out that you've missed a goal.
Re footy coverage, technically, you can stream it through your PC, and that costs nothing
They should have had the F1 rights taken off of them right there. It's like cutting to an ad break in the middle of a football match and coming back to find out that you've missed a goal.
Re footy coverage, technically, you can stream it through your PC, and that costs nothing
It does make watching TV harder though... Sure you can watch video streams and downloads, but sometimes I don't feel like watching a little screen, or a blocky stream.
Granted, it's not quite the same, but these days, with media-friendly laptops (17" screens) and a 8 Mbs broadband connection, it makes for an interesting alternative to paying Sky a shedload of money every month.
For the record, I still send my shedload of money to Sky though. I'm lazy, and although cheaper, it is, as Hermiod pointed out, a hassle.
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^I have a television set, but if it was not for football I would not have a device attached to it capable of receiving TV broadcasts (i.e. a Cable/Satellite/Freeview box). I don't have one on my bedroom TV, just my games consoles and a DVD player.
My living room TV, when football isn't on, is my mother's domain.
If somebody offered me the ability to download to keep all of the shows I watch in high definition the day after they air in whatever their country of origin is for a reasonable price then I would take that option.
My living room TV, when football isn't on, is my mother's domain.
If somebody offered me the ability to download to keep all of the shows I watch in high definition the day after they air in whatever their country of origin is for a reasonable price then I would take that option.
