OFCOM to investigate...

[mancity dan]

how the PL sell their TV rights. Will this be good news for us?

 

[aguero93:20]

From the BBC:

Ofcom has opened an investigation into how the Premier League sells live TV media rights for its football matches in the UK.

It follows a complaint from Virgin Media, which was submitted to Ofcom in September.

BSkyB and BT currently share the rights to televise Premier League football games.

The price for the latest rights deal - covering 2013-16 - rose by 70% to £3bn when it was announced in 2012.

Ofcom investigates where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting an agreement may be intended to prevent, restrict or distort competition. It says the probe will be carried out under the terms of the Competition Act.

Number of games
The Premier League will soon be starting the bidding process for the next tranche of rights from 2016 onwards.

But Virgin claims that the current arrangements "for the collective selling of live UK television rights by the Premier League for matches played by its member clubs is in breach of competition law".

In particular, it has raised concerns about the number of Premier League matches for which live broadcasting rights are made available.

"Virgin Media argues that the proportion of matches made available for live television broadcast under the current Premier League rights deals - at 41% - is lower than some other leading European leagues, where more matches are available for live television broadcast," said Ofcom in a statement.

Kick-off times
Ofcom said it was "mindful of the likely timing of the next auction of live UK audio-visual media rights, and is open to discussion with the Premier League about its plans".

It also says it will look at the issue of how many games are moved from their traditional 3pm kick-off times on Saturdays, because of TV scheduling needs.

As part of this, it will approach the Football Supporters' Federation and certain other supporters' groups to understand their views.

When Virgin's initial complaint was made, the Premier League said its audio-visual rights had "always been sold in a transparent and open process".

"Regulators have examined our rights packaging and sales process in considerable detail in the past and found both of them to be compliant with UK and European competition law."

Doesn't seem to be much to it, the number of games shown on live tv are restricted for a valid reason that has nothing to do with the bidding process.

 

[Gabriel]

Listened to this the other week and it sounded as if Sky and BT are in danger of running a duopoly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n601j

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Now we are part of the big 7 or maybe big 13 come the weekend any sort of individual bargaining will keep us and the media favourite clubs moving further away from the Stoke's & Swansea's of this world.

Doubt there's anything in this one though.

 

[Plays By Sense Of Smell]

Now we are part of the big 7 or maybe big 13 come the weekend any sort of individual bargaining will keep us and the media favourite clubs moving further away from the Stoke's & Swansea's of this world.

Doubt there's anything in this one though.

Thank goodness we made it in before that door slammed shut.

 

[In the land of Barcodes]

To me this is just Virgin media - who don't have a dedicated sports channel themselves - trying to get more football on the telly - on their platform.

They say that the cost of watching football on Virgin is £61 per month....... hmmm no it isn't

I'm on Virgin media and the cost to me is £15 per month for the Sky Sports channels and I get BT Sport free - the rest of the cost is shite like ITV be, Dave etc - that is the free to air digital channels

Just a way of getting more games on the telly