The two are not comparable. Sheikh Mansour has pumped millions in to the club he owns to produce a product, not a new product, but one vastly improved from the club we knew prior to 2008, and given the global nature of the game, Citytv, as part of City's marketing arm, produces probably the best free content of any club I know, with the medium to long term aim of cementing our club among the elite of world football and all the revenue and prestige that flows from that.
Every fan knows this, no one disputes Sheikh Mansours right to do this with the club he's transformed.
BMRTV owns nothing, beyond a few camcorders and a couple of true blues and some studio space I presume, the company that owns them has no relationship with City, plays no part in our success or otherwise, in the same way they have no relationship with the other half dozen clubs who's fan channels they bankroll. The "product" they produce is fan cams and club chat, which because of the economics of the digital age can create revenue based on traffic to the site, and so the lads do a good job creating content they think will appeal and I for one think they do a great job, I work from home, there's not a day goes by that I don't check for an update, they're nailed in to my favourites. There you go, jobs a good un.
Well, maybe not, until recently fan channels were created by fans for fans with no external ownership, the time, effort, expense was all theirs, if you were looking for real grass roots, suck it and see, they were it, a number are still like that. So is there any difference? Does it matter that BMRTV was created by Shotglass media? That we didn't have a fan Channel before them and now we do, and is there a difference between a fan channel on its own and one created and owned as a stable of fan channels? Yes, there is, because like any owned organisation, no matter how light touch the ownership, there is a touch and that touch is traffic, the road to revenue.
A couple of independent likely lads with a dodgy camcorder might want to see their hits and likes go up, but they're not dependant on it, but our lads are, so what decisions will be made on the basis of their owners economic imperative?
And there is a wider question of what business does a company have in creating and owning fan channels? An area previously the preserve of enterprising fans just going for it, and should "content" what fans think at the Etihad gates as they leave the game be parcelled for financial gain? From my perspective, no, it's just too far, it's the monetisation of every facet of what it is to be a fan.
A supporter’s passion is personal and this is really just a clandestine way of making money out of it. There was a benevolent purpose to fan channels once and a genuine intention to use them to reclaim something that had been lost.
As I've said before maybe it represents the final frontier of the game’s monetisation? The point at which everything a supporter does, thinks or feels can be converted into cash for somebody else.
PS: to all those who've posted who cares, what's your problem, it's free, get of their backs they're good lads, so what, what's your agenda, are you naive/'stupid, it's all been posted before so don't bother.
PPS: I'm a season ticket holder, Manchester born and bred, who travels from Norwich to City and I'm old enough to be the BMRTV lads grand father (though not Walter's) so setting up a fan channel is a non-starter.
PPPS: You might have known BMRTV was owned by Shotglass Media, but a lot of fans didn't, you'd struggle to see any mention of them on the sites, I can't swear it's not there but I've not found it.
