cibaman said:
George Hannah said:
Prestwich_Blue said:
Just read something about pubs currently having to decide whether to renew their Sky subscription this season. It's £15k for the season but some pubs aren't taking it or renewing because they think it puts off the more lucrative restaurant trade if they're showing football.
Seems that pub licences are worth over £300m a year to Sky and the two biggest draws are the rags and Liverpool (and I suspect that applies to the domestic audience as well). So it's clearly in Sky's commercial interest to talk those two up and us down. Anyone who doesn't understand that is either blind or stupid.
Quite so. it's what's called
an agenda and it's unfair and corrupt. You have to be either blind or stupid not understand that too.
I must be stupid (I'm not blind) because I don't understand why its unfair and corrupt for Sky to promote its service so as to maximise its
audience.
I don't think it is. Sky is a commercial venture and is entitled to structure the service it provides in any way it thinks fit that will maximise its profitability. That isn't unfair or corrupt, it is market forces capitalism at work. What Sky does - like every other company worth its salt - is devise a strategy which it believes will bring it the greatest commercial success. 20 odd years ago for instance the reason Sky put so much money into the English game was that the decision makers at Sky believed that there was a long term advantage to be gained by being the major platform for watching football in this country. They were right.
So it goes almost without saying that Sky has a plan for maximising its commercial success. The question is, what is that plan, and where (from our perspective) does Manchester City fit within it?
It seems to be obvious that giving Manchester City the sort of promotion and attention that is afforded to, in particular, Liverpool and Manchester United is plainly not part of that plan. It just beggars belief and defies all the available credible evidence so suggest that we get as fair a crack of the whip as they do. It seems equally obvious that giving large swathes of largely favourable attention to United and Liverpool
s part of that plan, otherwise they wouldn't do it so much (an example being the concentration on the 'top 7' last season- I will return to this point below). So the question comes down to this: do they regard it as in their commercial interests actually to trash City, in other words to talk City down, or is it simply the case that they do not regard it as in their interests to talk us up as much as Liverpool and United: so we suffer, but simply by comparison?
Again, it seems to me self evident that they must have
an editorial stance on this, I just don't know what it is. How does, for instance, Martin Tyler's commentary style fit within Sky's commercial strategy? Again, if (as is highly probable) there is a clearly defined strategy within Sky Sports as to how they present their programming based on maximising commercial impact, it beggars belief that Martin Tyler - their front line commentator - is not party to it. Why wouldn't he be?
There are many examples that have been discussed on this forum about sly digs, derogatory references, frequent observations about our shortcomings and fleeting references only to our quality (grudgingly and seldom given). These compare depressingly unfavourably with the way City's opposition is often discussed. But why? It this fair comment, or it is part of a deliberate strategy? I don't know, and I suggest no one else contributing to this debate who doesn't work for Sky Sports knows either.
There is a fair amount of evidence however that Martin Tyler (to pursue the same example) is given a 'party line' by senior executives to adopt in his broadcasting style. An example I mentioned above is last season's sudden emergence of a 'Top 7' the very year that the rags were - er - seventh. I cant remember the game but Tyler made a reference to 'the top 7
as we must now call it' in his commentary (my emphasis). It is not difficult to conclude that the emergence of the 'top 7' was a deliberate attempt to keep attention focussed on United as part of the apparent elite group of premier league teams when they were having their worst season in 30 odd years. Equally it is not difficult to conclude that Tyler was a recipient of the policy email (or similar) that instructed SS and SSN to start referring to the 'top 7'.
That said, there are undoubtedly times when, for good or ill from our perspective, his commentary is the product of nothing more than his experience and professionalism as a broadcaster. When we lost 1-0 to Sunderland a couple of years ago in the last second (to an offside goal) he virtually came in his pants. Frankly, you can see why: title contenders concede last-gasp winner to unfancied underdogs - it is the drama sport is made of, and is part of the reason the Premier League is such a commercial success. But so too is the Aguerooooooo! moment - one of the truly iconic sporting moments of the 21st century.
When Tyler gets more excited about a Liverpool corner than a City goal, I suspect something more is at work than simply reacting to the game. But whether that's because the party line is 'talk up Liverpool' or 'talk up Liverpool by talking down City' is a rather academic debate.
