PubTV footie: Bosnan type ruling

Le Commentateur

Apparently the European Court of Justice has ruled in favour of a pub landlady who decided UK digital broadcasters are too expensive/limited in their content provision.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12355022

Does this mean I can watch foreign TV now? Useful for those of us who want to practise our language comprehension skills, or watch a sport not deemed economically/culturally appropriate for a mass audience by the Beeb, Sky etc.

northernneil

you always have been able to watch or use foriegn services - just not show the football on them !!!!

( I watch football in a pub that has a feed to sky italia - exactly the same pictures. its fine, but doesnt cost £20,000 which is apparently what sky uk wanted to charge the landlord )

long may this kind of judgment continue to benefit the 'common man' rather than the greedy corporation

daviesee

I wonder how this will hit the football clubs in terms of future sponsorship.

Some clubs could find themselves deep in the manure. Not that it will bother me but every silver lining has a cloud. :twisted:

nwallace

The EPL claim it's a loophole, well if you call the EU Common Market a loophole...
This has always been legal, it's just taken someone to stand up against attempts to enforce illegal rights contracts.

There's 2 ways I think this can go.

1) The leagues demand more money from TV companies for EU rights as they are confirmed as being covered by the common market.

2) The TV Companies can force leagues to accept smaller deals as it's now confirmed they are part of the Common Market.

The EPL seem to take option 2 publiclly, but they would be daft to ignore option 1.
They can basically tell companies that what they are bidding for is EU rights and they expect them to pay for it to cover all countries in the EU. If BSykB don't want to play Ball then they can just go to Nova, SkyItalia or any other European broadcaster and offer the rights, and of course force them to broadcast to the UK as part of the deal. Basically they could shaft BSkyB right over, but of course british companies jsut go in the huff rather than think about what they do.

Option 3 is I suppose they buy space on satellites from Astra or Eurobird and get screening the matches themselves.

jibberjim

nwallace wrote:

If BSykB don't want to play Ball then they can just go to Nova, SkyItalia or any other European broadcaster and offer the rights, and of course force them to broadcast to the UK as part of the deal. Basically they could shaft BSkyB right over, but of course british companies jsut go in the huff rather than think about what they do.

It would still reduce the income to the premier league - EU wide rights are simply not worth as much as splitting up the market - BSkyB don't want rights to show the content in Romania (say) as they don't have the infrastructure to enable selling there service there so the rights for the EPL in Romania are reduced, against before where they could've sold the rights to a Romanian broadcaster who does want them for at least some cash.

The ruling if it actually came to pass also removes the number of potential bidders for EU wide sporting rights down to just a very small handful who could afford and usefully use them. "forcing Nova (say) to broadcast in the UK" might be possible but it would be expensive, yes they can be required to broadcast on Sky's infrastructure but the margins of them doing that are higher than sky - particularly since people don't like paying for more and more seperate services and the non-sporting Sky services are pervasive.

In any case the ruling hasn't happened yet, it was just an opinion by an advocate not the final decision.

redvee

I was watching the Aresnal match online at the weekend with a Spanish commentary, the picture quality isn't Sky Sports HD but for a freebie I'm not complaining.

AndyF16

A local (working man's) club which one of my mates frequents has shown premiership footy on some Al-Jazeera type Arabic channel for ages now - quite ironic given the less than racially harmonious nature of the place and it's clientele

Might do the vastly over-inflated circus that is the EPL some good to take a bit of a shoeing - £250k+ per week for wages? Get real :roll:

MarcBC

I am not sure this ruling will stick. There is an appeal being launched already The amount of money potentially being lost by football clubs and the satellite companies is so vast they will not rest until they can find a way out.

The pub in question was being charged £ 600 a month,

spen666

LEGAL POINT


The ECJ has NOT ruled on this point (yet)



What was published yesterday was the opinionof the Advocate Generale. He expresses an opinion. The court often, but not always follows this.

A decision from the court is still awaited.

The opinion is not in any way binding on anyone (until the court confirm or otherwise it)

dilemna

spen666 wrote:

LEGAL POINT


The ECJ has NOT ruled on this point (yet)



What was published yesterday was the opinionof the Advocate Generale. He expresses an opinion. The court often, but not always follows this.

A decision from the court is still awaited.

The opinion is not in any way binding on anyone (until the court confirm or otherwise it)

Good point.

Will this case have any bearing on what and how the big cycle races can be viewed?

(I'm not interested at all in football).

Bunneh

Back in the 90s, when Sky first started to monopolize football, a friend of mine was a satalite dish engineer. In his back yard he had a huge, rotating dish and would watch every live game he could, with the sound off and radio commentary in English.

I've been watching football via other 'channels' for ages.