[mmlabbd]

From MediaGuardian.com

"Channel 4 has lost Test cricket rights. The England and Wales Cricket Board has awarded the contract to Sky in a four-year deal worth more than £200m."

Well that's a real pain...I didn't want to have to subscribe to Sky just for the Cricket!!

mmlabbd

[chris chow]

good call by the ECB i think, as long as they use the extra 20 million a year wisely in grass roots

oh wait ECB and wisely in one sentence?

[Art Vanderlay]

No this is a bad thing.

Money is not the be-all and end-all of this. The ECB have missed out oin what cricket needs the of most right now - EXPOSURE.

We have a superb test team who can really challege the Aussies next year (luckily some of that will be on 4) but then that is that.

On a personal note, I don't care as Sky coverage is very good and I have it here, so I won't miss any. But if I was at the ECB I would look at the wider picture rather than just at the pound notes.

Even football realised that by not going exclusive.

[chris chow]

yes you can say that but this is 2004 but 1994, the old arguements on "if stuff is on Sky no one can see it" no longer ring as true.

i think the only mistake is not to get the T20 onto terrestrial somehow.

[chris chow]

some other thoughts

in some ways this actually seems better for working people (who couldn't see the live coverage anyway) as C5 will show the highlights in the early evening and not at midnight+ like C4 do.

TMS retains the radio rights, yay!

[umpa lumpa]

thank god - channel 4 sucked when it had the cricket

[ricky7]

I totally agree with Art Vanderlay as cricket was getting a lot of exposure thru channel 4.
Its all bout money in the end
But this could jepodise any future sponsorship deal (get less money) for the ecb as vodafone wanted the matches to be shown live on terrestial tv, as they received a lot of exposure and will not get as much with Sky.

Yet again the British public are suffering for any success our nation achieves, thats the way it is in the business world tho.

[Spot]

My interest in cricket began by listening to TMS in the golden days of John Arlott and Brian Johnston. At first the cricket was almost a side issue as I just thought it was brilliant radio but over time I began to enjoy following the game too. I love being able to have the cricket on TV with the radio sound on. Nowadays TMS, although still very good, is not exactly an unmissable event, but with the combined radio and TV coverage I still have it on and enjoy following the game.

I am not a Sky subscriber and have no wish to be. I shall just go without, and so will millions of others. I shall probably not bother with TMS on its own and my moderate interest in cricket will almost certainly dwindle to the point where I don't bother to follow it at all. I don't want to watch highlights, it's not the same. This decision means that it will be impossible for the majority of the population to follow the progress in real time of any cricket match and it must be a unique situation for any major sport.

[Multisandia]

Oh well, another sport lost.

[Ads]

Bad move for cricket, good move for the 6 million or so Sky Sports subscribers. Kids won't become interested in a sport they can't see on tv, and adults will lose interest if they can't watch England play - hence the reason why so few people in the UK care about the non on terrestrial cricket world cup, yet the terrestrial rugby world cup gets huge audiences for ITV.

[Clacton Crew]

sky might start putting the games on sky box office they put most of the other stuff on there.

[Pab]

Channel 4 did a marvellous job covering the cricket, much better than Sky. Great pundits, great technology and it was lot more explanatory to the first time watcher. What a shame.

[kingus]

Mixed feelings about this... there can be no doubt that C4 were good at doing the cricket - but I've never forgiven them for when they didn't show the last few overs of a test because they were out of time and had to go back to normal programming.

I think the best option would have been for Sky and C4 to share it, like now.

[square_eyes]

I take it that Test Match Cricket is not one of the sports on the so called "protected" list then, that have to be kept on terrestrial ?

What is on the list now ?

Football World Cup
European Championships
The Boat Race
The Grand National

Does the list still exist ???

[IanFergus]

I was surprised that (Channel) Five has the rights for the highlights. I can support live cricket being on Sky (after all, why should we have the best seats for free at an event for which attendees must pay?) but the highlights will not be available as widely as they would have been on the other terrestrial channels.

I do not know what Channel Four Sport is up to. It obviously wants out of Horse Racing and now it has lost Cricket. What's left?

[Westward]

Originally Posted by Clacton Crew

sky might start putting the games on sky box office they put most of the other stuff on there.

There's no question of it being on Box Office, this is just scaremongering. The contract states clearly that it must be shown on Sky Sports.

Some good news for James Murdoch to celebrate, for once!

[philiph]

Does anyone know if the Beeb even bothered to put in a bid?


CHANNEL 4 STATEMENT re TEST CRICKET RIGHTS

Commenting on today’s decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to award all live rights to domestic test match cricket to Sky Sports, a Channel 4 spokesman said: “Channel 4 made a full and substantial offer to try and retain the live rights to test cricket and to ensure that fans would still be able to watch the England cricket team free of charge. We were bidding as much per game this time as under the terms of the last deal, but we’ve still been substantially outbid by Sky.

“We’ve lost several million pounds a year on our cricket coverage ever since we took over televising the sport in 1999 and we simply couldn’t afford to take an even bigger financial hit. While we’re immensely proud of our coverage and are disappointed to be losing cricket from our schedules, we’ll be able to reinvest the millions we’re currently spending on the sport in other forms of programming.

“We hope the ECB does not come to regret its decision to turn its back on the hundreds of hours of terrestrial exposure that Channel 4 was offering.”

[chris chow]

if you don't want to subscribe to sky but want to continue seeing the tests live why not become a county member? my one shows the test on a few TVs in the member's bar. so you can watch that, the game at the ground and down a pint or 3.... or 4.

[Judio]

The deal will lead to more consistent scheduling of npower Test Matches from 2006 with each day's play starting at the traditional time of 11.00am. The Sky Sports deal will also guarantee live coverage of every ball of every Test Match in each season.

As a cricket fan I resented the 1030 starts just so that C4 could leave the Coverage for Hollyoaks on time.

It was a big inconvenience and often meant missing the start of play
if you were trying to get to the Match

I will look forward to be able to watch cricket and not a mixture of cricket and racing that C4 and BBC always had.

Sky will always cover sports several times better than terrestrial.

Name One Sport that has lost coverage because of Sky???

[philiph]

Incidently this thread is in completely the wrong place (for which I apologise). The main thread on this subject is inside Channels and Programming.

But I still remain curious as to whether BBC Television has given up on the sport altogether!

[perfek_pete]

No idea but $ky subs will be going up again soon to raise the £220 million to pay for it. Then, with a bit of luck, they'll lose a load more subscribers.

How long before $ky starts to lose money on these deals or do they already?

[Spot]

I have no doubt that Sky will cover it very well but it will mean that anyone who does not have access to Sky - and that is still the majority of the population - will lose the chance to follow the game live. Who can say what long term effect that might have on the sport? Somewhere out there at the moment there could well be a young lad, perhaps about 10 or 12 years old now who might, if he could watch live cricket on TV, be inspired to start playing the game seriously and perhaps develop into a top cricketer and become the Andrew Flintoff of the next generation. What if he lives in a household which doesn't have Sky so he never gets the chance to see the game and thus never gets that initial spark of enthusiasm? That's the potential long term cost to cricket of this decision.

[chris chow]

ideally, the extra 20 million can be ploughed into extra youth and schools cricket. thats where the real problem is for finding the next generation, fewer and fewer schools play it.

[D3Y]

Originally Posted by Clacton Crew

sky might start putting the games on sky box office they put most of the other stuff on there.

complete and utter rubbish.

id prefer it to stay on C4 even though I have sky, because I prefer C4's coverage. but what youve stated is a load of crap. Why post?

[msf]

Originally Posted by mmlabbd

From MediaGuardian.com

"Channel 4 has lost Test cricket rights. The England and Wales Cricket Board has awarded the contract to Sky in a four-year deal worth more than £200m."

Well that's a real pain...I didn't want to have to subscribe to Sky just for the Cricket!!

mmlabbd

that sucks !