Virgin Media asks Ofcom to review Premier League live TV rights

[Stavrogin]

You do realise you get BT sport for free with Virgin?

Crikey, thanks for that! It is tucked away at the end there...

 

[tototoner]

update

Virgin Media recently asked Ofcom to investigate the way that the Premier League sells live television rights in the UK.
Ofcom announced this morning it has now opened a Competition Act investigation. This is welcome news.

The Premier League is a global success story and one of the UK’s greatest exports. Everyone wants that to remain the case. However, the fact is that fans in the UK pay the highest prices in Europe to watch the least amount of football on TV. Now is the right time to look again at the way live broadcasting rights are sold to make football even more accessible.

Speculation remains that there will be another significant increase in the cost of live television rights when the next auction process starts in the next few months. For Pay TV customers, this would inevitably mean even higher prices.

This is clearly now a matter for Ofcom. We look forward to working constructively with the Premier League, the wider industry and Ofcom to ensure a better deal for football fans.

 

[Lilbaz]

update

Virgin Media recently asked Ofcom to investigate the way that the Premier League sells live television rights in the UK.
Ofcom announced this morning it has now opened a Competition Act investigation. This is welcome news.

The Premier League is a global success story and one of the UK’s greatest exports. Everyone wants that to remain the case. However, the fact is that fans in the UK pay the highest prices in Europe to watch the least amount of football on TV. Now is the right time to look again at the way live broadcasting rights are sold to make football even more accessible.

Speculation remains that there will be another significant increase in the cost of live television rights when the next auction process starts in the next few months. For Pay TV customers, this would inevitably mean even higher prices.

This is clearly now a matter for Ofcom. We look forward to working constructively with the Premier League, the wider industry and Ofcom to ensure a better deal for football fans.

The actual price is subsidised as the real goal for bt and sky is broadband.

 

[robbiedee]

I have both Sky and BT broadband. I reckon I pay the best part of £100 a month on these two. Can't be doing with another party entering the fold and charging an additional amount.

 

[SpursManChris]

But Virgin are just a service provider, rather than an actual broadcaster like Sky or BT. Unless of course that's Branson's next move... and this is a strategic attempt to improve sharing of Premiership/Champions League rights ahead of that.

I think what they're aiming for is to secure one of the 3pm's and have it moved to another time slot. As the Live TV productions for those games are already handled by Premier League Productions for international broadcasters, all they'd need to do is take that feed. They'd probably be quite likely to rent some studio space and chuck a presenter and some pundits in there and maybe their own commentators.

 

[SpursManChris]

So who should ever get to challenge it then? Should Sky just have it for ever and a day and it never get looked into?

Do you think it's still just Sky?

I'm sceptical of this too but they have no interest in buying sports rights I don't see what they gain from this.

Why can't they begin to have an interest in sports?

 

[WalkerboyUK]

I still think that Virgin don't have a leg to stand on because they can't supply to the whole of the UK, whereas BT & Sky can.
Ultimately they are looking at taking fixtures AWAY from the majority and delivering to the minority.
I for example can pick Sky or BT as my supplier. Virgin don't supply anything where I live....

 

[eddiev14]

I heard the other day that Google are considering a bid for the next contract, using YouTube to broadcast their games.

No idea if that is true but it could be amazing!

 

[SpursManChris]

not sure exactly what this means, what it is trying to achieve or who will benefit
from BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29426570

and this is what sent out by Virgin Media internally

Virgin carry Sky Sports and BT Sports right? So is the only way to get all football in England on TV with the one subscription through Virgin? I've heard there are multiple providers which can offer Sky Sports but not both. You lucky sods, out here in Australia, we have a monopoly on subscription TV.

 

[Kendall]

Virgin carry Sky Sports and BT Sports right? So is the only way to get all football in England on TV with the one subscription through Virgin? I've heard there are multiple providers which can offer Sky Sports but not both. You lucky sods, out here in Australia, we have a monopoly on subscription TV.

Nah. You can have a sky subscription and purchase BT sport separately.

Or like me you can have a sky subscription for sports and get internet with BT, giving you BT sports for free.

I don't know if it's lucky, having two subscriptions makes it expensive. My family in Oz has a single foxtel subscription for everything.

 

[SpursManChris]

Nah. You can have a sky subscription and purchase BT sport separately.

Or like me you can have a sky subscription for sports and get internet with BT, giving you BT sports for free.

So what are you saying? You can only get one or the other through Virgin?

I don't know if it's lucky, having two subscriptions makes it expensive. My family in Oz has a single foxtel subscription for everything.

No, not what I was saying. You're lucky because you can get Sky Sports through multiple providers, meaning good healthy competition, meaning better prices. Whereas we can only get our equivalent, 'Fox Sports', through the majority owner and channel host, 'Foxtel.' Meaning they can charge whatever the hell they like.

 

[tony_parkes]

I changed to Virgin this week so don't know yet if the service and on demand package / broadband is definitely better or worse than Sky's but it's certainly cheaper.

The main driver for me was that Sky Broadband in my house was shite. The kids would be watching a film on Netflix and then come in moaning half way thorough that it wasn't working as the internet speed had dropped to nothing. Sky were very unhelpful the couple of times I phoned. I couldn't order a film on demand once as my box wasn't connected to the phone line. Sky fucking fitted the phone line and the box, so why?

I was paying about £130 per month for full sky hd multi room package, BT Sports, internet, phone and Netflix.

With Virgin I get 2 boxes, full hd package multi room, supposedly better broadband (seems it so far), free Netflix for 6 months, free BT sport for £70 a month, saving me £60 per month.

This cost is locked in for 18 months too.

I welcome them to the market, don't much like sky.

 

[al_pacino]

I heard the other day that Google are considering a bid for the next contract, using YouTube to broadcast their games.

No idea if that is true but it could be amazing!

The Premier League/Scudamore love these rumours because it keeps the current suppliers on their toes.

 

[SpursManChris]

With Virgin I get 2 boxes, full hd package multi room, supposedly better broadband (seems it so far), free Netflix for 6 months, free BT sport for £70 a month, saving me £60 per month.

So I'm assuming you get Sky Sports? All channels? Or at least the football ones I'm guessing. Wouldn't it be madness for a football fan NOT to go with virgin? Due to the fact that you can get all Premier League through the one subscription. This can only be achieved through Virgin right?

 

[SpursManChris]

Seems like a bitter "we didn't get any rights" approach to me...

But they effectively DO have the rights, don't they. Is it ALL of Sky and BT's premiership matches?

I have both Sky and BT broadband. I reckon I pay the best part of £100 a month on these two. Can't be doing with another party entering the fold and charging an additional amount.

Wouldn't the idea be to scrap all you have now and subscribe to Virgin for all your connections?

 

[WalkerboyUK]

I changed to Virgin this week so don't know yet if the service and on demand package / broadband is definitely better or worse than Sky's but it's certainly cheaper.

The main driver for me was that Sky Broadband in my house was shite. The kids would be watching a film on Netflix and then come in moaning half way thorough that it wasn't working as the internet speed had dropped to nothing. Sky were very unhelpful the couple of times I phoned. I couldn't order a film on demand once as my box wasn't connected to the phone line. Sky fucking fitted the phone line and the box, so why?

I was paying about £130 per month for full sky hd multi room package, BT Sports, internet, phone and Netflix.

With Virgin I get 2 boxes, full hd package multi room, supposedly better broadband (seems it so far), free Netflix for 6 months, free BT sport for £70 a month, saving me £60 per month.

This cost is locked in for 18 months too.

I welcome them to the market, don't much like sky.

I'd welcome them to the market if they werent so location exclusive.
Where I live it's Sky or BT, and BT don't offer a competitive enough price to make me switch.

 

[WalkerboyUK]

It's about time they just went and gave us the equivalent to NBC in US.
EVERY game is broadcast live, either on TV or online. One subscription and away you go.
I'm sure the main fear with the PL is that fans will opt for that instead of going to games, but while ticket prices continue to rise, that's going to happen anyway. It's too expensive for me to do anything more than one game per season at the Lane, due to price of travel and taking the kids. Instead I end up watching a lagging streamed version, inevitibly with foregin commentary.

 

[SpursManChris]

I'd welcome them to the market if they werent so location exclusive.
Where I live it's Sky or BT, and BT don't offer a competitive enough price to make me switch.

But I'm assuming you still wouldn't switch no matter what the price is, as you would only get 1 game a week and it would never be us playing

 

[SpursManChris]

It's about time they just went and gave us the equivalent to NBC in US.
EVERY game is broadcast live, either on TV or online. One subscription and away you go.
I'm sure the main fear with the PL is that fans will opt for that instead of going to games, but while ticket prices continue to rise, that's going to happen anyway.

It's far more to do with the fears of the FA. The 3pm blackout rule wasn't introduced by the Premier League, it was introduced by the FA as they obviously govern football and control certain aspects of the PL. The rule protects the attendances of the entire league system, right down the very bottom, where attendances are the life blood of the clubs. If games were on TV, it would certainly test the local fans loyalties as many would have a team they follow in the prem.

 

[Lilbaz]

Teams like Barnet. Spurs fans go when Spurs are playing away and Arsenal fans go when Arsenal are playing away. If all the games were shown teams like Barnet would probably cease to exist.