Football Media Wars

amongst the big news of the week in english football is that SETANTA sports has lost its entire roster of premier league matches. while the company was positively leaking money and had already lost a block of broadcast rights to SkySports, it is expected that the remaining rights, on which SETANTA has defaulted on its payments, will now go to SkySports or ESPN. for me, i don't know what this really means; although, i understand that the SPL is potentially in trouble over its TV rights that are held exclusively by SETANTA, and are a major source of income for them. SETANTA SPORTS CANADA, does not broadcast very many of these SPL matches - i see maybe 10 games a year - so, this must be of more concern in other regions that do have a more extensive coverage of the scottish top-flight than we are afforded here. same goes for the english championship: we only get a few games later on in the season, and we seem to see more of the lower league teams during the various stages of the two domestic cup competitions than we do of them in the league; so i am assuming that SETANTA and SkySports also make their broadcasts of the football league championship available in regions other than where i live. we also do not get any of the extensive coverage of the blue-square premier matches that i constantly see being announced and advertised. we don't have a red-button to hit, and no multiple broadcasts to choose from.

i am a cable TV subscriber - and the lease on my home does not allow for satellite. we don't have a local SkySports network, and the canadian ESPN affiliate is TSN. traditionally, SkySports events are licensed variously to FOX SPORTSWORLD CANADA and SETANTA SPORTS CANADA. for example, i see plenty of adverts on british websites announcing the british & irish lions tour of south africa as being exclusively on SkySports. well, i am seeing these matches broadcast only on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA, obviously territorially licensed from SkySports. i can tell this by the SkySports logo in the top corner of the screen. so naturally, i am curious about what i will be seeing next season and who will be showing it to me, and by which medium!?!?

in fact, i wonder if i will see any changes at all - other than a reshuffling of what i already get. ROGERS SportsNet and TSN have traditionally broadcast live premier league matches on saturday and sunday mornings. they used to do a one-off repeat at about 2 A.M. the ensuing evening, but i don't think that they still do that. these broadcasts are otherwise, not repeated. the rest of the premier league schedule is picked up by SETANTA and (some years) as well, by FOX SPORTSWORLD CANADA. although, this year - and unlike last year - SETANTA SPORTS CANADA had all the rest of the premier league matches - as well as exclusive broadcasting rights for both the FA and League Cups - and there was no english football at all on FOX this year.



this meant that they (SETANTA) would broadcast 2 live matches on both the saturday and sunday, and the rest would be broadcast as repeats throughout the rest of the day and at various times throughout the ensuing week. this means that i was able to see something like 95-99% of everything that went on in the premiership last year - and the year before - which is as long as i have been subscribing to these networks. for years and years i got by only on soccer saturday (co-hosted by craig forrest) and the 2 matches on saturday and the 1 match (sometimes 2) on sunday that have been regular fixtures on TSN and SportsNet since the inception of the premier league. however, this means that for years and years it seemed as though i was stuck watching liverpool, manchester united, arsenal, and newcastle united endlessly playing tottenham hotspur!

other than the always extensive TV coverage of the premier league, and the broadcasts of the domestic cup competitions after the 3rd round, we don't see a lot of other english football. as i said earlier: perhaps 10 championship matches a year - no broadcasts from league 1 or 2. as with the championship, they also show a few of the blue-square matches; but towards the end of the season and not many. they do, however (and to their credit), provide full coverage of the playoffs at all levels.


the most alarming thing - and in the post-internet age - is the lack of streaming audio commentary outside of the UK. while a certain number of teams make a licensing deal with the BBC to broadcast their home games, and matches are freely accessible on BBC local radio, as well as live audio streams on the BBC website; these same streams are blocked to listeners outside the UK, and are used by the clubs as content for paid subscription, available through the clubs' websites which also offers video highlights. where the club does not have a licensing deal with BBC, they create their own audio content for the same purpose. if you've read any of my previous posts about this, i have a major critical issue with this particular setup - not that i don't believe in subscription-only-access, necessarily - although with radio (and now its digital equivalent: "online streaming audio"), it has always been a free access media that operates either as a public facility, funded by grant programs and donations; or, as a business that sells advertising time in order to generate revenues... but that is another question. someone wanting to charge me a membership fee to be able to login and listen to a particular event broadcast is one thing; but to have this run only on applications that interfere with the constituent nature of that particular technology in order to retain control over it is another thing. asking me for money - while i believe there are better alternatives in the traditional avenues of advertising funding - is ok. but to ask me for money to access something, and then dictate what software i have to use to the point of denying me access unless i comply to terms that require using a complete microsoft system, is corrupted and compromised, besides being unequivocally unethical. i am a free/open-source software user, currently running UBUNTU-8.04 (64 bit) on a 1.6 MHZ intel duo-core processor. i have not used a microsoft system in almost 3 years. in fact, my current computer was custom ordered to come without an operating system - so it has never even had windows installed on it!

as i write, it appears that ESPN will be taking this block of games - with the monday night games - which i forgot to mention - probably going to BSkyB. actually, it is the monday night games where i sometimes see the football league championship matches. anyway, at least i know, that with affiliate stations already here, and plenty of cross-licensing to be dished out - i probably won't miss any of the premiership games that i'm used to seeing - and, i've no doubt that this particular status quo will be maintained; but i do kind of wonder when they are going to diversify and show us more of the championship and the rest of the football league?