Sport Today

Sky TV in the UK have announced that they will be showing 24 games
live in the World Cup. Of course, all England's games will be shown
live. In total they will show 200 overs of coverage.

Is this some sort of advert for Sky Sports, I hope not. To give Sky access
to cricket is detrimental to the game (same for football, rugby etc etc).
The game of cricket ought to be made available to as many of the
population that cares to watch and not to a very small section of
society who have the right equipment.
--
Stephen Eyre

Such as a TV set, you mean? I think Simon's post was clear and
informative, although obviously he meant 2000 overs. Would it have
been better if he'd said that Sky _wasn't_ showing the World Cup?

--Colin Rosenthal                    |  ``Don't smell the flowers     -

--http://bigcat.obs.aau.dk/~rosentha |    To make you lose your mind''-
--Aarhus University, Denmark         |  Ronnie James Dio, 1983        -

        A few comments: (a) It is 200 hours, not 200 overs. (b)
The cricket shown by Sky is (mostly) England's away internationals.
Most of these were not shown at all in the UK prior to the advent
of Sky. Thus their presence has increased the amount of cricket
available to cricket fans in the UK. On top of that, Sky has a larger
number of channels and can devote one entirely to sport. Therefore we
don't get things like crosses to the news/Motor Racing/Wimbledon just
when the cricket is getting exciting. (Did you miss the very exciting
finish of the third England-NZ test last year? Yes. So too did the rest
of the country.  (c) Most home cricket is on the BBC, which is
available to a greater percentage of the population.
(I won't say 'for free' because people in this country have to pay
a subscription fee for terrestrial TV as well. (d) The percentage of
people who have access to Sky isn't actually all that small: something
like 15-20% of people have it in their homes and this number is rising
rapidly. (e) A little bit of competition for the TV rights has led
to the BBC having to pay a reasonable fee for the rights to England's
home cricket. Thus the cricketing authorities have more money, and
can afford things like upgrading grounds, player development and the
like to a greater extent than they could before.

        From what I have said above, it is obvious that I think the
positives of cricket on Sky far outweigh the negatives. Your mileage
may vary.

        Michael.
--
Michael Jennings
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
The University of Cambridge.

Disclaimer: the opinions presented here are mine alone,
but they should be yours too because they're right.

Although not wanting to plug SKY, how many overseas tours did BBC/ITV cover
before SKY took the 90/91 WI tour? In hindsight, how many people would have
seen that Lara innings live, Warne's hatrick, Azha's Eden Gdns innings, Goochs
win in Jamaica, Imrans thrilling win in Melbourne if the situation did not
change?,..Personally, I would like
to see SKY give say halfn hour highlights to BBC but keep the live stuff, like the
ODI's in the summer. In this
way, people who like to watch a bit of winter cricket can do so, at the same time
giving a taste of the real action, the attraction of live cricket coverage.

And I don't think football or rugby league's profile has been dented in the UK
over the last few years..

Just my opinion,

CGM

Wouldn't have made any difference to me !
Unless it meant that BBC (or even ITV !!) were.

and I suspect the variations would correlate pretty well with a list of which
people have sky TV, and which don't. As you said, most of the stuff shown
on sky is stuff that me might not expect to have seen on BBC anyway, so we
can't really complain. I do wish that there was a deal where the BBC could get
some highlights - particularly as Skys 3 hours per day highlights are too long
for me to get a friend to video, then watch ! Either an hour a day, or
maybe 3 hours for the whole test on BBC would be good.

Whilst we're on the subject of coverage - what did people think of BBCs
radio coverage of the 1st test in SA ?
Having completely rearranged my morning schedule so I could be free in front
of the radio for the 1st half hours play of this historically important
match, I was shocked to discover that they weren't bothering to cover this
bit !! And were also missing several other portions of the match during the
day. I don't have an actual schedule for the radio, but I would be suprised if
we got more than half the days play actually covered ! I believe that they
were supposed to have more comprehensive coverage at the weekend, but we
never got to find out 8-(

Bernie

The radio coverage was pathetic.  There probably wasn't much more than half
the days play actually covered.  The BBC need to sort this out, and if Radio
4's output is so important then put the cricket on 5 Live where it doesn't
matter if the normal programming is axed.

James

Something of an exaggeration (I think only about an hour and a half is
lost), but I agree it's very annoying.

--
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles
writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
 Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

As an *** of Radio 4's Today programme I beg to differ.  I normally
listen to R4 on FM, but I fully sympathise with those who only get it
on LW and would lose an hour of the most important radio programme of
the day if we were to have cricket in that period.  The decision to
put Test Match Special on R4 LW has generated enough of an uproar from
LW listeners without having to add insult to injury by taking away the
Today programme.

The other interruptions are due to the Daily Service, which only goes
out on R4 LW and therefore cannot be touched, and The World at One,
which is almost as important as Today -- but I think that partly
overlaps with the tea break, so not very much play is lost.

I would be in favour of having the Test match coverage on Radio 5
in these slots however.  I cannot see any good reason why that should
not be possible.

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So, you tell me, if BBC or that ***channel called ITV can't be
bothered what are we supposed to do. Furthermore, before SKY came
along we never had any live overseas coverage of England tours. Now we
see them all. If people can't find the money to sub to SKY perhaps
they should stop smoking, drinking, Then perhaps they could afford it.

Here, Here.  All these people ***y moaning about Sky pinching coverage
from the other stations.  This may be true of the summer series - the BBC
should show both the one days and tests, but when, as many people have
pointed out, the coverage of winter tours was rubbish before Sky started,
they have no right to have a go at Sky.  However, I think something should
be done to get highlights of the winter tours back on the Beeb.

James

Get a life, mate.

The guy was referring to the World Cup. The 1987 tournament, BBC showed all
the major games live including all the England games, semis and final. Now
why cant we have the same for this coming tournament when the World Cup
returns to the subcontinent and the rest shown on Sky?

We had substantial live coverage of the Gatting tour to Australia, if you were
old enough in 1987 for your mum and dad to let you stay up late.

Chris

That's not strictly correct. Where the BBC deemed the coverage adequate (mostly
in Australia and New Zealand) there was a regular highlights package after each day's play without fail but not where it would have cost too much to put their
own coverage on. (eg West Indies particularly) The Gatting tour of Australia was
given quite extensive live coverage particularly in the Perth Challenge, and
the World Series Cup. The World Cup of that year, the last one the BBC broadcast
had each England game on live, and both semis/final. It isnt true to suggest
that the BBC *never* put on live overseas cricket.

Thus their presence has increased the amount of cricket

At an increasing cost. 30 quid a month is not cheap.

Therefore we

The only major problems these days come when Wimbledon is on. That is not
the fault of the broadcasters but the fault of the TCCB. The Test match will
always take second place to Wimbledon Finals weekend - whoever is covering what.
So what do you prefer - live coverage to all with a TV, with the odd horse race
intervening (2 at the most), or live, inferior coverage to a few who can afford
it?

(c) Most home cricket is on the BBC, which is

You have to buy a licence to get a TV. To infer it as some kind of extra cost
is playing with statistics. You pay "no extra" to watch cricket on terrestrial
TV.

(d) The percentage of

It's more like about 5 million households, which isnt quite 15-20%.

(e) A little bit of competition for the TV rights has led

You could equally argue that greed on the part of administrators led to
a massive hike in the TV package fees required. The extra money will not
on the whole go worthy causes like that, but in higher wages for top players
and administrators.

I don't knock Sky as I used to do, i.e the BBC is best on everything although
all told, it still provides a far superior service. The point is that Sky has
no competition with the satelite market because Murdoch owns the technology that
allows channels to encrypt (ie. Sky own the Astra satelite and lease channels
out) So they have all the money in the world, and can demand exclusive rights,
while terrestrial Tv which cant, has to make do with the scraps.

This is the reason for the major problem with satelite broadcasting.
Exclusivity. Sky want exclusive rights to feed the dish sales and have
the space for a lot of live coverage, but very few people can see it.

The point of this article is to ask why we cant have some imagination in
the sports administrators of this country, surely the worst in the world and
the main reason why we fail absymally most often than not.

In America, cable and satelite through the likes of TNT and ESPN pump a lot
of money into tv sports. You can watch a basketball, football, hockey or
baseball game every night of the week depending on the season all the time. BUT
the administrators negotiate first with the terrestrial broadcasters and make
sure that the showcase matches are always put on terrestrial TV. Why? The big
players, the big occasions, the big games need to be shown to the widest
audience possible to SELL the game to the widest possible audience. Common
sense.

So you have the SuperBowl, conference play-offs and the odd live football game
on Sunday on NBC, CBS/FOX and the Monday night Game on ABC but virtually every
other game shown regionally.

A better example is baseball where  cable stations show games most days of the
weeks, but the play-offs (always Game 7s) and the whole World Series are always
shown on the networks.

Now, why can't we do that in UK cricket? Domestically, let Sky show as many
B & H, Natwest, Sunday League, Championship games as they like but have the
One-Day Finals on terrestrial TV. You could have the one-day internationals on
either Sky/BBC but you should have the Test matches on BBC. This is not
what is happening because Sky is only interested in exclusivity.

With overseas tours, is it too much to ask for an hour's highlights from
overseas Tests and one-day matches? The World Cup is a great commodity to
promote the game so have it on the widest audience possible.

You could argue that more money means a better game. But you can have more money
better coverage and more of it, without having everything up for the highest
bidder, with a little common sense.

Chris