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2 New Broadcasting Deals


CaleyJags07

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Should be good for overseas people but I dont see it being any different at home. BBC will still broadcast the live matches within each of their radio regions, as is at present, and they may broadcast highlights on tv but Setanta still retain the rights to live tv broadcasting.

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BBC should have a return to Sportscene on a saturday night

That would be good, but I'm wondering if Setanta's contract with the SPL stipulates that whoever gets the rights to highlights is not allowed to show them so soon after the match. I can't think why else STV would have shown them at 11pm on a Monday.

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Do the BBC take over coverage as of the first games this season? Thats how i would have read it, except............... it states that along with existing deals with Setanta AND Scottish Tv, the coverage will be greater than ever. So.............WTF does it mean?

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As far as I understand it, the deal is similar to whats already in place for the audio ... exclusive rights to analogue/digital broadcasting within the UK and non-exclusive rights for internet streaming and downloads.

I anxiously await details of how it affects overseas listeners as nearly 50% of all internet streaming of ICT games was blocked outside the UK last season because our opponents had deals in place to broadcast their own audio and you couldnt purchase commentary on a game by game basis ........ many of the PTV sites (who provide the ICT site) have a service called "<insert club name> WORLD" which allows you to pay a fee to buy season long audio coverage of every game and live in-game stats but no sign of it appearing on the ICT site yet.

As for the TV rights - on the face of it, I think that is complete crap although I will be happy to be proved wrong. According to their own website, SportFive cover parts of Europe (UK, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Poland, Monaco, Italy Switzerland) plus Singapore, Malaysia, and Argentina. NOTHING in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Africa or most of Asia. I understand the Setanta deal is also still in place but they too make it nigh on impossible to watch any SPL games in USA/Canada unless you are going to a bar that has paid for the channel (which is not available domestically) and your team is playing one of the OF. As I get older, I dont entirely enjoy the idea of going to a bar 20 miles away at 7:30am on a Saturday or Sunday morning and being surrounded by reminiscing neanderthals or second generation pseudo bigots who love "the Celtic" or "the Rangers" despite never having set foot in Scotland.

The SPL recently held a "football tourism" workshop which had the stated desire of making it more appealing to visiting tourists to be supporters, be they ex-pats wanting to come see their team or new visitors for whom coming to a game would be part of a holiday in Scotland ...... with these deals they have done NOTHING to foster that aim ..... its a fcuking JOKE.

Football is getting huge coverage in North America right now - with the U20 World Cup, Beckham to the MLS, and in Canada, the emergence of Toronto FC and its fans as a phenomenon never seen before in MLS (passionate, European/British style support) and yet, on the very same day that CELTIC will play in the MLS All-Star game in the US, the SPL announce a deal that does nothing to enhance or expand their existing audio/visual coverage by rubber stamping a continuance of the existing audio deal and giving worldwide TV rights to a company who dont even have a presence in 90% of the globe.

SPL - You say you want to make the SPL attractive to overseas viewers and listeners ? You are failing miserably because the whole rights thing is confusing in the extreme and blocked left right and centre giving people no options.

I WANT to listen to or watch ICT games, I enjoy it when I can get the audio for free on the BBC but by the same token I am also prepared to PAY my fair share for the privilege of being able to guarantee my listening/viewing ability. Instead of having a hodgepodge of different deals with different rules, you need to have one policy and slot these sponsors in. Here's a few easy ideas .......

Audio:

- Let the BBC provide audio on the Internet for every game to listeners in the UK. If you must block certain games to users outside the UK, let them pay a nominal sum per game to unblock it using rights technology or something similar. Split fees for this with the clubs concerned if necessary.

- Ensure that those clubs who are offering an audio service, offer it for both single games and for a complete season. If I cannot listen to a Kilmarnock V ICT game because Kilmarnock are exercising their broadcast rights and ICT dont have a service in place then I am quite happy to pay Kilmarnock a nominal sum for a single game commentary. However, right now I dont have that option, the only option I have is to buy their complete season package and thats not gonna happen !!!

- for clubs with no audio service in place, tell them that a link to either the BBC or the Opposition Club site must be posted on their official site so that users who want to listen to a game can go straight to an official site and see their options. Alternatively, post this on the main SPL website.

Video

- Put pressure on Setanta / SportFive to offer a comprehensive package for supporters of every club. As an ICT suppporter I would like to watch all ICT games live on TV with multiple camera angles and a full commentary team ... but as a realist, I know thats not economically viable. However, for those games that cannot be broadcast live on TV, maybe the incoming footage can be streamed on the internet ? InternetFootball seem to be able to do it (most of the time) so why not Setanta ? If you actually give supporters a legitimate way of obtaining coverage, you might even spend less time trying to hunt down those who try to provide P2P services !

- Setanta make it nearly impossible to receive their TV channels domestically in North America and even the IPTV service via iTVN is difficult to organise in Canada - pressure them to look at this for all countries.

:crazy07: I apologise if this has turned into a rant, but its a subject I have very strong views about and have written a number of articles about, some of which have even been published. I have no axe to grind with the BBC who give me what they can, when they can and seem to have the IT knowledge to succesfully make sure I cant access what I am not supposed to when games are only available inside the UK (believe me I have tried !!!), but the SPL and its other media partners are not doing anything to promote the league outside the country ... something they constantly say they are trying to do and even go to the extent of holding workshops to figure out the best way to do it .  :029: :017:

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You could be right Yngwie - I have it stuck in my head that their is a 24 hour embargo.

Highlights of Saturday games cant be shown until after 6pm Sunday, Sunday games cant be shown until after midnight.

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BBC have replaced STV in the deal. Setanta will still have the live rights and BBC should have a return to Sportscene on a saturday night as well as other highlights packages, as well as online clips.

Alas no  :009: Scotsport will still be churning out its bile with the 'exclusive' high lights  :33: As far as I can see the BBc deal isn't much different than it was before but now they can show goals online and non-exclusive high lights

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Guest TinCanFan

There are a few websites that show live SPL games on line for something like £5.99.  Might be a bit risky though.

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for those games that cannot be broadcast live on TV, maybe the incoming footage can be streamed on the internet ?

As a matter of interest, I pulled up our Google Stats for the last FIVE days (4.5 really as it includes today) .... and the number of countries this site has been visited by is staggering even to me .....

Just over 1500 "unique users" made a little under 5000 visits to the site viewing nearly 44000 pages in the process. This is about normal for us during the close season but what surprised me a little was that although most of these 1500+ users came from the UK, the rest came from 42 different countries in every continent of the world.

SPL/Setanta - If a site like this can pull in visitors from as many countries as this in just a 4 day period during the off-season, just think how many people you could get some cash from if you provided a service to service all of the teams in the SPL !!!!!

note: a small definition of the terms used above.

    [li]unique user = person (or to be more specific - host/ip) who visits the site on any given day. If i visit again tomorrow, I am not counted again.[/li]
    [li]visits = number of visits by our unique users. If i view pages today it is a visit. if i view them tomorrow it is another visit, so in the three or 4 days of these stats, most of our 1500 unique visitors came to the site every day (which is good)[/li]
    [li]page views = actual pages being viewed.[/li]

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Just a thought Scotty, is the blocking of broadcasting/streaming in N America to do with the companies concerned in the UK or is it NA broadcasters causing the problem?

Its the UK - nothing to do with NA

BBC can broadcast every game on analogue/digital radio and also on the internet within the UK. When it comes to streaming outside UK it gets complicated .....

Quite a few clubs have PTV sites and with the exception of Hearts (who only block their own home games), they force the BBC to restrict coverage of all of their games to the UK only as BBC have exclusive rights in UK but not worldwide. As ICT dont yet have their PTV interactive stuff set up it means non UK ICT fans are at a severe disadvantage.

Watching Celtic / Rangers obviously has additional problems as they not only have audio to deal with but also worldwide TV rights held by Setanta who dont actually broadcast in North America except on channels available only in pubs !

Other clubs like Hibs have their own internal offerings and dont actually block anything as their own offering is quite different. There was one Hibs game last season where the BBC showed the game as blocked but I managed to get them to unblock it after talking to Stuart Crowther at Hibs.net and verifying the arrangement with the BBC !

in short - the whole thing is a mess and calls for a single solution where fans can subscribe to a service to get either/both an audio or video feed from games and pay for it accordingly .... but it needs to be an SPL solution not just and ICT one.

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Very succinctly put Scotty. :022:

I have virtually given up trying to find a way to get any kind of coverage. It used to be blanked out if Rangers or Celtic were involved but now it seems (the blanking) appliest to overseas listeners to most games leaving only a few small crumbs of broadcasting to fans like you and I in Canada.

It really is disappointing in this modern electronic age especially when I too am willing to pay a reasonable sum of money to access showings and particularly when it seems a no-brainer that fans like us pose not the slightest threat to their revenue stream.

By the way, last season I got involved in FootyLive.com and ended up being hosed -so be careful about these sites--that one in particular only supplies links to sites that are supposed to stream video , not the video streams themselves, but most of  the links never seem to come up with anything.

And the video I did manage to see was poor quality and buffered very frequently or was lost for a long time  etc. then came back for only a short time before the problems started up again.

:029:

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This hasn't been mentioned as far as I can see, but Virginmedia are now offering free Setanta with their XL TV Package, which is a rather good deal for me seeing as I was planning on purchasing Setanta for the coming season!

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This hasn't been mentioned as far as I can see, but Virginmedia are now offering free Setanta with their XL TV Package

And from what I can see if you want to stick with their basic TV package, Setanta appears to be just £8/month extra, compared to £15/month last season.

On Sky and Freeview I think it is £9.99/month, but I don't know if that's just for a few months or for the whole season.

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