Pub wins right to show Saturday 3pm Prem games

**Salty25** · 12-04-2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/leg...icle357239.ece

Certainly interesting. I'm with the FA though, the ban is in the interests of the game, but we'll all try our best to circumvent it nontheless!

**rolfw** · 13-04-2006

Yes, this is similar to a couple of other judgements, but is only a starting point.

The prosecutions in point were trying to prove an illegal intent by the landlords, but of course they are paying for the cards from a legitimate, if overseas source, so that cannot be proved. There is no copyright in the UK for the 3pm screenings (as no UK provider transmits them), so there is nothing to breach. The copyright owners (Premiership) will probably now approach this from a different angle, as there is a new round of bidding coming up and they need to protect their home sales.

If the proscribed period cannot be protected by copyright law, then we can look forward to official televisation of matches within that period by UK broadcasters and perhaps punative contractual measures being introduced for overseas providers who sell domestic subscriptions which are used for commercial purposes.

What amuses me a little on this, is some of the companies who are selling these packages to publicans, are making huge profits on the subscriptions, sometimes more than 5 times the market price for the subscriptions and they are selling it on the basis of "why pay Sky's rip off prices"

**llss** · 13-04-2006

good to see this , i m like anybody else do anything to watch my team home or away , until sky can realize that customers like myself would like to view , say the toon all the time (which is not fun at the moment lol) instead of the likes of a painsul sunday watching say charlton against fullam say . why can t footie teams have their own channel. nevermind. back to the point i dont no if you have realized that sky employed private company to go round pubs and threaten pubs whatever that they are breaking the law watching art channels at anytime which is wrong unless its in the 3 pm 5pm time on sat , afterall this is a ruling by the fa and not sky so what gives them the right to lie and decieve people so it serves them right in my eyes .

**llss** · 13-04-2006

oh yes i forgot the next step will be for pubs to get offical commercial card a bit more expensive than normal ones . and what can they do about that ha ha until round 3 maybe .

**BGonaSTICK** · 13-04-2006

Yeah this is great, but far from being yet another case of the principle being upheld, it's just recycled poop. The Independent really should indicate some kind of timeframe here.

I believe that this was also reproduced on the forum here too at the time (24th March!)

http://www.molesworths.co.uk/bulletin.asp?sectionID=18

**Salty25** · 13-04-2006

For me, the only viable reason for the ban is to ensure fans continue to attend Coca-Cola Football League and non-league games, instead of watching top flight games. Therefore, isn't the solution to simple kick off Premiership at a different time?

As a proposal, here is how the weekend could be restructured (broadcaster as there are at present):

Saturday:

10.45am - Live Football League game - Sky Sports

12.45pm - Live Premiership game - PremPlus

3.00pm - Football League (Championship, League 1, League 2) and Conference games - NON LIVE

5.15pm - Live Premiership game - PremPlus

Sunday:

11.30am - Live Premiership or Football League (Super Sunday) - Sky Sports

1.30pm - Premiership games - EVERY GAME LIVE, PremPlus 'SuperLive'

4.05pm - Live Premiership game (Super Sunday) - Sky Sports

The 'SuperLive' package could be purchased in three ways:

One Game 'Gate' ticket - access to one game of your choice - £5.99
Club 'SuperSeason' ticket - access to all games, both home and away, to your favourite club shown on 'SuperLive' - £100
Premiership 'VIP Box' ticket - access to ALL GAMES on 'SuperLive' - £200

What do you think?

**llss** · 13-04-2006

why not m8

**Salty25** · 13-04-2006

Originally Posted by llss

why not m8

There would still be major issues to resolve if such a thing as 'SuperLive' ever happen, such the distribution of the money paid by the rights holders. Also, would there be blackouts like there is in NFL coverage.

**llss** · 14-04-2006

yes were miles behind certain countrys in the matter of choice m8 yes i agree.

***wod*** · 14-04-2006

what about foregin games shown live via foregin providers in pubs is that ok or would sky kick up a fuss as it has rights to show these in the uk ?

**Salty25** · 14-04-2006

Originally Posted by wod

what about foregin games shown live via foregin providers in pubs is that ok or would sky kick up a fuss as it has rights to show these in the uk ?

I'm not thinkin that far ahead

i was just theorising what they could do.

**rolfw** · 14-04-2006

You can guarantee that all interested parties are looking at a solution to this, it is not a victory, just a small battle won and probably only because the FA approached it from the wrong direction.

**RedDevil_UK** · 14-04-2006

This boils down to sky trying to protect their own interest,(SKY moaning to the FA anyway) so they can continue to charge some pubs £1000 per month!!! absolutely ridiculous...

skys prices are linked to the council tax and value of property etc etc

why do they think that is fair!! if ford sells you a Mondeo, they dont ask how big your house is so they can charge accordingly do they!!
if you live in a 5 bedroom house a Ford Mondeo costs £350,000 can you imagine that LOL

so you can imagine, im all for a bit of competition.... if they want to beat the competition then SKY needs to lower its prices and improve programming.

**rolfw** · 14-04-2006

If you buy a license for a software product, they do not charge the same for 100 users as they do for 500, not saying that basing it on tax is correct, but there needs to be some distinction, the car analogy is flawed.

**RedDevil_UK** · 14-04-2006

when you buy windows XP you are charged more if you are going to use that Disc to install on 100 PCs.. ok thats fair... still works out cheaper than buying 100 copies of XP

But if you subscribe to SKY at the pub price, you dont get to view at more than 1 pub, so that analogy is flawed also.

ive yet to meet 1 person that thinks SKYs prices are good value and fair...

at this moment as i type this i am watching Man United on TPS, if a wanted to watch it on sky it would cost £7?? stuff that, i already pay £46 a month for sky...and that includes SKY Sports!!!

the way i look at it... if sky did 1 package.. everything for £20, everyone would be happy, and sky would have more than 8m viewers... in the long run they would make alot more money!!

8m viewers @ £30 pm average = £240m
30m viewers @£20 pm fixed rate = £600m

and i would be confident that 30m is a real possibility at that price, maybe more!!!

**rolfw** · 14-04-2006

Sorry, disagree, Sky (or any other provider selling a commercial subscription) are not selling single TV set viewing, they are selling rebroadcast rights, so the bigger pub you have, then the bigger audience you will be broadcasting to (that bit can of course be inaccurate, but it is their way of thinking)

If Sky reduced the overall package to £20, and their average is £30 at the moment, creating 240 million in revenue, even if they increased subscribers by 25%, which they probably wouldn't, they would be out of pocket, they would have to go to 12 million (wildly optimistic, 30m is a pipe dream) subscribers to achieve the same figure. They would also be severely out of pocket until they reached that figure.

But we digress, this thread is about commercial subscriptions which give a public house rights to rebroadcast the programme.

**BGonaSTICK** · 15-04-2006

On a slightly different tack, Sky have shown yet again that they believe that they control the FAPL, FACT, the courts and even the law itself. They probably only failed in this case on a technicality, and they actually DO have a frightening amount of power.

They are bullies, and greedy ones at that.

Until the Government stand up to Murdoch and remove his monopoly in this country, this situation will prevail. They harp on about anti-competitive practices and healthy competition, and then cower behind their large oak desks at the thought of upsetting the most powerful man in the world.

Shame on you all. It’s time to stand up and be counted you wimps. We don’t pay you to win any popularity competitions.

I just hope that Tony’s reading this!

**Salty25** · 15-04-2006

Originally Posted by RedDevil_UK

the way i look at it... if sky did 1 package.. everything for £20, everyone would be happy, and sky would have more than 8m viewers... in the long run they would make alot more money!!

8m viewers @ £30 pm average = £240m
30m viewers @£20 pm fixed rate = £600m

and i would be confident that 30m is a real possibility at that price, maybe more!!!

Right on the button there mate. I think £20 IS the maximum fair price. However, I think 15 million is a more realistic audience, still...

8m viewers @ £30 pm average = £240m
15m viewers @ £20 pm fixed rate = £300m

Also, with everyone locked in to the full package (which I dont think the OFT would be happy with, but never mind!), Sky could get increased advertising revenue for Sky Movies and Sports.

amerwaqar · 16-04-2006

So pubs have the right to show live PL games on satuardays, does this mean that hotels can do the same.

**Salty25** · 16-04-2006

Originally Posted by amerwaqar

So pubs have the right to show live PL games on satuardays, does this mean that hotels can do the same.

No, no one has the right in the UK. This pub just got lucky.

***wod*** · 04-05-2006

The Premier League has warned pub landlords that if they chose to screen premiership matches without subscribing to Sky they would be breaking the law - in spite of a recent court ruling.

A growing number of publicans have signed on to screen premiership matches via satellite from broadcasters based in other countries.
Publicans pay between £500 and £1,400 a month for the right to show Sky's coverage of premiership football, depending on the size and rateable value of their pub.

If they sign up to receive coverage by foreign broadcasters, marketed by companies such as pubfootball.co.uk, they can show most of the premiership matches at a fraction of the cost.
One company, Soccer-Vision, claims to offer more than 85% of all televised FA games shown for a fee of £595 plus the cost of a viewing card - which it says amounts to less than £6 a week.
Dan Johnson, spokesman for the Premier League, told Five Live's Wake Up to Money: "We're looking to take action against the suppliers, because quite often the publicans unwittingly buy these satellite systems and install them and basically it is illegal."

Judge's ruling
But lawyers for 25 publicans who have used foreign broadcasts to show premiership football say they are more confident than ever that what they are doing is legal.
Last month Brian Gannon, the owner of the Fisherman's Inn near Rochdale, won his appeal in the crown court against a private prosecution brought by the Federation against Copyright Theft.

It had claimed he was illegally using a Greece-based broadcast to show live premiership TV.
The judge ruled otherwise.
Paul Dixon, from the solicitors Molesworth Bright Clegg, said: "Many of these cases are coming to trial in the next few months. We have cases in Portsmouth, in London, in Surrey, Wigan, Liverpool, Manchester.
"We're expecting the cases to be successful. It's significant that the Premier League have not appealed the Gannon case up to the divisional court in London."

The Premier League says the Gannon case is a not a landmark case. Companies acting for Sky or the Premier League are pursuing more than 60 cases against pub landlords.
Mike Cobain, the owner of pubfootball.co.uk, says publicans should not be intimidated by legal threats.
He told Wake Up to Money: "The European Union have a directive called 'Broadcasting without frontiers', the principles of which are to promote the free movement of broadcasts from all EU member states."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4968680.stm

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)