euro news1112v3_news 10/12/2015 18:20 Page 6
hree quarters of
English football fans
(77%) would like
more live Premier League
games available on TV, new
research reveals.
The research, carried out
among more than 1,000 football
fans and commissioned by Virgin
Media, said that two-thirds
believe the rising cost of Premier
League live TV rights means they
will pay too much to watch live
football. Only 6% of fans say they
were able to watch every match
T
benefit from the new rights deal,
while over half (53%) think the
FA Premier League itself will be
the main beneficiary.
Some 70% of football fans
21% over the last eight years, yet
the price of the rights has
increased nearly 200% over this
period. Meanwhile in the US, for
example, NBC is reported to have
paid around £660m for six
seasons’ worth of TV rights,
showing all 380 Premier League
matches. This means that US
football fans are able to watch
more Premier League live
football than UK TV viewers.
With similar ‘all games’ deals
across Europe (for three seasons)
UK football fans pay twice as
much to watch half
the games as fans in
Europe. When asked
about this
arrangement 72% of
English football fans
branded it unfair with
over 60% of fans believing the
increased cost is to the benefit of
clubs.
With some fans not being able
to afford subscriptions to watch
live Premier League football, or
some of their team’s games
falling into the 212 games not
shown on UK television, it’s not
uncommon for fans to miss their
team’s matches.
When asked what they do in
this situation, 28% of fans say
they miss the match altogether
with 20% watching games at the
pub and over one in 10 fans
(13%) streaming games via a
website they don’t need to pay
for. Over 70% of football fans
said would like be able to watch
more of their team’s games live
on TV than they currently are
able to.
According to Tom Mockridge,
chief executive officer of Virgin
Media, football fans are getting
a raw deal. “They pay the
highest prices in Europe to
watch top-flight football on TV
yet are denied some of the best
matches. Ofcom should show
the red card to the Premier
League and the way in which TV
rights are sold in the UK.”
In terms of the Ofcom
investigation, Mockridge said it
was time the regulator decided
whether an auction structure
based on now expired
commitments agreed in 2006
justifies a self-determined
exemption from competition law.
“The results surely speak for
themselves, over the same period
the cost of live TV rights has
rocketed by nearly 200 per cent,”
he observed.
“Collaboration is the new
world order for engaging
fans, viewers, and customers.
Working with new creators
from different media and
disciplines are the new types
of partnerships that will make
us successful.”
“As content creators,
we’ve never had it so good,”
she said. “The appetite for
content has never been
greater, and there has never
been a better time to be in
story-telling. Relative
newcomers such as Netflix,
Amazon and Hulu are often
painted as disruptors,
threatening to topple the old
media establishment, but
they’ve also provided new
opportunities for talent,
more windows in our
distribution chain, and most
importantly, more
opportunities for viewers to
watch their favourite shows
and to discover many more.
Clearly, they are having an
impact on the funding and
distribution models that
we’ve all been used to,” she
noted.
She said that demand for
content had never been so
strong, whether snacking on
mobile devices, or losing
whole weekends at a time on
binge-watching. “So it’s not
technology that is the threat,
nor is there ‘too much good
television’.”
Virgin Media: Fans demand
more Live TV football
Some 70% of football
fans think it is unfair
that they have to buy
both Sky and BT bundles
they wanted to on TV at home.
The research was published as
Ofcom approached the first
anniversary of its investigation
into the sale of Premier League
rights. The regulator launched its
investigation in November 2014
following a formal complaint
from Virgin Media.
In February 2015, the Premier
League struck a deal with BT and
Sky worth over £5 billion
(€7.1bn) to show just 168 out of
380 games on UK television
(44% of games). Only 13% of
football fans think fans will
think it is unfair that they have to
buy both S