BBC to lose Fa Cup & England rights

dannius · 29-03-2007, 10:37 PM

Heard on the radio tonight that the BBC and Sky are set to lose the rights to the FA Cup and England internationals. Apparently when their existing contract runs out the rights will be going to ITV and Setanta.

Great, instead of HD football on BBC and Sky (which is free in tha case of BBC and for Sky Sports subscribers) we will be treated to mega naff-o-vision on ITV and pay per view on Setanta. Brilliant.

Another nail in the BBC's sports coffin. What next, Wimbledon?

Apparently this will be confirmed in the papers tomorrow.

**johnscarlet** · 29-03-2007, 10:51 PM

ITV and Sentana are bidding for the rights , they have not won them yet . It would have been all over the ITV news tonight , and wasn't.
I would be suprised to see Sky and BBC outbid . I think what will happen is that Sky will get the pick of the games and BBC will have there pick of the rest . Opposite of what happens now I believe . Enabling Sky to stump up more money
And the FA are bound to tip a wink to the BBC . They give excellent coverage of the 1st and 2nd round matches .

John

**Steven** · 29-03-2007, 10:59 PM

Yeah. The news has been announced they will bid against the Beeb for the rights

I have mixed feelings. Whilst the Premiership was rubbish at first with stupid Coca Cola adverts every 2 seconds, they actually started to sort themselves out when the BBC won the rights again. Hmm

P.S. Talking about ITV here. No experience of sentana

Kazman · 29-03-2007, 11:29 PM

ITV's football coverage is woeful. Their bitrates during transmission are woeful. Their commentators are woeful. So erm, it would be rather woeful if they did win it.

Setanta's coverage is supposedly not bad, but I'm loathe to subscribe to another sports channel, Sky is enough for me right now, so I hope Sky and BBC keep the rights.

dannius · 29-03-2007, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnscarlet

ITV and Sentana are bidding for the rights , they have not won them yet . It would have been all over the ITV news tonight , and wasn't.

I'm just going by what was said on 5 Live tonight, they said that the financial papers will announce tomorrow that ITV and Setanta have outbid the BBC and Sky in a £400 Million contract.

I hope i'm wrong, because I like both the BBC's and Sky's coverage of football. As Kazman said ITV's coverage is terrible, almost as bad as Ch 5's.

**Steven** · 30-03-2007, 12:15 AM

Oh

Hope 5 Live have got it wrong then...

And while I type this The Times have the story as well...

I really hate adverts... I'd even put up with Ian Wright!

**johnscarlet** · 30-03-2007, 8:00 AM

Well , having made my post last night , I scoured the BBC website and DigitalSpy , nothing on either . Shut down the PC go to bed and whats on the tickerbar of 60 second update on BBC3 ? yes BBC/Sky lose the rights . Spent the next 30 minutes watching News24 for a 30second bit on the story .
However
It does not seem its a done deal just yet , as there has been no official announcement . £400mil is lot of money for not a lot of games . Especially with England performing the way they are .

John

MonkeyKnuckle · 30-03-2007, 10:38 AM

This is pretty bad news for HD subscribers especially, no more HD England or FA Cup.

po_man · 30-03-2007, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kazman

ITV's football coverage is woeful. Their bitrates during transmission are woeful. Their commentators are woeful. So erm, it would be rather woeful if they did win it.

Setanta's coverage is supposedly not bad, but I'm loathe to subscribe to another sports channel, Sky is enough for me right now, so I hope Sky and BBC keep the rights.

Couldn't have put it better myself!

BrianC · 30-03-2007, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonkeyKnuckle86

This is pretty bad news for HD subscribers especially, no more HD England or FA Cup.

Agreed, leaves me with very little sport that I actually want to watch live in HD. I might as well watch a web stream for football than the awful quality picture that ITV put out.

This coupled with the new prem split between Sky/Prem Plus and Setanta means it will be a lot cheaper to go to see villa at the actual match than pay for all that TV coverage just for football.

Tsunami · 30-03-2007, 12:04 PM

I have Sky HD & have absolutely no intention of paying to watch any England friendly games on Setanta; even if it involves topless go go dancers as the HT entertainment. That goes for the FA Cup games they will show as well. This may make fans actually go to FA Cup games which would be no bad thing.

Disappointing that ITV will not screen HD but at least you're not having to pay for it.

Reepicheep · 30-03-2007, 12:20 PM

This is confirmed on BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6509141.stm

All England home games will be shown exclusively live on ITV (good news for us non-Sky sports subscribers).

Kazman · 30-03-2007, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reepicheep

This is confirmed on BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6509141.stm

All England home games will be shown exclusively live on ITV (good news for us non-Sky sports subscribers).

It's not good news at all. ITV's broadcast quality is so poor that it's difficult to see where the ball is on the pitch sometimes!!

This is a poor move, and I for one am very upset at this. It's a big shame, the quality of coverage is so superior on BBC and Sky that it really shows up ITV for their incomeptencies.

overkill · 30-03-2007, 12:27 PM

Fabulous!

Crappy, tacky, trashy ITV coverage of the cup final and England games. Christ, even less reason to watch the latter then. Having watched Setanta 'over there' I don't hold out much hope for their coverage either.

While losing Motty for the FA cup final isn't going to cause any heartache, losing the Beeb coverage overall is.

Reepicheep · 30-03-2007, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kazman

It's not good news at all. ITV's broadcast quality is so poor that it's difficult to see where the ball is on the pitch sometimes!!

This is a poor move, and I for one am very upset at this. It's a big shame, the quality of coverage is so superior on BBC and Sky that it really shows up ITV for their incomeptencies.

I'd rather see a fuzzy ball than none at all

lostinspace · 30-03-2007, 1:43 PM

Apparently the Beeb and sky bid about £380m and ITV/Setanta £425m.

But it shouldn't just be about the money. The FA have taken the cash instead of looking at the quality of the coverage offered by the two bidders.

Obviously the FA need the extra money for all the redundancy payments of the crappy England managers they have to keep paying out.

Kazman · 30-03-2007, 1:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lostinspace

Apparently the Beeb and sky bid about £380m and ITV/Setanta £425m.

But it shouldn't just be about the money. The FA have taken the cash instead of looking at the quality of the coverage offered by the two bidders.

Obviously the FA need the extra money for all the redundancy payments of the crappy England managers they have to keep paying out.

Well said that man, the FA don't really care about quality it seems, look at the England manager for a start.

TopMeTom · 30-03-2007, 2:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kazman

Well said that man, the FA don't really care about quality it seems, look at the England manager for a start.

Top comment!

I will not pay setanta to watch that pile of rubbish.

RMCF · 30-03-2007, 2:16 PM

I too think it is bad news - ITV is tabloid TV - they always seem to have crap presenters and analysts - most of them incredibly annoying to listen to.

I realise that Shearer isn't 'Mr Exciting' but he sort of knows what he's on about. Hansen is getting a bit repetitive but Lineker is much easier to listen to than ANYBODY from ITV, especially that Gabby Yorath boot !!

And ITVs PQ is shocking at times.

But there are some posts on here that make it sound like the Beeb coverage is free. Ever heard of the licence fee?

JohnG · 30-03-2007, 3:39 PM

Agree that it's bad news as ITV broadcasts at such low bitrates a lot of the time I find it painful to watch

The England home games are usually shown on BBC so there's no gain for non Sky Sports subscribers either.

overkill · 30-03-2007, 3:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RMCF

I too think it is bad news - ITV is tabloid TV - they always seem to have crap presenters and analysts - most of them incredibly annoying to listen to.

I realise that Shearer isn't 'Mr Exciting' but he sort of knows what he's on about. Hansen is getting a bit repetitive but Lineker is much easier to listen to than ANYBODY from ITV, especially that Gabby Yorath boot !!

And ITVs PQ is shocking at times.

But there are some posts on here that make it sound like the Beeb coverage is free. Ever heard of the licence fee?

Agreed. Apart from the last one. Yes we pay a licence fee, but, as ITV's cash is advertisement generated, and every advertised product you buy has fees to cover that built into the cost, ITV's costing you even more.

It's not as if it's even worth it either!

Reepicheep · 30-03-2007, 5:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnG

Agree that it's bad news as ITV broadcasts at such low bitrates a lot of the time I find it painful to watch

The England home games are usually shown on BBC so there's no gain for non Sky Sports subscribers either.

I think only home games away from Wembley (not all) were shown on the BBC live. I'm sure that before the Wembley redevelopment started Sky had exclusive rights to England Wembley home games.

davepuma · 30-03-2007, 5:58 PM

So the FA have went with the buck! Don't they realise that ITV's record of showing football is nothing short of woeful? Premiership? Terrible pic quality? Crap presenters? Advert interuptions? BBC and Sky have a proven track record of broadcasting good quality football. ITV have not. Setanta will no doubt invest and hopefully it won't be as bad as some of the poor quality they show at the moment.

I still can't believe that we'll have to put up with the shoddy broadcast quality from ITV though! What about HD?

Reepicheep · 30-03-2007, 9:02 PM

Aren't Sky one the of biggest share holders in ITV now. I thought they bought a load of shares to stop Richard Branson buying ITV.

*triplea4uk* · 30-03-2007, 9:04 PM

Yes Sky own about 18% so I can see them setting up some sort of deal with ITV to have a HD channel.

dannius · 30-03-2007, 9:10 PM

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news guys.

samjpullen · 30-03-2007, 9:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dannius

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news guys.

Lets stone him

**Steven** · 31-03-2007, 8:34 AM

MOTD Editor response

As for Dannius, that's too much work... I prefer defenestration

Sonic67 · 02-04-2007, 9:13 AM

The F.A. don't like the BBC. Will ITV treat them better?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle1596765.ece

domtheone · 03-04-2007, 1:40 PM

Would echo most of the comments here.

FA don't realy care about anything other than money, that's a given.

ITV coverage is usally crap, poor quality, crap ratio's etc etc.

Only good thing that might come out of this mess is that Motty might retire as he's well past his sell by date.