SKY / Pub court case

[clapham_gull]

This will be one worth keeping an eye on this summer...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jan/22/premier-league-sky-setanta-pub-landlords-european-union

Interesting what will happen if the Premier League loses the case.

For a comparison, I guess you can look at the music industry.

Europe probes 'rip off' Apple iTunes pricing • The Register

Apple said that they had to charge more for downloads since the licensing agreements in the UK were more expensive. The EU thought that, that in itself was possibly illegal.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

£9000 is a lot of dosh to recoup each year for showing SKY in your pub, I always wondered what the charge was. I am sure it will end up in landlords still paying some cash, Murdoch will have his top laywers on it.

 

[Wardy]

Have to say that in the long run it may be a good thing for football. It will mean less money being pumped into the Premier Leauge which will close the gap between the top clubs and the rest of the footballing world.

 

[Djmiles]

I feel sorry for the Premier League, they are only getting paid a meagre £2.7 billion in TV rights for 3 years. They need all the money they can get.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

The Prem/Sky/Setanta have goofed on this one. The landlords have not used pirated cards and decoders. The have purchased official "Nova" cards obtained through the "grey market" and used perfectly legal satellite receivers. The Prem sold the live TV rights to other European and International broadcasters and the landlords are exploiting this as the selling of goods (satellite subscription cards) is considered to be free trade within EU member states. If you ran a pub and it was costing £9k a year to show sports events you would jump at the offer of paying £500 for a 12 months card and buying a £250 satellite receiver. Sky are being a bit hypocritical when you see all the bars and clubs in Spain showing SkySports as you have to be a subsciber in the UK and ROI to watch them legally.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

£9000 is a lot of dosh to recoup each year for showing SKY in your pub, I always wondered what the charge was.

A landlord would have to sell an awful lot of pints just to break even on that £9000. People in pubs on the whole would be just as happy watching Sky Sports News IMHO rather than, say, Villa v Stoke live. Not enough people really care anymore. It's not an EVENT. It's just wallpaper.

Went to Kos last year and on a Saturday afternoon you could walk through the nearest bar street and pick from literally any of the 3pm kick-offs. I'm pretty sure the taverna owners weren't paying anything more than the charge of the decoder.

Seems inevitable that there's a major readjustment coming in the market value of the Premiership. Oh well.

 

[Spiros]

You could understand landlords paying 9k a year if the football brought loads of punters in, but even those of us who have our own subscriptions and love the game don't want it in our face everywhere we go. If it's not going to make much of a difference in takings why pay more than a few hundred quid for it?

 

[beorhthelm]

premier leauge will simply change their deals with nonUK broadcasters and ther terms of the deal with pubs. net effect of zero i reckon.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

The pubs cannot get away with just paying for a regular Sky subscription because they are for domestic use only. Thats why a beer glass graphic is overlaid on screen for commercial users which tells investigators from Sky/Premier League who travel around the country they are paying the right Sky sub.

 

[Timbo]

£9000 is a lot of dosh to recoup each year for showing SKY in your pub, I always wondered what the charge was.

I think it's worked out on the square meterage of the pub's drinking and eating areas.

I've always thought that if Sky knocked the price down for pubs to about £100 per month most pubs would start showing it, hence they would probably get more money in and do away with problems of people watching it with Greek decoders and the like.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

premier leauge will simply change their deals with nonUK broadcasters and ther terms of the deal with pubs. net effect of zero i reckon.

They wont be able to do that because of the recently introduced EU directive "Television Without Frontiers". Unless the Prem can get Astra & Eutelsat (the satellite owners) to refocus the coverage beams to individual European countries we will still have freedom of choice.

 

[clapham_gull]

They wont be able to do that because of the recently introduced EU directive "Television Without Frontiers". Unless the Prem can get Astra & Eutelsat (the satellite owners) to refocus the coverage beams to individual European countries we will still have freedom of choice.

Which will never be exact anyway - the footprint will always overspill onto neighbouring countries.

 

[Spiros]

But the footprint for Sky overspills from the UK all the way to southern Spain at least - that is some spillage!

 

[ATFC Seagull]

A landlord would have to sell an awful lot of pints just to break even on that £9000. People in pubs on the whole would be just as happy watching Sky Sports News IMHO rather than, say, Villa v Stoke live. Not enough people really care anymore. It's not an EVENT. It's just wallpaper.

Went to Kos last year and on a Saturday afternoon you could walk through the nearest bar street and pick from literally any of the 3pm kick-offs. I'm pretty sure the taverna owners weren't paying anything more than the charge of the decoder.

Seems inevitable that there's a major readjustment coming in the market value of the Premiership. Oh well.

The business idea that they try to sell is that by showing the meaningless games, you get a reputation for being the place to watch football, thus gaining loyal custon for the big games. I think its a joke - the pub I used to work in in Aberystwyth made a massive loss on Prem +, but the landlord felt it was a necessary expense to keep the crowds coming in for the normal Sky games.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

But the footprint for Sky overspills from the UK all the way to southern Spain at least - that is some spillage!

But the size of the dish needed down there is probably going to be at least 1.8m diameter , to pull in the signal