BBC to lose a lot of Content by end of the Year

[alunfennell]

BBC are to lose a substantial amount of Americian Content by the end of this year since Sky signed a deal to bring all HBO & other High profile content from America to a New Channel Sky Atlantic to be launched at the end of this year.

Most notable programming from HBO that the BBC will lose out on will be Mad Men & upcoming series Boardwalk Empire along with HBO upcoming and current catalogue of Films made for Telvision such as John Adams etc.

The launch of Sky Atlantic follows the recent announcement that Sky would be closing both Bravo and Channel One/Virgin 1 at the end of the year.

This comes as the BBC has over the past few weeks lost its exclusivity to the Masters golf to Sky Sports and the IAAF World Athletics Championships to Channel 4.

It seriously asks the question what are the BBC doing with licence payers money and losing high profile content from the likes of HBO beggers the question what Crap will they find from other Puplic service broadcaster in America to fill the Void with ?...


BBC will find it hard to replace Like for like of Americian programing as HBO make the bulk of it, even though FOX in America is in competition with HBO Sky have realy pulled of a coup with this move....

Looks like were in for extended nights of Paxman, Norton & the test screen

[gmb45]

no big loss then

[eastonsown]

as long as they keep match of the day

[bosvelt]

they've lost the masters golf as well

[alunfennell]

Yeah the Masters has gone to Sky Sports from this year there F1 contract is up in 2013 a Year after F1 goes HD (Supposed) Sky I am sure would love this to be in 3D on Subscription, and World Cup rights between ITV & BBC runs out in 2014.

The World Cup contract for rights will be even bigger if England secure Hosting the World Cup for 2018, and the Best broadcaster with Satellite Technology and Camera's setup at every football stadium currently is Sky Sports and the Premiership Partners.

It does not Bow well for BBC nor ITV Should England secure the rights to Host the World Cup in 2018 nor does it look so good that it will be televised Free to Air at least in the UK if Sky pick up the rights for a part of it or in its entirety.

[rockbottom]

For the record, The World Cup is a Cat 'A' that must have LIVE coverage made available to free-to-air channels. So doesn't matter where the 2018 is shown or how "big" it will be.

[alunfennell]

For the record, The World Cup is a Cat 'A' that must have LIVE coverage made available to free-to-air channels. So doesn't matter where the 2018 is shown or how "big" it will be.

Thats all about to Change


In Italy this year only one match a day was shown on RAI all the other Matches were on SKY Italia

Germany Sky Deutchland also Showed all Matches (They were also free to Air on ZDF etc )

Middle East Al Jazeera Sports had all the Matches

Norway Viasat Subscription

Portugal SportTV had 18 are exclusive matches via subscription.

The List goes on and on ............But its unlikely that Sky UK are going to sit on there hands if the other Sky Companys across Europe are cashing in on big tournaments.


The days of Free to Air World Cup are coming to an end as Satellite oppeartors have the money to buy exclusive rights , The qualifying is a Different matter and many Countries make a provision to broadcast Free to Air, this does not go for the tournaments once the qualifying is over...

[flyingpig]

I don't think the government will let events such as the world cup be PPV... Oh crap, just remembered what a bunch of shyters we have in the 2 houses... So anything could happen..

[jaapster]

Inevitably there is much discussion to be had about which sport events deserve protected status. The EU criteria is as follows:

Each Member State may take measures in accordance with Community law to ensure that broadcasters under its jurisdiction do not broadcast on an exclusive basis events which are regarded by that Member State as being of national importance for society in such a way as to deprive a sustantial proportion of the public in that Member State of the possibility of following such events by live coverage or deferred coverage on free television.
EU Audio Visual Media Services Directive

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport interprets this as follows:

• It is a pre-eminent national or international event in the sport
• It involves the national team or national representatives in the sport concerned
• It is likely to command a large television audience
• It has a history of being broadcast live of free-to-air services

?Review of Free-to-Air Listed Events? by the Independent Advisory Board to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport interprets this as follows:

• It is a pre-eminent national or international event in the sport
• It involves the national team or national representatives in the sport concerned
• It is likely to command a large television audience
• It has a history of being broadcast live of free-to-air services

?Review of Free-to-Air Listed Events? by the Independent Advisory Board to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Thus the problem arises mr rupert murdoch in his infinite wisdom thinks that "screw the viewing public) i,m gonna put the world cup and the olympics on pay TV

Okay do that ,but then be open to every single premiership club opening their own pay TV channel showing their matches live.

The protection of our so called national treasures,aka grand national ,FA cup,olympics,world cup,even champions league finals means what it says protected! when you take away that protection ,premier league clubs would proceed straight to the courts and demand they be allowed to show theyre own fixtures,its a double edged sword ,Mr murdoch cant have it both ways.

My opinion leave it as it is! some pensioner wants to watch the olympics or the world cup,but they cant because its on SKY,
wrong, wrong.leave it as it is or else open up a can of worms!