By James Mills
England has won the Ashes!
But while we revel in this feat the fact is that there were probably more Australian than English viewers watching the Ashes this summer. This is due to the fact that they guarantee free live sports on their terrestrial television channels like SBS - the Australian version of Channel 4 - through anti-siphoning legislation. Thereby preventing it going off whole sale to pay-per-view TV companies.
This is something which I find very sad as one of the best things about the England Cricket team for me is that it’s not just the English cricket team. During my time in Scotland I was always surprised by how many Scots I knew who would hate England in rugby and football, yet followed England at cricket. One old Caledonian work colleague of mine use to travel down every year to Headingly when there was a test on. I even met a student SNP activist who admitted to me that he supported England! I would love to know how many newsletters the ECB send north of the border every year. But it wasn’t just a plethora of Scots I knew that followed England; many Irish relatives of mine also support England in cricket and were cheering on the victory yesterday.
There is a large terrestrial audience across the UK for live sporting events such as the Ashes. When Channel 4 last showed the Ashes they had a peak of over 8 million viewers watching the live coverage and the figures get higher when you go back to the viewing figures in previous years. Even more impressive is the 19 million who tuned in to watch the Third Test in 2005 or 23 Million who tuned in to watch the final Test at the Oval in 2005. In addition, Channel Five's first Ashes highlights of The Cardiff Test had 1.4million viewers, which was a peak for that channel.
Now compare that with Sky’s live coverage which averages well under a million (for some England Tests as low as 200,000). Or even their highest ever recorded viewing figures for cricket which is the 1.5 million people who witnessed England's defeat of India during the Twenty20 World Cup. I’m sure their figures were very high for yesterday, but nowhere near the numbers terrestrial television garner.
The fact is that the British public love live sporting events, for example; 11 million people alone tuned in to the BBC to watch the men's Wimbledon final back in June. Sky Sports with a total of 8 million subscribers could never dream of such audiences for a British sporting event.
Currently all free-to-air TV sporting events come under the A-list. Events such as; the European Football Championships, the Football World Cup, the Olympics, Wimbledon's tennis finals, the Grand National etc, are all protected by this list. Test match cricket use to be on the list but was taken off in 1999 and subsequently the ECB sold all cricket coverage post 2006 to Sky.
But back in December last year the government asked the former Executive Director of the FA David Davies to chair the-Free-To-Air-Events-Review, which is to re-examine the listed sporting events made available to free-to-air TV. They are set to report back to Ministers at the DCMS this autumn. The panel has a mandate to recommend sporting events that should be added or removed from the list or ultimately if the list should be terminated all together. But the final say resides with the Government and here is an opportunity for Labour to take the initiative on a vital issue.
Although the next home Ashes series in 2013 has already been sold to Sky, the Government could act following the report’s publication to persuade Sky into offering free coverage of one days play or even one Test match free to air. Especially if the government made it clear that the alternative would be the Ashes returning to the A-list in 2017.
The ECB would probably resist this for many millions of reasons. They simply don’t understand or refuse to recognise that for Test cricket to continue remaining popular in this country, the English Cricket Team needs to be not just successful but also accessible to the greater public. Furthermore, as cricket will be receiving £37.8m worth of public money from Sport England between 2009-13 - more than any other sport – it also has an obligation to do so.
I’m not advocating necessarily that every Test of an Ashes series should be given over to free to air TV channels or that we should have a similar set up as the Australians, as pay-per- view companies like Sky have revolutionised coverage of sporting events from football to golf. However, not everyone can afford to pay for the pay-per-view service and are forced to use legally dubious websites to watch sport online. Plus, although you’re likely to hear every sport journalist under sun say that these Ashes prove that Test cricket is still popular. No cricket fan would say that these Ashes were on the same scale as 2005 when everyone was able to follow every Test match. And how much longer will Test cricket be able to captivate this country in the same way if it’s denied a larger audience?
How do we expect Test cricket to remain popular if access to it is denied to the vast majority of the British public. Football and other sports are still shown (although infrequently) on free-to-air TV. So why shouldn’t cricket be afforded the same protection?
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No but I remember Geoff Boycott battin for 3 days and hittin 300 plus with not'n but his mother's stick o' rhubarb! And it were live for whole 36 hours on t'BBC! What's wrong wit' young people o' t'day!
Sorry!
Haven't you been paying attention?
OK. New Slogan: Vote Labour 2010 and Win the World Cup!
Also I dont over hype the figures, they stand for themselves and are well documented!
How good were we at the Olympics, Cricket, or Football under Thatcher? I expect some extensive exposes of this on LL.
Oh, and I am only kidding.
Unbelievable. Un-bloody-believable. These people should be barred from cricket.
They're the kind of idiots who turn up to matches, drink themselves silly, sing their stupid songs incessantly and boo opposition players and hurl abuse at the umpires whenever a decision doesn't go their way.
Sky's coverage of the European Tour etc. and some satellite tour coverage is something a channel like BBC is unlikely to want to cover.
I also think you over hype the amount of people who would watch Test cricket and county cricket apart from the real high profile series like the Ashes. THe 3/4/5 day game is generally for the purists with one day and twenty:20 pulling in the general public.
In a society of instant gratification, wall to wall coverage of soccer, rugby and other sports where a gam eis decided within 2 hours, getting lots of people into county grounds all day for a middling county game is not likely to work.
Personally I'd shake up the entire county championship and appoint a fixed number of franchises and run it a little like American Football. The counties could still keep teir identity for the 50, 40 and 20 over competitions.
I still thin money wise the sport is best served by full coverage rights going on a biggest bid for pay per view tv and an extended highlights package (45 minutes is not enough) going to a free view provider.
I don't see why cricket (or other sports) should suffer because the BBC wastes millions on poor programming and salaries.
and of course there's already TMS - brilliant and rich live broadcasting uniquely suited to the game; free-to-air, free-to-web, available to all.
Cricket is important, it is part of our identity within the Commonwealth, and our Government should do all it can to keep it as a mass appeal sport, despite what the Cricket authorities themselves think.
The world evolves. people move on. Only the fossils stay in the past.
Fossilation has 2 sides. How green is it and more to the point how life enhancing are they. Think we should be told.
firstly charles and now the master himself. wow.
This site is sure enough becoming a magnet and I cannot congratulate you enough Alex!
The BBC is also a well respected and lucrative commercial brand. Take a look at 'BBC Worldwide' - the commercial arm that sells our content around the world.
With my model - people who are enthusiastic about Cricket, could make a difference themselves without having to rely on Government. The ECB could do a deal with the production company producing BBC branded sport to show County Cricket around the world.
The BBC has a wider audience than just the UK. You could have 100'000 people watching County Cricket in the UK and 3 million people in Asia. i.e. The BBC is a brand that could be used to secure more funding of Cricket in the UK and improved TV coverage for a relatively small UK audience.
Of course, Cricket could also lose out under my model. However, we have seen that competition for Cricket television rights has improved coverage. I love Sky's "hotspot" camera for instance.
With my model, we still get free to air television, but we also introduce competition and the ability for genuine enthusiasts to make a difference.
Until then we can continue writing to BBC Points Of View - and nothing will change. Finally - I still hope that our next Prime minister will be putting their energy into bigger problems.
Did you even watch the Ashes? It was a tight finish!! We won 2-1 yesterday!
But don’t worry the Ashes won’t be back to these shores for another 4 years, so I am sure you can stomach this for one day!
Cheer up!!
There are some meaty subjects about even during the recess...
The US is not very happy that the Scottish government has freed a convicted terrorist - Brown has yet to comment. There's a whiff of a UK government connection to Libyan trade through Mandelson.
A leaked MoD report shows that failings in government is killing soldiers in Afghanistan.
US, French, German and Japanese economies are starting to lurch out of recession. Yet we haven't hit rock bottom in our yet.
Despite twisted reporting and Labour's love-fest on Twitter about the NHS; another opinion poll has the Tories more trusted with the NHS than Labour.
Still.... England won the Ashes.
Unfortunately it will always be a political issue while the ECB relies on public money. Hence why they can’t afford to rely on Sky revenue alone to subsidize their revenue. They have to keep growing the game. From what you said it was for you like me, public broadcasting of Cricket that got you hooked.
Gower et al were all originally presenters on the BBC. Most presenters follow the sport than the money. Plus who says we can’t find new one?
Also golf coverage on the BBC is much better than pay-per-view TV channels like Sky in my opinion, and that of most people I have spoken to in the game. But I do admit that they have led in certain areas and that is why I advocate a fair balance between the two, not a one side gets all with either free-to-air or pay-per-view TV holding the entire Series.
Also as for the technological advances, Channel 4 brought in the first version of Hawkeye. Plus just look at BBC iplayer and other new media experiments which are light years at present of pay-per-view channels. Plus you generally find if a Channel comes up with a good idea, like hawkeye for example, then the others soon adopt it.
In addition, with the advancement of the switch to digital TV, the likes of the BBC will probably have individual Sports channels or make online options available on the iplayer.
Lastly, I agree with your sentiments that this should be about what’s best for the game and that is why it should be returned to the free-to-air TV market in some way. In doing so we increase the audience interest of our game and guarantee the next generation taking up the sport and passing it down.
Having been a county cricket player you will understand that attendances of the county game in this country needs a serious injection. I feel that boat was missed after 2005 when cricket caught the country’s imagination. Free-to-air coverage ensures that we can make sure we maintain and develop the publics love of cricket.
ROFL! I once asked a mate why he went to cricket matches and (knowing me well) he said what would be better than to sit in the sun sipping beer for an afternoon. I replied that it would be OK as long as I could take a portable DVD player and watch something else more interesting. :-D
Just trying to understand why this is article is relevant?
A
The government should have much bigger fish to fry and working out why Cricket deserves free to air coverage at the expense of other sports isn't one of them.
I'd like to see the government break a few eggs (actually a lot of eggs) at the BBC. Reform of the BBC is necessary. But once the BBC has been re-focused, I say leave it to the BBC to decide whether they put their money into tennis, Formula 1 or whatever.
Any new model for BBC should include a mechanism that keeps them on their toes and punishes them for complacency. Maybe different production companies , for instance, could bid to propose and produce BBC branded content? i.e. the company producing all BBC sports might be replaced after 5 years if someone else comes up with better proposals.
With my model, we might break the BBC's continual interest in tennis, because we may end up with sports television produced by a company that isn't based in middle class urban liberal west London.
It will never happen, but we do need legislation against cross media ownership, and against companies owning more than one newspaper. And we need legislation against foreign ownership, or non-dom ownership, of the media.
I grew up on watching test matches in the summer on the BBC and still remember where I was during "Botham's Ashes".
But the points I would make are these:
* Test match coverage, the technology, the insights etc. are significantly better now with Sky coverage than they ever were with the BBC and that is largely down to money.
I seriously doubt the BBC (or any other broadcaster) could afforde a line up of Botham, Gower, Hussain, Atherton, Lloyd, Warne and Holding, plus the many many hours of coverage, highlights, analysis and special features that Sky run.
Just like the Premier League coverage Sky is light years ahead of other channels.
* The revenue generated by Test Cricket and International Cricket in general is the only thing that keeps County Cricket alive. Reduce the fees the ECB receive from TV coverage and you'll only damage the country structure and county leagues (which I played in).
* I also doubt there is any other broadaster with the channel coverage who could afford to have the number of hours set aside for Test cricket as Sky does. It always used to infuraite me when the BBC would leave the Test match for some antiques show at lunchtime or horse racing on a weekend afternoon in an attempt to fit everything in.
The worst period used to be around Wimbledon fortnight when neither cricket fan nor tennis fan got what they wanted with coverage constantly jumping about between the two.
* The best solution I believe should be the best price that can be got for pay to view wall to wall coverage with a free to view 2 hour highlights package offered to 5, BBC, Channel 4 etc.
I know people from the left will want "anyone" to be able to watch but the revenue from Test cricket and the Ashes Tests in particular support the counties, grounds and international team year in year out and that shold take precedence.
I'd also say I remember when the Ryder Cup went from BBC to Sky and I was mortified when I missed it one year and had to follow on ceefax. However there's no doubt that like with the Ashes, sky's coverage of the Ryder Cup improved the content (all day, highlights, build up etc.), amount and buy-in from the players in a way the BBC never could.
This discussion should be about what is best for tha game of cricket and what is the best way to help England having a winning Test team. That I have to say is without doubt having Sky carry on pumoing cash into the game and providing excellent coverage.
Politics really should stay well out of this issue.
What’s the point just posting negative statements for the sake of being negative?
How can you compare them then?
So you felt closed off because you didn't buy a Sky subscription for the Ashes?
Like I said, in 2005 it was real underdog v the world's best; this time round it was far more evenly matched. Sporting success was also a bit thin on the ground at the time. Since then we've also done well at the Olympics.
As a die-hard fan you must also know that most of the Ashes test matches in 2005 were also incredible one-offs. Edgbaston's tight finish only happens once in a lifetime - literally. You cannot expect that kind of tension every 2 years; it just doesn't happen.
By making viewers pay, the ECB is doing us a great service.
Suggestions to let it take up a free to air channel are strongly to be resisted by and sentient and awake UK human being.
I have not managed to go to any of the Test matches this summer as Headingly didn’t make the last day and I missed out on the few tickets available at the end of last year that went in a matter of hours for both Lords and the Oval.
I listen to TMS when I am at the cricket, or even if I am watching it on Sky. As it is the best cricket commentary in the world – FACT!
I never questioned the atmosphere inside the ground. More the fact that less people seemed able to watch the Ashes, as they were as in 2005, these Ashes felt as though not everyone in the country was able to follow it. This series felt more closed off and removed from everyone. I attribute this to the viewing figures and on a personal level to those people who are not Cricket fanatics like myself and were not as involved this time round as they were in 2005.
But if you are seriously telling me that as many people followed this Ashes as they did the 2005 and that there was not an appetite here to replicate those Ashes when 40% of the country tuned in to watch the last Test match at the Oval... well.. then you’re living on another planet.
I agree with your point that Sky have advanced coverage of live sports –I said it in my article did you read it? – but I believe that there needs to be greater balance for the future of the game we both love to attract more young people to the game.
Lastly, I would like to see any political party support this idea, but being a Labour party member I obviously wanted Labour to raise the issue, hence why I posted here.
In terms of atmosphere and quality, I have to say I found 2005 to have been much, much better. The booing of Ricky Ponting was disgraceful, and a sad reflection on society; quite why such scum, who are only interested in getting drunk and don't have a clue about cricket, are allowed into the grounds in the first place is anyone's guess.
It would be great if Test cricket was brought back onto free-to-air television, but, unfortunately, I just can't see it happening...
Nothing was done about Ashes Cricket in 2005 by this government and it has been inexorably slow since.
Cricket for many decades (and speaking as a life long Warwickshire fan and attendee to many Test matches including this year's fantastic Ashes campaign) has been a poor relation to football. Cricket cannot survive on attendences at grounds which for some minor games barely reach over 1,000 spectators. It will be television money that continues to revive the fortunes of the game. Sponsorship also has an excellent grassroots element to bring new blood into the game.
Did you actually go to any of the games this summer? I beg to differ on the atmosphere compared to 2005; the games were fantastically well supported by all fans and the atmosphere in the grounds were superb as the series ebbed and flowed. 2005 had the anticipation of winning back the Ashes after such a long time and against one of the all-time great Aussie teams. This time it was much more evenly matched. I was at Lord's and the Oval and it certainly did not disappoint; as always Brits and Aussies sat together all ages, men and women, beers all around and great banter.
Celebrate that rather than moan. Fiercely competitive on the pitch, friendly and jovial in the stands.
In terms of coverage, the Sky coverage was streets ahead of anything C4 or the BBC can produce. It is a simple matter of priorities; if the BBC are happy to pay millions for F1 and not Ashes cricket then that is that; personally I hate everything Wimbledon stands for but the BBC would rather pour its money into it.
You are clearly not a fan because any supporter will tell you that if you cannot be at the ground - you listen to TMS. Channel 5 also did a very good highlights programme for an hour each night too with excellent analysis and interviews.