should we have to pay to watch England?

Soldato
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Of course if it's on the BBC your still technically paying to watch that though aren't you.

That said, I'm like weringo... I'd happily pay for Setanta if it wasn't such a huge pain in the arse to get working through a HTPC... I have no freeview box =/
 
Soldato
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The problem is exclusivity, why does it have to be 1 match, 1 channel, if it was sold multiple times the channel that was best would get watched more, or show something else if they know they suck.
 
Soldato
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£10 a month for Setanta would be fine, but unfortunately, if you want to watch England and an EPL side then you've got to pay it on top of what you are already paying for sky.

Also, the whole 'you get 40 EPL games' thing doesn't wash with me because I really don't give toss about any that don't include Newcastle United.

Setanta called me on Monday and gave me Setanta Sports for £5 a month (for three months) with no connection fee. I took it to watch last night's game and then a couple of Newcastle games betwee now and Xmas and then, once it's full price I'll be turning it off again.
 
Caporegime
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Have Sky, and Setanta.
Sky is by far much much better, even if they're commentators are really poor, and pundits.
BBC needs to stop spending money on bad telly, (merlin) and put its money in its pocket and buy the rights for england games, and hell as we all pay tax and tv lincense they should try and get some championship/priemier league games.
 
Soldato
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The problem is exclusivity, why does it have to be 1 match, 1 channel, if it was sold multiple times the channel that was best would get watched more, or show something else if they know they suck.

because why would anyone bid against sky? Theyv already got the pick of the lot of pundits, commentators etc. It would just mean you had someone like channel5 bidding so that people with terrestrial without sky would watch on their channel, and theyd use the same poor quality commentators etc as they do now, and the overall bidding for the rights would be less than the exclusive rights now.
The FA needs money you know, Wembley wasnt free.
 
Associate
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england home games are free on itv with away games show on setanta.

same as in previous years home games on the beeb and away on sky.

im sure it costs a fair bit to get all cameras etc.. to somewhere such as russia to which sky/setanta are willing to pay.. do you really think itv would provide as good a coverage from there? i doubt it.
 
Soldato
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england home games are free on itv with away games show on setanta.

same as in previous years home games on the beeb and away on sky.

im sure it costs a fair bit to get all cameras etc.. to somewhere such as russia to which sky/setanta are willing to pay.. do you really think itv would provide as good a coverage from there? i doubt it.

The last point is void, concidering that ITV coverage of the champions league is on par/if not better than sky's, and thats coverage of 2 simultaneous games, which is sometimes further than Russia.
 
Soldato
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The last point is void, concidering that ITV coverage of the champions league is on par/if not better than sky's, and thats coverage of 2 simultaneous games, which is sometimes further than Russia.

ITV's coverage is terrible and they broadcast in such low bit-rates it's scandalous. Mind, they are better than Setanta who film everything in YouTube quality.
 
Man of Honour
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As far as I'm aware Sky/Setanta don't actually send any cameras out to foreign stadiums for the England/European games they just buy the rights off of the host nation FA and it's that host nation FA who determine the cost of the rights and who gets them, we've all been watching games with obvious home team bias viewing coverage which proves this.
You can't really blame the BBC or ITV if it's only Sky/Setanta who can afford to buy those rights.
 
Soldato
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[DOD]Asprilla;12707658 said:
ITV's coverage is terrible and they broadcast in such low bit-rates it's scandalous. Mind, they are better than Setanta who film everything in YouTube quality.

yup because you made yourself sound really clever there.
 
Caporegime
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Yes he was exagerating but by and large Setanta coverage is woeful in terms of broadcast picture quality. Though, if thats to do with having an extremely tight bandwidth from Sky, or wanting to broadcast one signal and it has to be small enough to get over freeview bandwidth I have no clue, it really is VERY poor quality though even for standard def. To be fair it wouldn't be so noticeable if I didn't watch Skysports in HD.

The thing is, setanta seem to offer HD broadcasts(i think) when they sell their coverage to the asian market, and considering the quality of some of the setanta streams you can get from said markets, it does tend to make you think Sky are screwing Setanta somehow.

But the simple fact stands, we've ALWAYS paid for english football, we're simply paying someone else. It might not cost £10, but you have to buy the whole package to get it, this was the same for English footie on sky and English footie on the BBC aswell. Nothings changed, just who you pay your money to. The fact that BBC haven't reduced their cost after losing the footie, just means you're getting screwed even more than we were before on everything else.

Its high time that BBC are forced to use advert's to pay for their upkeep and ditch the TV licence. Its been a heck of a long time since guarenteed income secured ultra high quality BBC shows, infact its been decades. In fair business their success should be based on how good they are and their viewing figures like all other tv channels. Government backing seems somehow anti competition and completely unfair, overpriced, screws us, the viewer and forces us to pay for something we might not even watch.
 
Soldato
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Hmf i dont find any of them to be that bad, probably because iv sat and watched a few foreign games that really are youtube quality, or im just thankful they are not as bad as internet streams.
 
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