Home Ashes to return to free-to-air TV

[superkingdave]

Terrible news, lets hope someone sees sense somewhere along the line.

[Langeveldt]

Strange how there was such outrage over how cricket was lost to sky, and now there is outrage about the Ashes being lost to terrestrial.. I'm firmly in the pro-terrestrial camp to be honest, it's not like English cricket is starving, and you can see their penchant for the big buck when it came to Stanford, and nobody liked it, so it's a bit rich to say they are holding cricket to ransom now..

What is also worrying is how the Ashes get different treatment to other test cricket.. A step closer to world of English cricket where we only have the Ashes and T20 methinks

I just look at how I can watch more English cricket from the other side of the world, for less money than my parents do, who live a few miles from the county ground in Taunton.. That to me isn't right..

[Neil Pickup]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Less money and popular > More money less popular. That more money would be temporary because the level of interest would go down and the money would eventually dry up too.

Presently we are more money and more popular because of the amount of input in state schools, particularly primary, that is providing a far better introductory window than channel-hopping fluke could ever manage.

[four_or_six]

Originally Posted by Neil Pickup

Presently we are more money and more popular because of the amount of input in state schools, particularly primary, that is providing a far better introductory window than channel-hopping fluke could ever manage.

I'm so impressed when I hear about how much more cricket there is in schools than when my brother and I were younger, and it seems so much better for girls than it was when I was at school. But then again, so is football which has improved amazingly. I had to stop playing that when I was 11 because you can't play with boys after that and there were no teams! Now I see girls playing everywhere.

I think the T20 domestic competition helps a lot too though, as well as the extra Sky money. There's so many kids down at Chelmsford who would probably never get to an international match and they're having a brilliant time.

[TambourineMan]

What nobody has picked up on is that the B list which requires terrestrial highlights and includes Home Test matches and World Cup matches featuring England is being scrapped. That means there's a significant chance that the only cricket on terrestrial TV will be the Ashes, no other series will even get highlights.

[four_or_six]

Originally Posted by TambourineMan

What nobody has picked up on is that the B list which requires terrestrial highlights and includes Home Test matches and World Cup matches featuring England is being scrapped. That means there's a significant chance that the only cricket on terrestrial TV will be the Ashes, no other series will even get highlights.

ffs, so they're going to swap having free-to-air highlights every year for the Ashes live every four years? That's ridiculous.

Acutally, if you look at the changes across all sports, it's terrible. I think they've just put the Ashes in to cover it up.

Being lost:

Full live coverage:

Winter Olympics
Epsom Derby
Rugby League Challenge Cup Final

Highlights only on free-to-air TV:

England's home cricket Test matches
Other matches, excluding finals, at Wimbledon Championships
Other matches, excluding final, at Rugby World Cup
Six Nations matches involving home countries
Commonwealth Games
World Athletics Championships
Cricket World Cup - final, semi-finals and matches involving home nations
Ryder Cup
Open golf championship

[Langeveldt]

I'm not sure what the UK's record in the Winter Olympics is like, but I've never seen anyone get excited about any of the events whatsoever, and I've never seen any bobsledding going on in the Cotswolds.. So fair enough that gets scrapped..

I think T20 is absolutely ideal for terrestrial, and even the domestic cup should be on TV

[wpdavid]

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

I'm not sure what the UK's record in the Winter Olympics is like, but I've never seen anyone get excited about any of the events whatsoever, and I've never seen any bobsledding going on in the Cotswolds.. So fair enough that gets scrapped..

We take an interest on the odd occasion when we're in with a chance. For a while in the 1970's & 1980's that involved various skaters - Curry, Cousins, Torville & Dean. And there was the curling team in 2002. But that's about it. I won't miss it tbh.

[four_or_six]

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

I'm not sure what the UK's record in the Winter Olympics is like, but I've never seen anyone get excited about any of the events whatsoever, and I've never seen any bobsledding going on in the Cotswolds.. So fair enough that gets scrapped..

I think T20 is absolutely ideal for terrestrial, and even the domestic cup should be on TV

Way more excitement and atmosphere where I was when we won the curling gold medal than the 05 Ashes. Was huge, everyone screaming at the TV.

Perhaps not quite so much screaming and excitement as the end of this year's Cardiff test though.

[superkingdave]

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

Strange how there was such outrage over how cricket was lost to sky, and now there is outrage about the Ashes being lost to terrestrial.. I'm firmly in the pro-terrestrial camp to be honest, it's not like English cricket is starving, and you can see their penchant for the big buck when it came to Stanford, and nobody liked it, so it's a bit rich to say they are holding cricket to ransom now..

What is also worrying is how the Ashes get different treatment to other test cricket.. A step closer to world of English cricket where we only have the Ashes and T20 methinks

I just look at how I can watch more English cricket from the other side of the world, for less money than my parents do, who live a few miles from the county ground in Taunton.. That to me isn't right..

Just on this point, at the moment the Ashes is not raised above the rest of test cricket in regards to the tv rights, exclusive home test cricket is sold as a package for all tests. If this gets the go ahead, the Ashes will be separate from other test cricket and we may get even more skewed towards an Ashes schedule.

Conversely if BBC or whomever pays jack **** for the Ashes, which they probably would want to do, then whats to stop the ECB saying, we will make the Ashes a 3 test series cos we can make more money by having a longer series against SA or India on Sky.

[superkingdave]

Quick question...the list if for events to be on free-to-air television...it doesn't say terrestial (because obviously with BBC & C4 they stick in on digital sometimes)

Could the ECB and SKY do a deal where the Ashes would stay on sky but Sky Sports or wherever they put it, would be unencrypted when the Ashes is on? Then SKY would still have exclusive rights, and their advertising revenue for the Ashes would be up a lot. And we would still get the best coverage?

[GIMH]

Sounds like a great idea dav, you should propose it

[Uppercut]

Or they could say, "the Ashes? What are they? This is the Arshes, it's just like any five-test home series against Australia."

[GIMH]

The more I think about this, the more it stinks.

[cover drive man]

Good news for me, not good news money-wise.