The way UEFA have sold the rights hasn't done coverage of the Home Nations any favours. Now qualifier rights are sold collectively it pretty much rules out BBC and ITV in the nations being able to buy them independently, unlike previously when the FAs sold their home matches so the BBC especially could go and buy the rights to Scottish, Welsh and NI games and snap up the away games on a match by match basis too. Of course as the home nations fortunes improved Sky took an interest and the FAs took the money, but at least they were in control of where their games were broadcast.
It wouldn't be so bad if ITV could switch their "best of the rest" game shown on ITV4 each matchday to a home nations match instead.
It wouldn't be so bad if ITV could switch their "best of the rest" game shown on ITV4 each matchday to a home nations match instead.
The inevitable problem is that, offered a choice between Slovakia v Scotland or Netherlands v France, I'm pretty sure more people in the UK as a whole would watch the latter. Especially as England and Scotland were playing at the same time.
But there used to be a time when STV would actually opt out of showing England matches on the Network and give us some other drivel like MIdsomer Murders in it's place.
Yeah they opted out of The Bill as well after some sort of legal dispute with ITV which ended up with STV paying £18 Million to ITV. They also opted out of a few dramas that were networked but I can't recall what they were.
Wasn't that because STV had a dispute with ITV at the time? Some other programming wasn't shown in Scotland as well - not just the football.
If it's the FA Cup you're talking about, then no, that was a separate issue and the England games were not shown in Scotland long after the STV/ITV dispute.
Yeah they opted out of The Bill as well after some sort of legal dispute with ITV which ended up with STV paying £18 Million to ITV. They also opted out of a few dramas that were networked but I can't recall what they were.
I think they most famously opted out of Downton Abbey.
But there used to be a time when STV would actually opt out of showing England matches on the Network and give us some other drivel like MIdsomer Murders in it's place.
When STV opted out previously I believe they were withholding a proportion of their contribution to the network programme budget for the programming they didn't show.
Now, however, they have an affiliate arrangement with ITV whereby they pay a flat fee for the entire schedule, whereas ITV fund the entire network programme budget. So in the case of England games now, STV are showing what they have already payed for. If they opt out now, it's to their loss.
Yeah they opted out of The Bill as well after some sort of legal dispute with ITV which ended up with STV paying £18 Million to ITV. They also opted out of a few dramas that were networked but I can't recall what they were.
I think they most famously opted out of Downton Abbey.
But there used to be a time when STV would actually opt out of showing England matches on the Network and give us some other drivel like MIdsomer Murders in it's place.
When STV opted out previously I believe they were withholding a proportion of their contribution to the network programme budget for the programming they didn't show.
Now, however, they have an affiliate arrangement with ITV whereby they pay a flat fee for the entire schedule, whereas ITV fund the entire network programme budget. So in the case of England games now, STV are showing what they have already payed for. If they opt out now, it's to their loss.
Is that true in all cases? The reason I'm querying that is STV did opt out of the England FA Cup games for "commercial reasons" and this was after the affiliate agreement.
On the news at teatime, Rose mentioned a programme "coming up tonight on ITV" but then at the end of the report said that it was on "tonight on UTV". Not sure if it was a slip of the tongue, deliberate or bad wording of the autocue which made it sound like the programme was on another channel but that UTV would also be showing it.