The ITV highlights shows have got better since they first started, it seems much more fair and balanced now as the first couple when NI were on last for about 2 minutes at 1am because UTV moved them to a later slot with more time dedicated to England when the match was already live on ITV followed by highlights so fair play to ITV for doing that. It would be good to have our own dedicated highlights on UTV like we used to on BBC NI previously but ITV are doing a good job now so can't complain and it is good for NI fans across the UK.
This is going off the point a bit now, but it's important to realise that there are two different types of highlights shows on ITV for qualifying matches. They can do a highlights show featuring every match at the end of each "round" of fixtures - ie, Saturday and Tuesday when every team has played once - but they can also do another highlights show with England alone because they can show that match as many times as they like because they've also shown it live (like how BT can repeat their live games umpteen times but can only show one minute of the other Premier League games, from Monday). In the round just gone that didn't happen because England were playing on the last day.
In the last international break, however, when England weren't playing on the last day, they did do a separate highlights show but because Scotland are in the same group they were seemingly allowed to do a long edit of their match as well, and they also seemed to do some kind of deal with Sky to get Northern Ireland goals (because in this qualifying campaign they're always playing on the same day as England and Scotland). So they did go the extra mile, and as I say, they are very fair in allocating time to all the home nations in these highlights shows.
You also mention friendlies now being on BBC NI and you are right but initially when the IFA sold the rights to Sky from BBC NI in 2008, Sky had to cover all home matches whether qualifier or friendly and also had to cover a number of Irish League matches per season while the BBC had highlights however when UEFA centralised the rights to ITV and Sky starting with the Euro 2016 qualifiers it meant Sky had to cover all our qualifiers but could drop the extra friendlies and the Irish League and ITV had highlights so BBC NI lost those rights but gained home friendlies. Also the good part of this centralised deal is that it meant Sky had to show all our qualifying matches as they had dropped certain matches in the past.
Well, yes, that is indeed the bonus - every qualifying match will always be on the same channel, unlike in the past when qualifiers could turn up anywhere, like that England game that was only shown on the internet or indeed matches that weren't shown anywhere because the rights holders were demanding too much money. Although it is a bit of a shame that both away qualifiers and Europa League ties are now sold centrally, the two mainstays of ad hoc football coverage.
As you say, now the qualifiers are sold centrally, all the national associations sell themselves are friendlies. The rights to England friendlies are still worth having because they play a lot of prestige friendlies - indeed the contract they have with ITV specifies they're going to play X friendlies a year, and when they had to call one off during the riots a few years ago, they had to shoehorn in another later in the season to meet the contract. But some of the other home nations play hardly any friendlies, Wales have played a very small number in recent times and so the Welsh FA clearly sell them on an ad hoc basis now, hence the last few have ended up on BBC Wales. The same with Northern Ireland.
A few years ago the question of whether the likes of Scotland internationals should be part of the "crown jewels", protected events that must be on terrestrial TV, came up. The SFA fought it tooth and nail, saying it would detrimentally impact on the Scottish game. I'll be honest, given recent performances I'm struggling to see how it could have made things any worse to have a few games on the likes of BBC Scotland.
Whichever way, it's open to the highest bidder. And that's never going to be STV and is unlikely to be BBC Scotland.
I don't know what the situation is in Ireland in terms of protected matches, but their international friendly during the week was on RTE.
Well, it can't be done now because of the centralised rights for qualifiers, but I always thought it would have been good for the home nations to have had a deal like England had between 2001 and 2004, and Ireland still have now, where Sky had the rights to everything, friendlies and qualifiers, but the qualifiers were also shown free to air. That seemed to me a good combination of Sky having loads of content and being able to sell themselves as the home of the national teams, but the big occasions could be seen by the whole nation. They never did that, though, and now they never can.
As mentioned, though, Wales and Northern Ireland's friendlies have recently been on the BBC, as those rights are still sold separately. But it looks like the SFA still want to sell their rights to Sky.
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.
Well, they can't, alas, the whole point of the deal was that Sky could get the other home nations exclusively. It's not the case that Sky deliberately bought the rights to the national teams when they were doing OK, Wales were quite good in 2004 when Sky bought them initially but they renewed the contract several times when Wales were absolutely appalling, and similarly Northern Ireland weren't very good when Sky signed them up. They were just after loads more content and more reasons for people in Wales and Northern Ireland to sign up.
In many ways the coverage is now better because you do get this highlights show, like the old days of Sportsnight, so I have seen more of Scotland and Northern Ireland in the last two qualifying campaigns than I have previously because of it. Also as well I haven't actually been able to see the more recent Wales friendlies because I live in England and BBC2 Wales isn't on Virgin (BBC1 Wales is, but not BBC2). In addition, the fact the nations all play at different times on different days (apart from the fact England and Scotland are in the same group, but you know what I mean) means that Five Live can do more commentaries on the various home nations whereas before everyone played at the same time and they always covered England.
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.
The difference in those days too were that ITV were buying the rights off the FA. Now the rights are from UEFA and as I said, I'm pretty sure if they didn't show the live games they wouldn't be able to show the Scotland highlights.
In addition, with the FA Cup you could watch that on a pay channel, whereas if STV opted out of England matches now, viewers in Scotland could watch every single qualifying match for every single country via Sky and ITV4, apart from England.
I now return you to your scheduled discussion on UTV.
