Watching the Ashes on TV: who actually got a chance to see Jofra Archer bowl?
I’ve attended days of Ashes cricket at Edgbaston and Lords (it rained) so far this summer and I have tickets for the Oval in September.
It is not a cheap sporting option in terms of cost of tickets but there is little to beat the atmosphere of a day of Ashes cricket live.
Of course as I’m still working I don’t have time to get to that much more cricket in person and I rely on broadcast media.
The BBC’s Test Match Special remains a superb source of broadcast coverage and it is improving and adapting to new audiences as much as Geoffrey Boycott also still chunters on. Its much less stuffy than it was in my day (I started listening in the 1960s) and it talks more about cricket and less about other things now (I have mixed feelings on that…)
Watching on TV remains problematic and I think that is a significant issue for cricket. We know that the England and Wales Cricket Board don’t think so but there is clearly a mood that when the national team are playing at home matches should be shown free to air by law (as they are in Australia).
As it is coverage remains with Sky. In the days when Murdoch owned Sky there would have been no chance of me paying them a penny any more than I’d buy a copy of The Sun. Those days are gone and Comcast now owns Sky.
However the Murdoch era practices remain. Sky has a main sports channel on which it shows what it thinks is they key sporting event of the moment (I suspect this is based on a ratio of audience numbers and how much they’ve paid for the rights).
The Ashes is sometimes on this channel. I don’t have Sky at my London residence (Im not in enough to make it worthwhile). However my partner does have limited Sky channels at our Cardiff address via BT.
Sometimes the cricket is on the Sky main event channel as it was until 1pm on the last day of the Lords Test on Sunday. Then it was shovelled off to the cricket channel to make way for football. A subscription to that costs rather more and also implies I think that you will spend a lot of time watching TV either at home or on a mobile or tablet. Perhaps but there are also other things to do…
We went out for Sunday lunch and then checked pubs for one showing the cricket (all within 10 minutes walk of the home of Welsh cricket Sophia Gardens). All were showing only the football on multiple screens- hardly anyone was watching.
We returned home to listen to the exciting climax to the Lords Test on TMS and watch the Channel 5 highlights.
We of course are dedicated cricket fans but many who would have been drawn in by the excitement that England’s new fast bowler Jofra Archer brought to the game will simply have missed it as it was not showing on a TV screen they could access and see for nothing and moved on.
Yet another chance to widen the interest in cricket lost.
Still there is the 100. Or is there getting rid of a Government that has close links with the existing Sky set up and moving to that Australian model of TV cricket broadcasting…
I’ve just written a detailed reply which has disappeared into the ether. So I will sumarise. Keith you and Megan will remember the thrill of free to air coverage in the 60s. More important is prices- as a child I could go to the Test at Lords or the Oval for the entrance fee and my bus fair- All from my pocket money. Most important the County Championship produced lots of good cricketers although not all of them were picked for England. Sorry this summary has become a bit detailed. Fings ain’t wot they used to be. (Except Sir Geoffrey obviously)