Free to air England Test cricket: Welcome but there may be trouble ahead
With the four India v England Tests Test cricket returns to free to air television on Channel 4.
https://www.channel4.com/press/news/live-test-cricket-returns-channel-4
This is good news in the sense that even broadcasts in the early morning (4am starts for some of the matches UK time) it will get a lot more viewers than it would if it was on Sky or BT Sport which are subscription channels.
The fact that cricket has not been free to air has meant that despite the fact that it is one of the UK’s national sports it is rarely part of the national conversation. Hopefully this will now change and it will probably stimulate a good deal more interest in the game than the projected Hundred competition.
Sky has its defenders and it can be understood why.
I have never had a Sky subscription because it was owned by Murdoch and I have strongly opposed his business activities and their impact over decades.
That said Sky did put money into cricket that it didn’t have easy ways of otherwise getting in some areas. As part of the current negotiations it was reported that Sky’s budget for cricket is £200m
The reality is that before Sky no terrestrial TV channel showed England overseas games. You listened to Test Match Special on the radio or you read a report.
While celebrating the return of free to air cricket that also suggests potential problems ahead.
Sky is no longer owned by Murdoch but by the US company Comcast. It is a rather more benign outfit. It took on a lot of debt in acquiring Sky and while its fair to say the Murdoch’s had some interest in cricket, Comcast almost certainly have never heard of it.
To broadcast all those games around the world is costly and I suspect the audiences are not always world beating.
The process of Channel 4 getting the India v England series may turn out to be the same one that sees some series no longer featuring on TV at all one suspects.
Update
The viewing figures for the first day of the India v England Test on Friday peaked at 1.1 million. This compares with a peak of 502,000 for the Sky coverage of the Sri Lanka v England series just before it which also started in the early hours.
Only seven per cent of viewers were aged under 35 and 63 per cent were over 55 indicating work in progress in terms re-socialising cricket with younger generations.
Meanwhile BT Sport have announced they have the TV rights for all domestic New Zealand and West Indies tours including England womens and mens games in those countries.
It seems to suggest that Sky may be moving towards a much heavier focus on showing England domestic cricket (perhaps even some County games??)with only selective overseas series
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