Football rights win reveals ITV’s desperation

Football rights win reveals ITV’s desperation

ITV partnering with Setanta to win the next four years broadcast rights for the FA Cup and England internationals only shows how desperate the commercial broadcaster’s position has become. They’ve paid £425m: £100m more than the BBC and Sky offered.

Sports rights are exciting because they represent the closest thing to a guaranteed audience, a role they used to share with blockbuster movies. This weekend saw Harry Potter beaten 8.2m to 4.7m by Dr Who. It’s not that Harry isn’t popular, but that fans have been able to watch it on DVD, free of ads, for ages. Big films simply don’t deliver TV audience like they used to.

ITV won this bidding war – and bid so much higher than BBC/Sky – because it was the weakest player in the room.

Posted at : April 2nd, 2007 - 3:24 pm
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