Pay TV phase three document - Stakeholders - Ofcom

Pay TV phase three document – non-confidential version
England international games and UEFA CL games which are considered very
important by between 70% and 75% of subscribers 115 . Additionally it contains most
Championship games considered very important by 50% of subscribers, and some
Carling Cup matches. Figure 13 below sets out the key live football on TV by channel
and rights value. FAPL is by far the most valuable single football event.
Figure 13 Live football on pay TV channels and FTA TV channels in 2008 by
rights value (rights value in brackets)
[ � ]
Notes: The length of each bar indicates the relative rights value for each event. Not all sports rights
are shown. Where the share of rights value across channels is unknown, we pro rata the value of
each event by the hours of broadcasting across the each channel.
Source: Various sources including European TV Sports Rights 2008, rights holders. See Appendix 3
of Annex 6 for details
4.103 There are a variety of football competitions featuring Premier League teams or
England matches on other channels which subscribers to Sky Sports 1 might
consider a substitute:
� Until June 2009 Setanta broadcast a significant amount of FAPL, and a limited
amount of other top flight football (from tournaments featuring Premier League
teams or England matches). ESPN has now won the FAPL rights that Setanta
previously licensed.
� Sky Sports 2 shows a significant amount of UEFA CL and a limited amount of
other top flight football (from tournaments featuring Premier League teams or
England matches).
� FTA TV also shows some important football content such as FA Cup (of which
the final is listed), UEFA CL and UEFA Cup.
4.104 Cricket is very important for a significant minority of consumers (32% 116 ). It is also
important to retailers of pay TV as a way of managing subscriber churn outside the
football season. The total value of live cricket TV rights was about £[ � ]m 117 in
2008. Sky schedules its cricket programming across its channels with about 60% on
Sky Sports 1, 25% on Sky Sports 2 and a small amount on Sky Sports 3 and Xtra.
About three quarters of viewing of Sky’s cricket content was on Sky Sports 1.
4.105 The closest substitute channel for cricket on Sky Sports 1 is Sky Sports 2, which
contains some test match, county and one day international cricket.
4.106 There are several golf events broadcast on Sky Sports 1 which are considered very
important by a minority of subscribers who watch sport at least weekly. These include
the Ryder Cup which is considered important by 28% of subscribers, the US Open,
considered important by 23% of subscribers, and the European PGA.
115 Ofcom Sports conjoint research, See Annex 10 of Ofcom’s September 2008 for details.
116
Ibid. 32% of subscribers who watch sport at least once a week consider Test cricket as very
important to their package.
117 See Appendix 3 of Annex 6 for details.
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