Lots to pick up on today but a Bloomberg article on “Soccer Pirates” grabbed my attention. The US business news broadcaster focussed on a recent fundamental technical shift which has seen high quality and reliable feeds of Sky and BT broadcast football games illegal appearing on TV sets across the globe.
The days of illegal content consumers scavenging around their laptop for a feed in the minutes leading up to kick off are on the way out. Now you can subscribe to a feed of your chosen content in Eastern Europe or China and it will be streamed to a device attached to your TV, where it will appear pretty much as it does direct from Sky.
This is important for several reasons. Subscription football is expensive. Thousands of Scottish football fans pay a significant portion of their monthly disposable income to Sky and BT to follow their team on television. They also get English and Spanish football as part of these subscriptions, but there is a dysfunctional market for football content.
While Sky earn 8% of their UK subscription income from Scotland, they send only 1% of their football outlays north of the border. English Premier League football is the key to entry into the UK subscription TV market, own this content, and you have market control. Cost per eyeball paid for Scottish football is a tiny fraction what is paid for English football (or English rugby league, for that matter), which has fostered a feeling among Scottish subscribers that they are being exploited by an oligopolist.
For some time now the comments section of CQN has seen discussions on how to organise a boycott of Sky, with many making the unilateral declaration “Just cancelled Sky Sports”, but there is a fundamental truth: if we have the money, we are going to watch Celtic.
Scrambling around for an illegal feed minutes before kick-off, fighting pop-ups or coping with lags is not how I want to watch my football, however, as the Bloomberg article makes plain, these issues are irrelevant if, like 2.4 million others, you subscribe to an Eastern European or Chinese feed. To force an oligopolist to change, you either need regulators to step in (they have abandoned us to a fragment of the UK market), or you need to find a way to take your business elsewhere.
One of the main advantages of being paid a pittance is you can take bold steps; Scottish football has nothing to lose by burning bridges with those who collect revenues here and pour the money into the coffers of clubs elsewhere.
The more fundamental question, even than losing Scottish subscribers, to Sky and BT, is the risk this technology poses to the value of their English Premier League broadcast rights. Viewers in England (and across the globe) also pay a substantial levy to watch English football. If the pick-up rate of Eastern European subscriber numbers continues, and assurances given to Bloomberg that prosecutions for use are unlikely, Sky and BT will see collapsing revenues – and maybe then we’ll see the English football bubble burst. Indeed, if Scottish viewers prove the concept and move en-mass, English viewers will not be far behind.
This is an important subject, we’ll talk more about it. I’m not going to advocate breaking even an unenforceable law, although others will, but there is no point playing TV money-victim anymore. This technology will eventually remove the enormous discrepancies in our game, so I’m off to buy one of the boxes, just to take a look, of course.
4-in-1-row DVD, £10.99, on CQN Bookstore, still available for Father’s Day (Sunday)!
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TSOAL – Water Margin, classic.
Preferred Monkey.
Pigsy could be played these days by the best paid gardener in world soccer.
Barcelonas football stylee was named after the monk in that series because of his purity and vision….
…..Trippitakka!! Lol
Hooper downed tools after not getting his move in the winter transfer window and only came to life in the cup final
Don’t think ronny would put up with that and I’d say hooper knows that to be fair
Devil’sOwn, how could I not get that!
Mrs Fieldofdrams says it’s a great film, that could only have been improved by having George Clooney in it.
Hmm…
Cloghercelt, thanks for the entertainment you unwittingly provided in my house tonight – cheers!
For those thinking that Cifti is a better player than Gary Hooper? God give me strength, can I just ask one thing… do any of you muppets actually watch football?… Are any of you season ticket holders??
It beggars belief!!
Who’s Bobby???
Fieldofdrams/Bourne,
Clogherhead is the new Hollywood, thanks for your company.
Mike in Toronto,
Remember to purchase Maureen O’Hara’s autobiography, a really good read. Don’t buy a biography.
Clogher
Clogher
Maureen O’ Hara recalls fondly standing on the terraces watching the Hoops playing football as a kid…..
The Dublin hoops. …shamrock rover’s
Nags
Backed a horse today e/w, maypole lass 6/1
Got goosed,that’s fine
the winner Blackwell synergy won at 66/1 wow
It’s form
2ppp9/p
Feckin con,only because I wisnae on it
HH
SFTB
Fair enough, a CL QF would be the dream, and qualifying from the group stages would attract the players, I just cant see us doing it
Then again never thought it in 2012/13
But for me, a chance to buildup coefficient with an EL run or two is a good platform to attempt to reach CLlast 16 again
By an EL run I do mean after a 3rd place group stage finish
HH
Who actually said cifti is better than Hooper?…
Behave yourself…
And stay off the drugs
Fieldofdrams,
Hopefully the last post of the night.
It would be great to see you both in Dublin next Easter.
If you are interested…dublin2016@mail.com
No bother either way.
HH
Clogher
WITS: Waited impatiently for your tips for today. Hope you come good tomorrow.
wanttorepaymymortgagecsc
TSOAL & AOW
The 70s series was brilliant…..in the 70s.
Have you watched it again since?
I tried to find it on youtube but there were only trailers and clips, but i did find the 98 series and started watching it.
Each episode is about 45 minutes and there’s 43 of them, but they really go into each characters story, building a picture of how they were and what forced them to the Liangshan marsh.
IF you do not mind reading subtitles……id say its definitely worth a watch IF its still about.
The chat about westerns on the blog tonight reminds me of my auld man who was a total fanatic I think he watched” Rio Bravo” about 67 times which must be a World record
He also read nothing but western books as well if any the family were going to the library the shout went up bring me a book by this guy I think he read them all twice as well
http://www.biography.com/people/louis-lamour-9372242
WITS,
It takes me so long to post anything that the conversation has moved on by the time I get back.
Maureen O’Hara, don’t cross an Irish woman. I know you probably have read her book but her autobiography is a great read.
Any tips for tomorrow?
Clogher
Thunder Road
You need ceefax on here for the sevco pish
Love
Murdochauldandhay
Are you my brother. Posted identical about my da earlier. Wild West fanatic. :)
Sorry lads never got to post on Ascot today, should have done so last night but…..
Anyhow I ybkh
Anyhow I think. …to continue where I left off. ..pleasach and forgotten rules is my double tomorrow. ..Sacrificial is worth a few bob each way
Night all Night wee Oscar God bless x x H H
Hooper not fitting ronnies style
Same was said about Griffiths and he has proved everyone wrong and I would say hooper would have been a lot more professional than Griffiths .
Commons we all thought Aswel wouldn’t and some could argue he hasn’t but he has said on a few occasions that it took him a while to get used to the new methods etc but was fully enjoying them…I’m sure he would have hooper well warned .
I’d take him back but does concern me that we can’t seem to fit 2 stikers into our system .. Hooper or Griffiths are not lone strikers in my eyes.
Gary hooper was one of my favourites with KC
But I don’t remember him doing a job as lone striker .. Pretty sure Neil Lennon used sammi in that role when we played one striker
Is there any streams, links, boxes of androids to the
Handsome hun
Channel
?
Just ask in like
Times of those Ascot races are
Pleasach 340
Forgotten Rules 420
Sacrificial 500
First 2 double, third each way
Also mont royale 845 Ffos Las
And may the Lord have mercy on your soul
Hooper could literally work his arse off, to get fit like, as Ronnie likes.
But could he be a celtic legend scoring five goals in one match again ?
WITS,
Fair play, I hope to meet you in Dublin, maybe in the Bad Ass Cafe to catch a game.
Thanks,
Clogher
Imagine……5 goals in 1 match :-P
Might just have scored about 5 in my whole time playing footy(5’s not included mind you)
There is a thing about american sports, its all about the players stats.
I like these things.
Mcgrory is the 1 – 1 ratio.
Larsson 0.6.
Lennox. 0.56.
Mcbride, short time, 1.1.
Hooper, 0.6.
I didn’t think hooper was the bestest, but he was a hunskelper,
Big style,
Couple of crackers
Clogher
I am like the scarlet pimpernel of Cqn
They seek him here. …
Clog her,
He is over there.
Saint Stivs
Those stats are pretty remarkable considering the times he downed tools.
Hooper 88 COULD have been a legend.
Frustrating wee bugger.
By the way another horse for Ascot on Friday. …Hootenanny. yup that’s the name. American trained and well fancied. .
St Stivs
Including the last ever Celtic goal v Rangers. Magic! Tap coarner. :))
Just thinking that `the boxer’ is a good old Sevco song.
“…..lie lah lie, lah, lah, lah, lah, lie, lie lie…”
But then we have …”and pain is all around…”
They are in `Troubled Waters`
I’ve been down in London 3 days. , holborn, Camden area, not the most racially diverse areas, but , spotted 2 hoops wearers.
Not typical Glaswegians.
Maybe the angola3 effect ?
Still think this beautiful……and i love you all! :-) but not in white satin :-)))))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9muzyOd4Lh8
An Irish hero, John Boyle O’Reilly.
Have a look if you have a minute, no politics or negative things.
http://allpoetry.com/The-Cry-of-the-Dreamer
Clogher