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)!
563 Comments- Pages:
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BMCUW
Yer not old bud, yer just a middle-aged mhan behaving badly.
Like most on here.
HH!!
DONTBRATTBAKKINANGER
I think he means that in order to keep the floodlights on,we need to relocate to Italy or summat.
Where solar panels work.
I have Sky Sports,BT Sports,Sky Italia,Setanta,PremierSports,Polski Sports,Dutch Sports,German Bundesliga,Austrian Sky,Belgian Sky,all movie channels,all British TV.All brand new film channel.All Fox.All Comedy Channels,Sky Gold,and hundreds more I dont watch,for the princely sum of £100 per year.Included is any maintenance to dishes etc.
All done through a Dream box.
The Turkish guy who runs it has customers all over Germany,Holland.5 years with him,never had a problem.Fantastic service.And 300 days of sunshine.
You don’t even need a box. You can just have a stick to watch your free ladies beach volley ball.
MWD said AYE
DBBIA @ 12:55,
Modern day journeys to the promised land are rubbish. No…
I’d like to see it as an adventure:-)
Hail Hail
TALLYBHOY
Yes indeed. And bliddy proud of the fact,and of the company in which I find myself!
TB,
May your box blow up and may the rain descend upon Turkey. Not that I am jealous.
Had a wee box for years – in fact I’ve had several different kinds – but there are many routes to using them – the internet is your friend – do some research and find out what you want and what you need
Watching Gary Hooper in the games he had for Norwich,he looks far more intelligent a player.Links up very well.Love to see him back.Dynamite for us.30 goals per season.
Captain Beefheart
13:02 on
17 June, 2015
TB,
May your box blow up and may the rain descend upon Turkey. Not that I am jealous.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.Was not bragging.Just saying what can be had.
Well,maybe bragging about the sunshine.
My goodness P67 that’s got a reaction :-))
Proudbhoy
All forecasts are that the $AUS will weaken. The Govt. and Reserve Bank are intent on weakening the currency to improve exports which is bad news for Aussies travelling abroad. If I were you I would buy now but I am no expert. Good luck.
MoonbeamsWD
13:01 on
17 June, 2015
You don’t even need a box. You can just have a stick to watch your free ladies beach volley ball.
MWD said AYE
Never miss it.
From earlier,
Cowiebhoy, interesting. Personally, I think we should use wind for the purpose the Dutch invented it for – mechanical work. You want heat? Refrigeration? Stick up a wind turbine to drive a heat pump. Voila!
I have a cunning plan in this respect which if I ever implement is sure to make me a million by this tie next year.
Kjam
You’re crossing numbers. We were talking Onshore wind, not offshore.
You need to:
1) Separate out On and Offshore.
2) Remember that there are myriad other uses of energy, not simply domestic electricity. The average ‘Brit’ uses 125kWh per day, of which only 20kWh odd is electricity. Heating and transport are the big fossil fuel burners in this country. Further north, more the cost to heat. Elsewhere, air-con is incredibly expensive.
It’s not a simple matter of replacing one form of electric power gen with another. We need to change the type of fuels we use, and we need to use hugely less.
The HUGE thing is a problem.
For example, taking your wind stats, Wind Power produced 28.1TWh in 2014. That’s a huge number, yeh? Terrawatt hours? Massive.
OK, here’s another: In the UK last year we consumed more than 45MWh EACH. Multiply that up by the UK population of 64 Million…
That… that’s even hugerer. It’s about, um….
….sorry, this fag packet is too small. I’ll be right back….
2,920TWh.
In other words, the entire UK fleet of Onshore and Offshore wind turbines last year produced 1% of the energy we consumed.
That’s the scale of it.
TBB
Proudbhoy: my son is currently home from Oz. He says the Euro/Oz dollar rate is the same now as when he went out there four years ago. I would imagine it is the same for Sterling. I’m no expert in these matters but I would imagine there will be little change in the next twelve months. You will only gain/lose if you are dealing in large amounts of money.
Bawsman wrote
The western governments knew Saddam Hussain had some really horrible, nasty, deadly stuff to lob (halabja) ’cause we (weatern suppliers) had the receipts
Yep,and some of the Western Press think that King will invest £30 million in the Huns.
Western Press are rubbish.
Build your own box…
▶ 8:32
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auiP1YdelEo
timaloy29
12:43 on 17 June, 2015
‘Just like their antics in the commons, it was theater for the folks back home.’
###
I think tthat was more about irritating and antagonising the English in an attempt to provoke a backlash.
Bercow realised what they were playing at and dealt with them appropriately.
WITS
where are ye !?
letsbeavinye!
Turkeybhoy
Hooper has goals in him, no doubt. When he was with us he was not as fit as he has shown at Norwich. Also he has no interest at all in challenging for high balls so I reckon he lacks that physical challenge that we need in that position and this has been lacking for years. Personally I would go for Citfci, I think he would work well with Griffiths . Another way of looking at it is, I would not like Citfci to sign for Sevco, he would do well there.
I’m taking some sausages down to ole googybhoy tomorrow
There will be no links involved
THEBATTEREDBUNNET
A Dutch lass I went out with years ago explained to me why there were so many windmills in The Netherlands.
Up till then I just assumed they ate a lot of bread!
Absolute genius when you consider the technology available then.
Having said that,I reckon if a wee boy stuck his finger in a dyke nowadays,he’d get arrested…
Fascinating analysis of our financial performance.
Long but broken up by graphs.
Well worth the effort to study in depth
http://swissramble.blogspot.ch/2015/06/celtic-everythings-gone-green.html
Dovetails nicely with Paul’s leader.
‘Scrambling around for an illegal feed minutes before kick-off, fighting pop-ups or coping with lags is now how I want to watch my football,’
####
I assume that should be not rather than now.
Mind you, given some of the dross on show, maybe now.
BMCUWP…
A bit near the bone…but funny :))
Mark stopped on the Marble Staircase to gather the thoughts,which were whirling through his head.
The ghosts of yesteryear were whispering in ever increasing volume and he could hear things like…
“No Surrender”…”We are the People” and “No One LIkes Us..We Don’t Care” seeming to come from the portraits of former heroes which adorned the walls.
Big Glum,his assistant, had tried to bring him up to speed on the history of the now defunct club…but it was not making any sense.
It was bad enough that his first Press Conference was just minutes away…but this wasn’t helping.
Just then,however,he stared at the portrait of the late Mr.Struth and was energised and galvanised.
Confidence restored, he climbed to the top of the Marble Staircase…Took a deep breath…and opened the door…
Another whisper then greeted him…
“That’s the wrang door ya Muppet…Get yer arse ower here.”
Crestfallen,he changed direction,and walked forward to his destiny…as he remembered the immortal words of Tommy Docherty..
“As wan door shuts..anither wan opens and bats ye right in the gub.”
It was good while it lasted.
BLANTYRETIM
Square go?
Bob LobLaw
12:53 on
17 June, 2015
I’m no fan of Sky or Sky sports. I find much of what the Murdoch empire stands for repellant. That said, before looking at set top boxes as an alternate for viewing sport on TV please consider where you’re £30 for a set top box goes. These are not legitimate businesses. These organisations are one of many ways in which organised criminal gangs raise money to fund drug trafficking, people trafficking, prostitution and other hideously abusive practices. I’d rather have no football than put money in the pockets of these people.
>>>
Bob, Sky and their associated companies have a history and raison d’etre of undermining democracy.
BMCUW
Aye, I am currently looking for glass bottles of irn bru as it’s not as good in big plastic bottles… 8))
13:05 on
17 June, 2015
ernie lynch
11:11 on
17 June, 2015
So, given the extent to which they blight the landscape and its flaura and fauna, what’s the bloody point of them? They don’t achieve anything.
—————————————————————————————————————–
They (SNP) achieve what they always strive to achieve – the illusion that they know what they are doing, and, that they are actually doing something.
They employ this approach in everything they do – dealing in generalities, promising ‘jam tomorrow’ and avoiding specific detail on everything, whether it be policies, or, defined proposals.
Of course they can speak of “a fairer society”, or, “eliminating austerity”, “boosting employment”, “abolishing foodbanks”, “the levers of power” etc, all the catchphrases that their new converts latched on to, but ask them (SNP), to ‘put flesh on the bones’ with regard policies, and they run a mile, or descend into their well-rehearsed ‘double-speak’, delivered by a hand-picked few.
Their brand of Nationalism differs not a jot from the brand employed by the Nazis – it involves identifying a scapegoat on whom to blame on your ills, Hitler chose the Jews, the SNP choose the English and all political parties with ties to Westminster.
Then you promise that you will do everything right, that you will never make a mistake, and deliver EVERYTHING that all parts of the electorate wants – being careful of course not to go as far as producing costed and workable policies/proposals.
The SNP energy policy, the council tax freeze, free university tuition, free prescriptions, free bus travel, attempting to corroboration, the OB legislation and their duplicitous bluster over FFA, does nothing for the benefit-poor, the working-poor, the disabled and disadvantaged and the working class of Scotland.
Energy Policy – They know that we will ALWAYS have to import the bulk of what we require from the UK National Grid.
Council Tax Freeze – This benefits disproportionately, the very people who can afford to pay and forces councils to cut services to the disabled and disadvantaged.
Free Tuition – As above, benefits those who could easily make a contribution and has dire consequences (loss of 240,000 college places) for those wishing to take the vocational, rather than academic, path to self-betterment.
Free Bus Travel – makes no case for the poorest in society and is again an unnecessary give away to the majority who could afford to pay something.
Free Prescriptions – as with the above three, this again takes people who could afford to pay, out of the paying loop. It was the case that all on benefit/pensions/low incomes never paid anyway. The charge when abolished was only £3/item and was paid by those who could afford it.
Abolish Corroboration – an attempt to curry favour with the female vote’, which was seen as weak spot for the SNP – they’re intention was to manipulate the law with regard to the prosecution of rape, in order to achieve more convictions.
The OB Act – A blatant attempt to ‘take the sting out of’ the bigoted and sectarian abuse of our minority, by targeting us in a catch-all ‘evening-up’ exercise to prolong the “one’s as bad as the other” truth, trotted out by the Scottish media.
FFA – The SNP know that this is ‘a pig in a poke’ and that discarding the Barnett formula would result in Scotland having, at 8.5 %( £10 billion) deficit, double the RUK, and the biggest in Europe. They (Salmond) only tabled the amendment when they were certain it would be defeated.
The SNP have done precisely nothing for the poorest in our society, except con them into to voting for them – not ONE thing, and have NO firm costed policies/proposals on the table.
It was indeed ironic to see them in the lobby with the Tories the other day, since they trooped in to deliver Thatcher to us, they have voted with Tories on more occasions than Labour, and of course were in coalition with them in Holyrood – and yet they and their new found ‘converts’ pour their hatred on Labour – the ONLY party EVER to specifically help the poorest and working class in this country.
Since 1945, there have been many HUNDREDS of bills, measures, policies and proposals, put forward and enacted by the Labour Party that initially lifted our people out of dire poverty, then gave them New Rights, transformed the Workplace, Education, Health, Benefits and Human Rights, a record in which to be rightly proud…..now name ONE on the SNP balance sheet – just ONE.
COOLMOREMAFIA
Yep,and if you want to discuss organised criminal gangs,look no further than the banks.
13:15 on
17 June, 2015
Turkeybhoy
12:47 on
17 June, 2015
Bawsman,
Saddam had nothing.Ridiculous to think otherwise.
—————————————————————————
Wrong again Turkey – He used WMD, chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, then on thousands his own people in Halabja, Northern Iraq.
His genocide of the Marsh Arabs after his invasion of Kuwait in 1991.
You and those like you would have left him in place, and his two sons after him, to continue their 25 year reign of terror – is that correct?
Breeny
–
Thanks mate.. Going to do bit of research on it but so far I think you are correct.. Other half had look online and I think it was 2013 since it was north of 55
Amore
Yeah the euro is good so changing it to that and then holding onto it in euro until sterling gets better could be an option. If the job I’m in goes until Christmas it could make abit of difference .
Especially when I’ll be moving home to go on job hunt so every little helps.
BT
Collect the empties on way back, 30p a shot for those glass ones :-)))
Do these boxes actually work? Does anyone use them consistently and find them 100% reliable?
If these worked 100%, and the truth got out there, it would be glorious. In the short term anyway.
BLANTYRETIM
I pointed that out to a delivery driver in Swindon about ten years ago. He rubbished it,natch.
I met him again after I had been home and poured him three chilled glasses of each,same fridge. He was astounded at the difference.
He’s still a mate but I buy him stronger stuff nowadays.
fender @ 12:55 on 17 June, 2015
“Nice thought Paul but if viewing subscription figures fall, who will cover the Scottish games?”
Well if you look at the revenue that’s received vs the money Celtic loose by rearranging fixtures for the convenience of the Broadcasters then look at the revenues CTV looses by the restrictions imposed by the Broadcasters (not done the figures) but I’d suggest we’d break even by doing nothing other than getting rid of the oliwhatgamacallit.
But don’t think Paul is advocating that. What about Netflix, Scottish Football is in a position to experiment and pioneer a new media model that will stand us in good stead. Future proofing the product while not costing, in fact if we negotiated correctly we could be better of.
Can you imagine the Billions!!! It would cost the EPL to go down this route?
Hail Hail
I think tthat was more about irritating and antagonising the English
—
SNP has no interest in the opinions of English people. They wanted to appear like a bunch of rebels down there for the small-minded folks back home.
Remember, it’s not about what you actually achieve in the day to day. It’s all about how you appear. Us vs Them politics is how they have got where they are.