Only a tiny percentage of sport on pay TV would have been on free TV.

And you do not need to spend £600 a year to get Sky Sports!!

I think the argument was if Sky did not exist BBC and ITV could pick up he sports rights for peanuts.

Even then with multiple red button streams can not see them putting on a Champions League game between 2 non British teams.

Back to original post does this mean for Wimbledon only 1 red button game and any extra via streaming ? The All England Club should tell the BBC where to go and put the extra games on Sky I am sure they would love to set up some red button Sky Sports channels to get this with a main channel as well. Then just give the BBC the listed requirements.

Of course, the reduction in video streams will have an impact; we won't be able to offer the choice of coverage we have previously and big events will no longer be multi-screen on red button. This will be a disappointment for many viewers, particularly sports fans,
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but I'm pleased to say that content previously on red button will be available on BBC Online
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and we are developing new ways of bringing enhanced coverage of major events to your televisions in the future
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So can I watch 5 matches on my Tv at Wimbledon or not ????

This certainly has a fair bit of truth to it, but you can add ESPN and BT to that.

Historically the market price of rights reflect what the highest bidder is willing to pay.

Ah, so what you propose would leave the FTA viewer with a worse service than even now (with just one red Button service, never mind any additional online streams).

And that's better for the viewer?

Tthis is stupid, They will have to borrow some streams from Sky just to cover Wimbledon next year

No they won't. They will manage perfectly well I would suggest.

Yes but online. What about those with no internet connection?

Thje BBC will still cover Wimbledon, they have managed in years gone by without multiple Red Button streams. they won't have to borrow anything (which was the answer as it related to the quoted statement).

And as I said, they will continue to provide the coverage, albeit with additional online or IPTV-type streaming (I would just hope that they can set up a system similar to the current Connect channels that can be received on some Freeview HD boxes).

And, similar to comments in the +1 channels thread, the BBC cannot hope to cater for everyone, every circumstance, every income level, every lifestyle choice.

In fact, for anyone thinking that this move just reinforces the BBC's concept of platform neutrality - offering many more live streams on one platform (online) is exactly what platform neutrality is not!

Beyond that, this is something that the BBC Trust has highlighted - interactive streams are relatively costly and do not offer good value.

But before Sky existed, most sports currently on pay weren't shown.

As ever at the first sign of economic trouble it's the lower-status groups who get shafted, apparently it's not cost effective.

The BBCs commitment to public service is practically zero nowadays. The main focus is the BBC and how to keep going regardless of any point to such existence.

Fairness always costs more.

So how would you suggest that the BBC squared the circle when faced with a finding by the Trust that such delivery methods were not cost effective?

Or perhaps you might like to provide more than just a few soundbites to the questions that I posed earlier:

Exactly my dad a pensioner loves tennis and now gets shafted. He could watch loads of games via Freesat for free now. Now he will lose them as they go online. His BB is a crappy 0.5mb at best with loads of buffering for video steaming making tennis unwatchable.

5 extra SD channels on Sky and Freesat is peanuts, so a lie it saves money. Ditch some of the regional crap first if you must reduce channels.

Does this mean we will get the streaming to Sky boxes now they have iplayer on the latest EPG ?

So how much do 5 extra SD channels cost then?


And in one fell swoop you annoy those Freesat viewers who expect to be able to see their regional news and regional content.

Well if freeview users can cope with 1 stream then why can't cable or sky users?

So the BBC as part of the license settlement is giving £300M to fund BB roll out ...

So they should have waited till that was done, as it most certainly hasn't been yet.

So do you thing that the BBC Should not have rolled out Digital TV - as as only 70% of the UK could receive it
The UK has more than 80+% house holds currently with BB which is good enough for Iplayer / youview connectivity and there are more who have a cable in the street which can do it.. ) Surely by driving BB take up the BBC is meeting its sixth public purpose!

They are being forced to stump up the cash - they have no control over the telcos such as BT who are likely to do the actual work as part of their business plans. So why should the BBC's spending and broadcast plans be reliant upon totally separate private enterprise businesses who exist solely to maximise shareholder value and nothing more? They have no public purpose, no Charter obligations The reason that they have not provided the fast broadband infrastructure across the whole country is because they have not seen it as cost-effective and profitable - i.e. the return on investment is deemed too low.

This will be via BDUK see http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do...line/7763.aspx
a lot more money than just the BBC !!!!

I hope (fingers-crossed) that they can still use more than one stream for big multi-stream events, perhaps through utilising the 450s on the EPG again.

The only ones which come to mind are Wimbledon, the Winter Olympics, Commonwealth Games and of course the Olympics themselves. For all these events coverage will go backwards if we really have only one stream.

If we're only losing round-the-clock access then that shouldn't be a major issue, although I still can't agree that this is where they should be cutting from - most of the coverage would appear to be low cost anyway, and I think they would do better to promote it better than to reduce it.

Just gone to Sky.com and the cheapest package you can get Sky Sports with comes to £52.75 including HD (which since that is becoming more and more common on Freeview and Freesat I'd consider standard) which works out to £633 a year. Even with just SD it comes to over £500 a year.

Secondly, you care comparing Sky's current range of channels with the old terrestrial five channel setup and assuming that without Sky we'd be stuck with just those five channels. The BBC wanted to start a multichannel satellite service long before Sky but the government stopped them. Without Sky we would have BBC or ITV dedicated sport channels. Without Sky driving up the price the BBC, ITV, C4 and 5 would be able to afford far more rights.

But most football is on Sky, for £600 a year.

Your dad should write to the DCMS and demand they scrap the licence fee freeze, that Jeremy Hunt imposed without any consultation, manifesto mandate or debate in parliament. It's that freeze that is forcing the BBC to make cuts.

Right and wrong. The channels cost virtually nothing, but the content does. If you want cuts at the BBC then you have to be prepared to accept a lesser service than before.