English football on television
Encyclopedia
English
football on television has been broadcast since 1937, and since the establishment of the Premier League in 1992 it has become a very lucrative industry. As of the 2007-08 season, television rights for the 20-team Premier League are valued at close to £1bn each season. Based on July 2007 exchange rate
s, this is only marginally less than what American football
's 32-team NFL
receives from its TV contracts
.
started its television service in 1936, although it was nearly a year before the very first televised match of football was screened – a specially-arranged friendly match between Arsenal
and Arsenal Reserves at Highbury
on 16 September 1937. This was followed by the first international match, between England
and Scotland
on 9 April 1938, and the first televised FA Cup
final followed soon after, on 30 April the same year, between Huddersfield Town
and Preston North End
.
However, coverage of football television did not expand and for the next two decades the only matches screened were FA Cup final
s and the odd England v. Scotland match. The first FA Cup tie other than the final to be shown was a fifth round match between Charlton Athletic
and Blackburn Rovers
on 8 February 1947, but matches were sparing and only games in London could be broadcast, for technical reasons.
led to the creation of the European Cup
, designed as a midweek cup competition for the champions of European nations, in 1955. The newly formed British television station ITV
saw televised football as an ideal way of gaining a share of the audience from their only rival broadcaster, the BBC. The BBC meanwhile, started showing brief highlights of matches (with a maximum of five minutes) on its Saturday-night Sports Special programme from 10 September 1955, until its cancellation in 1963. The first games featured were both from Division One - Luton Town v Newcastle United and Charlton Athletic v Everton, Kenneth Wolstenholme
and Cliff Michelmore
were the commentators.
The BBC had a new highlights programme from 1964 - Match of the Day
. Originally shown on BBC2 and intended to train BBC cameramen for the forthcoming 1966 World Cup the format was a success and has remained on British television in some form to this day. The first game saw Liverpool beat Arsenal at Anfield
.
An early attempt at live league football was made in 1960-61, when ITV agreed a deal worth £150,000 with the Football League to screen 26 matches; the very first live league match was on Saturday 10 September 1960 between Blackpool
and Bolton Wanderers
at Bloomfield Road
. The match kicked off at 6:50 pm with live coverage starting at 7:30 under the title The Big Game. A major blow to the TV moguls was the absence of big box office draw Stanley Matthews
through injury, and the game ended 1-0 to Bolton in front of a half-empty stadium.
However ITV withdrew from the deal after first Arsenal
and then Tottenham Hotspur
refused them permission to shoot at their matches against Newcastle United
and Aston Villa
respectively, and the Football League demanded a dramatic increase in player appearance payments. ITV showed the Nat King Cole
Show instead, while ironically both matches received highlights coverage from the BBC on Sports Special.
However ITV moved again into football, albeit tentatively, in 1962 when Anglia Television
launched Match of the Week, which showed highlights of matches from around East Anglia
. The first match shown was Ipswich Town
's 3-2 defeat at the hands of Wolves
at Portman Road
on 22 September 1962. Tyne Tees Television
in the North East of England began broadcasting local matches soon after under the title Shoot. League football was soon to gain a nationwide audience once more. In 1964, the BBC introduced Match of the Day
- initially broadcast on the new BBC2. The first match was Liverpool's
3-2 victory over Arsenal at Anfield on 22 August, and the estimated audience of 20,000 was considerably less than the number of paying customers at the ground. At the time BBC2 could only be received in the London area, although by the end of Match Of The Day
's first season it could be sampled in the Midlands. The programme transferred to BBC1 in the wake of England's 1966 World Cup win and at last could be received by television viewers across the UK.
football on UK screens in 1954 and 1958 - however only selected matches were available. In 1954, Kenneth Wolstenholme
provided commentary on the few televised matches for BBC from Switzerland
- including the quarter-final between Hungary
and Brazil
. A thunderstorm
over the Alps
cut off the picture and many irate viewers wrote in to complain that the BBC had pulled the plug. The 1958 tournament in Sweden
saw a greater range of matches thanks to the new Eurovision Network
; the BBC and ITV both screened matches, although the networks had to overcome opposition to the coverage from the Scottish FA
, who were worried that attendances at Junior football matches may be hit. The 1962 World Cup in Chile
was covered in delayed form by the BBC with film having to be carried by air via the United States
back to Britain. Matches were generally seen three days after they were played, though every match was covered by the BBC with commentary.
With intercontinental communications satellites in their infancy and videotape a new advance, the first tournament to gain widespread international live coverage was the 1966 tournament, which was held in England. The tournament, which England
won, increased the popularity of the sport. With more football viewers than ever, Match of the Day thrived - switching from BBC Two
to BBC One
to reach a wider audience. ITV's regional coverage had also expanded during this period with London weekend company ATV
launching Star Soccer in October 1965, Southern Television
's Southern Soccer and ABC
's World of Soccer also began to appear regularly in the TV Times
Sunday schedules. London Weekend Television
's The Big Match
started in 1968, and eventually the entire ITV network's football coverage would be broadcast under its title.
and Nottingham Forest
, on 2 October 1983. Spurs would also feature in the BBC's first live league match at Manchester United on a Friday night a few weeks later.
By the late 1980s the value of live TV coverage had rocketed; while a two-year contract for rights in 1983 had cost just £5.2m, the four-year contract exclusively landed by ITV in 1988 cost £44m, a fourfold increase per year. There was now a situation where live football was on TV almost every Sunday afternoon from about November onwards, as ITV screened top-flight football most weeks and the BBC
had the rights to the FA Cup
that occupied other weekends.
With top flight football proving particularly lucrative, in 1992 the clubs of the Football League First Division
voted to quit the league en masse and set up their own league, the Premier League. They eventually opted to agree a deal with Sky Sports
rather than ITV or the BBC, meaning leading live top flight football was no longer available on terrestrial television
. ITV continued to show second tier matches on a regional basis for a time and also later on its unsuccessful ITV Digital
platform.
Coverage of Premier League now dominates football on English television, especially in financial terms; the contracts agreed between the league and broadcasters BSkyB in 1992 and 1997 were worth £191.5m and £670m respectively. Sky were also able to show more live games than previously, with several games live on many matchdays (originally Sundays and Mondays). However, the European Union
objected to what it saw as a monopoly
on television rights and demanded the 2007 contract be split into separate packages of 23 games; eventually Sky won four of the six available packages, with the other two were taken by Setanta Sports
. Setanta went bankrupt in 2009 with its packages taken over by ESPN
. From 2010/11, Sky have five packages and ESPN one. The top tier still has a presence on terrestrial television in highlights form on Match of the Day
..
From the 2009/10 season, live coverage of the Football League returned to British terrestrial television for the first time since 2001 with the BBC securing 10 live Championship (second tier) games per season, as well as Football League highlights after Match of the Day. Sky also showed live lower league football while Setanta also showed large numbers of Conference games before the channels demise.
There is also extensive coverage of numerous Cup competitions. Every match in the Champions League
(formerly European Cup) is available either on ITV or Sky Sports while ITV is also the primary broadcaster of the FA Cup
with two live games per round while Sky and the BBC show the League Cup
. Five, ITV
and ESPN
show the Europa League with even the Football League Trophy
getting live television exposure on Sky Sports.
. Some public house
s install foreign satellite television
decoders
hardware to enable customers to watch live Premier League games in their establishment.
The Premier League believes that this is illegal under copyright law. The European Court of Justice is currently looking into whether the EU law on the free movement of goods should be applied to the decoder cards.
Karen Murphy, a publican who had been prosecuted for using a Greek satellite provider at a public house in Portsmouth said: "The fact is 297 is to prevent fraud and nothing to do with territorial fragmentation, and does not seek to protect the interests of the Premier League,".
Ms Murphy was charged under s297(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), in that on two occasions she: ‘… dishonestly received a programme included in a broadcasting service provided from a place in the United Kingdom with intent to avoid payment of any charge applicable to the reception of the programme.’
In February 2011, advocate Juliane Kokott of the European Court of Justice gave her non-binding opinion that any block on the use of cheaper foreign satellite TV breached EU single market rules.
or ESPN
. The main kick-off times for TV games are 12.45 and 5:30 pm on Saturdays, 1:30 and 4:00 pm on Sundays, and 8:00 pm on Mondays. Other games may also be moved to Sunday if one of the teams involved played in a Europa League fixture on a Thursday.
Sky will almost always show a Sunday 4 pm game, typically following a 1.30 pm kick off as part of a Super Sunday
. Sky aim to show their best game of the weekend in the 4 pm slot, but police restrictions on local derbies mean this is not always possible. Premier League games scheduled for midweek may also be picked for live broadcast by Sky on Tuesday or Wednesday nights.
ESPN typically broadcast live Premier League games at 5.30 pm on the Saturday and/or 8 pm on Monday, while Sky typically broadcast a live Football League game at the same time. From the 2010/11 season, Sky will regain the rights to live Monday Night Premier League football.
Each broadcaster is subjected to restrictions on the number of times they can show a team live per season to ensure fair distribution of TV revenue, after 1995-2000 saw 90 percent of Saturday games involving Manchester United.
and the Scottish Cup Final. This is to ensure attendances at lower league games taking place at the same time as Premier League fixtures that might otherwise be broadcast on television. To avoid this blackout, the last day of the Premier League, when all ten games must kick off simultaneously, is always played on a Sunday.
Live radio broadcasts are permitted, both nationally and locally; these may be simulcast on the internet, depending on the broadcaster. Viewers outside the UK can still watch these games live on foreign broadcasters, thus creating somewhat of a grey market
within the UK with viewers able to subscribe to or watch streams of foreign channels.
The Premier League and Sky maintain that, while grey market viewing of games is not illegal on the part of the viewer, it is illegal for anyone (such as a public house
) to make such services openly available. This has in the past lead to heavy fines for public houses in the United Kingdom which have shown 3:00 games in their establishments. More recently, the legality of such fines has been disputed, and a number of Crown Court cases have been reported in which publicans successfully challenged the Premier League's position.
In recent years, Sky Sports
has shown 3 pm games on tape delay on their Football First
show, either in full or as extended highlights.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
football on television has been broadcast since 1937, and since the establishment of the Premier League in 1992 it has become a very lucrative industry. As of the 2007-08 season, television rights for the 20-team Premier League are valued at close to £1bn each season. Based on July 2007 exchange rate
Exchange rate
In finance, an exchange rate between two currencies is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another. It is also regarded as the value of one country’s currency in terms of another currency...
s, this is only marginally less than what American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
's 32-team NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
receives from its TV contracts
NFL on television
The television rights to broadcast National Football League games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport. It was television that brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II...
.
Early years
The BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
started its television service in 1936, although it was nearly a year before the very first televised match of football was screened – a specially-arranged friendly match between Arsenal
Arsenal F.C.
Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...
and Arsenal Reserves at Highbury
Arsenal Stadium
Arsenal Stadium was a football stadium in Highbury, North London, which was the home ground of Arsenal Football Club between 6 September 1913 and 7 May 2006...
on 16 September 1937. This was followed by the first international match, between England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
and Scotland
Scotland national football team
The Scotland national football team represents Scotland in international football and is controlled by the Scottish Football Association. Scotland are the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside England, whom they played in the world's first international football match in 1872...
on 9 April 1938, and the first televised FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
final followed soon after, on 30 April the same year, between Huddersfield Town
Huddersfield Town F.C.
Huddersfield Town Football Club is an English football club formed in 1908 and based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. They currently play in League One...
and Preston North End
Preston North End F.C.
Preston North End Football Club is an English professional football club located in the Deepdale area of the city of Preston, Lancashire, currently playing in the third tier of English league football, League One...
.
However, coverage of football television did not expand and for the next two decades the only matches screened were FA Cup final
FA Cup Final
The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. With an official attendance of 89,826 at the 2007 FA Cup Final, it is the fourth best attended domestic club championship event in the world and the second most...
s and the odd England v. Scotland match. The first FA Cup tie other than the final to be shown was a fifth round match between Charlton Athletic
Charlton Athletic F.C.
Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, in the London Borough of Greenwich. They compete in Football League One, the third tier of English football. The club was founded on 9 June 1905, when a number of youth clubs in the southeast London area,...
and Blackburn Rovers
Blackburn Rovers F.C.
Blackburn Rovers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Blackburn, Lancashire. The team currently competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football....
on 8 February 1947, but matches were sparing and only games in London could be broadcast, for technical reasons.
The dawn of regular coverage
The advent of floodlightingFloodlights (sport)
Floodlights are broad-beamed, high-intensity artificial lights often used to illuminate outdoor playing fields while an outdoor sports event is being held during low-light conditions....
led to the creation of the European Cup
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
, designed as a midweek cup competition for the champions of European nations, in 1955. The newly formed British television station ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
saw televised football as an ideal way of gaining a share of the audience from their only rival broadcaster, the BBC. The BBC meanwhile, started showing brief highlights of matches (with a maximum of five minutes) on its Saturday-night Sports Special programme from 10 September 1955, until its cancellation in 1963. The first games featured were both from Division One - Luton Town v Newcastle United and Charlton Athletic v Everton, Kenneth Wolstenholme
Kenneth Wolstenholme
Kenneth Wolstenholme DFC & Bar was the football commentator for BBC television in the 1950s and 1960s, most notable for his commentary during the 1966 FIFA World Cup which included the famous phrase "some people are on the pitch...they think it's all over....it is now!", as Geoff Hurst scored...
and Cliff Michelmore
Cliff Michelmore
Arthur Clifford "Cliff" Michelmore CBE is a British television presenter and producer. He is best known for the BBC television programme Tonight, which he presented from 1957 to 1965....
were the commentators.
The BBC had a new highlights programme from 1964 - Match of the Day
Match of the Day
Match of the Day is the BBC's main football television programme. Typically, it is shown on BBC One on Saturday evenings during the English football season, showing highlights of the day's matches in English football's top division, the Premier League...
. Originally shown on BBC2 and intended to train BBC cameramen for the forthcoming 1966 World Cup the format was a success and has remained on British television in some form to this day. The first game saw Liverpool beat Arsenal at Anfield
Anfield
Anfield is an association football stadium in the district of Anfield, Liverpool, England, with a seating capacity of 45,522. It has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since their formation in 1892 and was originally the home of Everton F.C. from 1884 to 1892, before they moved to Goodison Park...
.
An early attempt at live league football was made in 1960-61, when ITV agreed a deal worth £150,000 with the Football League to screen 26 matches; the very first live league match was on Saturday 10 September 1960 between Blackpool
Blackpool F.C.
Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 from the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. They are competing in the 2011–12 season of the The Championship, the second tier of professional football in England, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the...
and Bolton Wanderers
Bolton Wanderers F.C.
Bolton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the area of Horwich in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester. They began their current spell in the Premier League in 2001....
at Bloomfield Road
Bloomfield Road
Bloomfield Road is an all-seater football stadium in the English town of Blackpool, Lancashire. It has been the permanent home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901 and is named after the road on which the stadium's main entrance used to stand. The stadium has been in a process of redevelopment since 2000...
. The match kicked off at 6:50 pm with live coverage starting at 7:30 under the title The Big Game. A major blow to the TV moguls was the absence of big box office draw Stanley Matthews
Stanley Matthews
Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE was an English footballer. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the English game, he is the only player to have been knighted while still playing, as well as being the first winner of both the European Footballer of the Year and the Football Writers'...
through injury, and the game ended 1-0 to Bolton in front of a half-empty stadium.
However ITV withdrew from the deal after first Arsenal
Arsenal F.C.
Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...
and then Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....
refused them permission to shoot at their matches against Newcastle United
Newcastle United F.C.
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, and has played at its current home ground, St James' Park, since the merger...
and Aston Villa
Aston Villa F.C.
Aston Villa Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Witton, Birmingham. The club was founded in 1874 and have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were founder members of The Football League in 1888. They were also founder...
respectively, and the Football League demanded a dramatic increase in player appearance payments. ITV showed the Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
Show instead, while ironically both matches received highlights coverage from the BBC on Sports Special.
However ITV moved again into football, albeit tentatively, in 1962 when Anglia Television
Anglia Television
Anglia Television is the ITV franchise holder for the East Anglia franchise region. Although Anglia Television takes its name from East Anglia, its transmission coverage extends beyond the generally accepted boundaries of that region. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional...
launched Match of the Week, which showed highlights of matches from around East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
. The first match shown was Ipswich Town
Ipswich Town F.C.
Ipswich Town Football Club are an English professional football team based in Ipswich, Suffolk. As of 2011, they play in the Football League Championship, having last appeared in the Premier League in 2001–02....
's 3-2 defeat at the hands of Wolves
Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.
Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club that represents the city of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands region. They are members of the Premier League, the highest level of English football. The club was founded in 1877 and since 1889 has played at...
at Portman Road
Portman Road
Portman Road is an association football stadium in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It has been the home ground of Ipswich Town F.C. since 1884. The stadium has also hosted a number of England youth international matches, and one senior England friendly international match, against Croatia in 2003...
on 22 September 1962. Tyne Tees Television
Tyne Tees Television
Tyne Tees Television is the ITV television franchise for North East England and parts of North Yorkshire. As of 2009, it forms part of a non-franchise ITV Tyne Tees & Border region, shared with the ITV Border region...
in the North East of England began broadcasting local matches soon after under the title Shoot. League football was soon to gain a nationwide audience once more. In 1964, the BBC introduced Match of the Day
Match of the Day
Match of the Day is the BBC's main football television programme. Typically, it is shown on BBC One on Saturday evenings during the English football season, showing highlights of the day's matches in English football's top division, the Premier League...
- initially broadcast on the new BBC2. The first match was Liverpool's
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...
3-2 victory over Arsenal at Anfield on 22 August, and the estimated audience of 20,000 was considerably less than the number of paying customers at the ground. At the time BBC2 could only be received in the London area, although by the end of Match Of The Day
Match of the Day
Match of the Day is the BBC's main football television programme. Typically, it is shown on BBC One on Saturday evenings during the English football season, showing highlights of the day's matches in English football's top division, the Premier League...
's first season it could be sampled in the Midlands. The programme transferred to BBC1 in the wake of England's 1966 World Cup win and at last could be received by television viewers across the UK.
The World Cup
There was live coverage of World CupFIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
football on UK screens in 1954 and 1958 - however only selected matches were available. In 1954, Kenneth Wolstenholme
Kenneth Wolstenholme
Kenneth Wolstenholme DFC & Bar was the football commentator for BBC television in the 1950s and 1960s, most notable for his commentary during the 1966 FIFA World Cup which included the famous phrase "some people are on the pitch...they think it's all over....it is now!", as Geoff Hurst scored...
provided commentary on the few televised matches for BBC from Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
- including the quarter-final between Hungary
Hungary national football team
The Hungary national football team represents Hungary in international football and is controlled by the Hungarian Football Federation....
and Brazil
Brazil national football team
The Brazil national football team represents Brazil in international men's football and is controlled by the Brazilian Football Confederation , the governing body for football in Brazil. They are a member of the International Federation of Association Football since 1923 and also a member of the...
. A thunderstorm
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
over the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
cut off the picture and many irate viewers wrote in to complain that the BBC had pulled the plug. The 1958 tournament in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
saw a greater range of matches thanks to the new Eurovision Network
Eurovision Network
The Eurovision Network is part of the European Broadcasting Union, itself founded in 1950 as a system of international broadcasting cooperation...
; the BBC and ITV both screened matches, although the networks had to overcome opposition to the coverage from the Scottish FA
Scottish Football Association
The Scottish Football Association is the governing body of football in Scotland and has the ultimate responsibility for the control and development of football in Scotland. Members of the SFA include clubs in Scotland, affiliated national associations as well as local associations...
, who were worried that attendances at Junior football matches may be hit. The 1962 World Cup in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
was covered in delayed form by the BBC with film having to be carried by air via the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
back to Britain. Matches were generally seen three days after they were played, though every match was covered by the BBC with commentary.
With intercontinental communications satellites in their infancy and videotape a new advance, the first tournament to gain widespread international live coverage was the 1966 tournament, which was held in England. The tournament, which England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
won, increased the popularity of the sport. With more football viewers than ever, Match of the Day thrived - switching from BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
to BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
to reach a wider audience. ITV's regional coverage had also expanded during this period with London weekend company ATV
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
launching Star Soccer in October 1965, Southern Television
Southern Television
Southern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until the night of 31 December 1981. The company was launched as Southern Television Limited and the title Southern Television was consistently used on-air throughout its life...
's Southern Soccer and ABC
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
's World of Soccer also began to appear regularly in the TV Times
TV Times
TVTimes is a television listings magazine published in the United Kingdom by IPC Media, a subsidiary of Time Warner. It is known for its access to television actors and their programmes. In 2006 it was refreshed for a more modern look, increasing its emphasis on big star interviews and soaps...
Sunday schedules. London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
's The Big Match
The Big Match
The Big Match is a British Association football television programme, which screened on ITV regularly between 1968 and 1992 ....
started in 1968, and eventually the entire ITV network's football coverage would be broadcast under its title.
Rise of live League coverage
The demand for football grew through the 1970s and early 1980s, and the decision to start screening live league matches was almost inevitable; a deal was struck for the start of the 1983-84 season and the first live league match since 1960 was screened on ITV, between Tottenham HotspurTottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....
and Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest F.C.
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an English Association Football club based in West Bridgford, Nottingham, that plays in the Football League Championship...
, on 2 October 1983. Spurs would also feature in the BBC's first live league match at Manchester United on a Friday night a few weeks later.
By the late 1980s the value of live TV coverage had rocketed; while a two-year contract for rights in 1983 had cost just £5.2m, the four-year contract exclusively landed by ITV in 1988 cost £44m, a fourfold increase per year. There was now a situation where live football was on TV almost every Sunday afternoon from about November onwards, as ITV screened top-flight football most weeks and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
had the rights to the FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
that occupied other weekends.
With top flight football proving particularly lucrative, in 1992 the clubs of the Football League First Division
Football League First Division
The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....
voted to quit the league en masse and set up their own league, the Premier League. They eventually opted to agree a deal with Sky Sports
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
rather than ITV or the BBC, meaning leading live top flight football was no longer available on terrestrial television
Analogue terrestrial television in the United Kingdom
Analogue terrestrial television in the United Kingdom is, traditionally, the method most people in the UK, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man used to receive television...
. ITV continued to show second tier matches on a regional basis for a time and also later on its unsuccessful ITV Digital
ITV Digital
ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster, which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network as ONdigital in 1998 and briefly re-branded as ITV Digital in July 2001, before the service ceased in May 2002. Its main shareholders...
platform.
Football on television today
- See also: Premier League media coverage
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
objected to what it saw as a monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
on television rights and demanded the 2007 contract be split into separate packages of 23 games; eventually Sky won four of the six available packages, with the other two were taken by Setanta Sports
Setanta Sports
Setanta Sports is an international sports broadcaster based in Dublin, Ireland. Setanta Sports was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events...
. Setanta went bankrupt in 2009 with its packages taken over by ESPN
ESPN (UK)
ESPN is a sports television channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland owned by American sports broadcaster ESPN Inc. The channel launched on 3 August 2009...
. From 2010/11, Sky have five packages and ESPN one. The top tier still has a presence on terrestrial television in highlights form on Match of the Day
Match of the Day
Match of the Day is the BBC's main football television programme. Typically, it is shown on BBC One on Saturday evenings during the English football season, showing highlights of the day's matches in English football's top division, the Premier League...
..
From the 2009/10 season, live coverage of the Football League returned to British terrestrial television for the first time since 2001 with the BBC securing 10 live Championship (second tier) games per season, as well as Football League highlights after Match of the Day. Sky also showed live lower league football while Setanta also showed large numbers of Conference games before the channels demise.
There is also extensive coverage of numerous Cup competitions. Every match in the Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
(formerly European Cup) is available either on ITV or Sky Sports while ITV is also the primary broadcaster of the FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
with two live games per round while Sky and the BBC show the League Cup
League Cup
In association football, a League Cup or Secondary Cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament to be called "League Cup" was held in Scotland in 1946/47 and was entitled the Scottish...
. Five, ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
and ESPN
ESPN (UK)
ESPN is a sports television channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland owned by American sports broadcaster ESPN Inc. The channel launched on 3 August 2009...
show the Europa League with even the Football League Trophy
Football League Trophy
The Football League Trophy, currently known as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy for sponsorship reasons, is an annual English association football knock-out competition open to the 48 clubs in Football League One and Football League Two, the bottom two divisions in the four fully professional top...
getting live television exposure on Sky Sports.
Premier League satellite decoder case
The Premier League holds an exclusive contract with broadcasters British Sky BroadcastingBritish Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
. Some public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
s install foreign satellite television
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
decoders
Integrated receiver/decoder
An integrated receiver/decoder is an electronic device used to pick-up a radio-frequency signal and convert digital information transmitted in it.-Consumer IRDs:...
hardware to enable customers to watch live Premier League games in their establishment.
The Premier League believes that this is illegal under copyright law. The European Court of Justice is currently looking into whether the EU law on the free movement of goods should be applied to the decoder cards.
Karen Murphy, a publican who had been prosecuted for using a Greek satellite provider at a public house in Portsmouth said: "The fact is 297 is to prevent fraud and nothing to do with territorial fragmentation, and does not seek to protect the interests of the Premier League,".
Ms Murphy was charged under s297(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), in that on two occasions she: ‘… dishonestly received a programme included in a broadcasting service provided from a place in the United Kingdom with intent to avoid payment of any charge applicable to the reception of the programme.’
In February 2011, advocate Juliane Kokott of the European Court of Justice gave her non-binding opinion that any block on the use of cheaper foreign satellite TV breached EU single market rules.
Kickoff times
Each weekend as many as five Premier League games will be moved to be shown on Sky SportsSky Sports
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
or ESPN
ESPN (UK)
ESPN is a sports television channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland owned by American sports broadcaster ESPN Inc. The channel launched on 3 August 2009...
. The main kick-off times for TV games are 12.45 and 5:30 pm on Saturdays, 1:30 and 4:00 pm on Sundays, and 8:00 pm on Mondays. Other games may also be moved to Sunday if one of the teams involved played in a Europa League fixture on a Thursday.
Sky will almost always show a Sunday 4 pm game, typically following a 1.30 pm kick off as part of a Super Sunday
Ford Super Sunday
Ford Super Sunday is Sky Sports' flagship live football programme, broadcasting live Barclays Premier League football on most Sundays over the course of a season...
. Sky aim to show their best game of the weekend in the 4 pm slot, but police restrictions on local derbies mean this is not always possible. Premier League games scheduled for midweek may also be picked for live broadcast by Sky on Tuesday or Wednesday nights.
ESPN typically broadcast live Premier League games at 5.30 pm on the Saturday and/or 8 pm on Monday, while Sky typically broadcast a live Football League game at the same time. From the 2010/11 season, Sky will regain the rights to live Monday Night Premier League football.
Each broadcaster is subjected to restrictions on the number of times they can show a team live per season to ensure fair distribution of TV revenue, after 1995-2000 saw 90 percent of Saturday games involving Manchester United.
3pm Blackout
No games kicking off at 3 pm on a Saturday, the traditional British kick-off time, may be broadcast live on television in Britain, with the exceptions of the FA Cup FinalFA Cup Final
The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. With an official attendance of 89,826 at the 2007 FA Cup Final, it is the fourth best attended domestic club championship event in the world and the second most...
and the Scottish Cup Final. This is to ensure attendances at lower league games taking place at the same time as Premier League fixtures that might otherwise be broadcast on television. To avoid this blackout, the last day of the Premier League, when all ten games must kick off simultaneously, is always played on a Sunday.
Live radio broadcasts are permitted, both nationally and locally; these may be simulcast on the internet, depending on the broadcaster. Viewers outside the UK can still watch these games live on foreign broadcasters, thus creating somewhat of a grey market
Grey market
A grey market or gray market also known as parallel market is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer...
within the UK with viewers able to subscribe to or watch streams of foreign channels.
The Premier League and Sky maintain that, while grey market viewing of games is not illegal on the part of the viewer, it is illegal for anyone (such as a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
) to make such services openly available. This has in the past lead to heavy fines for public houses in the United Kingdom which have shown 3:00 games in their establishments. More recently, the legality of such fines has been disputed, and a number of Crown Court cases have been reported in which publicans successfully challenged the Premier League's position.
In recent years, Sky Sports
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
has shown 3 pm games on tape delay on their Football First
Football First
Football First is an interactive television programme on Sky Sports and since the 2010/11 season on Sky Sports HD and shows extended highlights of every Premier League match played on the day. It regularly airs on Saturdays at 8.25pm, and is currently presented by Sarah-Jane Mee...
show, either in full or as extended highlights.