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THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE has been given a major blow at the European Court of Justice, which has ruled that it is legal for domestic customers to show premium sports events by using a TV decoder intended for foreign audiences.
The Premier League – the group composed of the top 20 teams in English league football – had taken Portsmouth landlady Karen Murphy to court over her use of a foreign decoder to show games which were not being broadcast elsewhere.
The Premier League’s broadcasting packages for the UK do not allow the broadcast of matches kicking off at 3pm – with the idea being that live televised coverage of afternoon games would disincentivise fans from attending games in person.
In a bid to get around this, Murphy had taken out a subscription to a Greek TV service, and bought the appropriate decoder – meaning she could show matches with 3pm kickoffs involving the local side, which at the time was a Premier League team.
Aside from the practical benefits of allowing a 3pm kickoff, the Greek service – with TV network Nova – was also cheaper: it cost £118 per month, compared to the £480 per month that Sky charges for a subscription in a commercial premises.
Today the European Court, in a major blow to the Premier League, ruled that the free movement of services meant Murphy was entitled to take out a Greek subscription.
It also found that it would be illegal for TV providers to disable broadcasts in individual territories – with the BBC explaining that the UK’s legislation restricting the sale of foreign decoders “could not be justified” by concerns over the attendances at games.
It ruled against Murphy, however, in her bid to show the games to her customers through the Nova subscription – saying parts of the individual broadcasts, such as the Premier League anthem, are the intellectual property of the Premier League who must approve their commercial reuse.
The ruling does mean, however, that users can take out foreign subscriptions to watch games on a domestic basis.
The ECJ’s ruling is not final – it had been asked to offer guidance on the matter by Britain’s High Court, which has the final say – but it will still nonetheless force a major rethink of the lucrative TV rights packages which form the backbone of the Premier League’s commercial viability.
Indeed, in early trading in London, shares in British Sky Broadcasting Group – whose Sky Sports channels own the exclusive rights to the majority of Premier League games – fell by around 3.3 per cent on foot of the news.
Before the ruling had been issued, the Guardian had speculated that a loss for the Premier League may force it to revise its usual sales model and to sell its rights on a pan-European basis – a deal which could throw up competition problems of its own.
This could have a major impact on its revenues, however, with a single European group unlikely to pay as much for a pan-European package as they would have on an individual basis, given the lesser competition for such an expensive deal
Another option for the league would be to create its own channel in some countries, or across the European Union – but this also presents practical problems in regard to how individual games could be restricted.
The current round of TV deals expires at the end of the 2012-2013 season.
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Maybe it’s time to give junk status to Moody and other agencies?
If a country borrows money then it’s at their mercy. The only way to avoid them is not to borrow. Full stop.
But can you imagine the ‘budget’ we would have if the governent had to fully balance income and expenditure?. Forget about the 10 euro on childrens allowance being a concern.
Rating agencies should not be allowed to contribute to sensational journalism. It contributes to and accelerates market opinion. They should do ratings full stop. Not make statements that countries are at risk of a downgrade. How on earth can any EU country go to the bond market now and expect to have a good auction.
One has to feel there is some political agenda from inside Moodys.
Dear Moody’s, Standard & Poor et al….. Shut the hell up and jog on From, us.
Sick and tired of this lot and their self fulfilling prophecies.
So it will be a level playing field?
Completely agree with Cormac above.
Every time these agencies suggest that something may happen it causes panic, and makes the situation worse than it already may be.
They should just comment when they’re making a downgrade. They should warn those in the power in the countries that there is a risk to their creditworthiness, but leave it at that.
I know they want to make investors aware of potential problems, but it’s not helping the countries regain any sense of control of the situation, as I’ve said, it just worsens it.
Also see a political motivation – maybe my viewpoint is a bit simplistic here, but isn’t it better for currency speculators to have lots of smaller fluctuating currencies to one big steady one?
@Niall There is definitely something political going on. I’m very suspicious and wary of the rating agencies on a whole – when they choose to talk about things, when they choose to announce their downgrades.
Not quite sure regarding the currency, I’d like to agree as it would make sense. Currency, investments etc. are definitely not my strong point.
Not sure why is my name Kildare here after posting from an iPhone. TheJournal?
Hi Danny. This looks like a bug in our system – sorry! If the problem keeps happening, could you email hello@thejournal.ie? Thanks and apologies.
Pure sensationalistic attention-seeking on the part of the ratings agencies. How else can they make such sweeping statements about such a large number of countries? Within the Eurozone itself, we have countries like Estonia with a 6.5% debt to GDP ratio and Luxembourg with 19% in comparison to our place just short of the 100% mark, Greece’s 142% and Italy’s 146%.
Just a quick question for those of you with more knowledge than myself: With the euro situation getting worse by the minute and negative speculation making things even more difficult, will all of Ireland’s “best in class” behaviour have been for nothing? Just looking for honest opinions
I wouldn’t claim to know more than anyone else, but my feeling is that there was no benefit to Ireland in blindly propping up the Euro, at all costs. I think that the threat of default is about the only card we’ve got, and we should have used it judiciously to extract softer terms from the troika.
Instead, we’ve gone all in on the Euro’s survival through the policy decisions taken in the past few months – extended bank guarantee, etc. – so I sincerely do hope that it does survive, the consequences of its collapsing would be catastrophic.
have your say