Thetownend.com

The EU legal advisor has said the practice of stopping pubs from buying Premier League coverage from other EU countries (at a lower price than from Sky) is illegal and they should be allowed to buy from wherever they want....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12355022

If this advice is upheld its going to have a massive knock on effect for the sale of Premier League TV rights across the EU and will most likely lead to Sky and ESPN buying the rights for the entire EU - as no one else would pay the money they will. They in turn would then have to sell packages at the same rates across the entire EU as otherwise people will just buy them from another country instead.

Good news, one up the arse for Murdoch

Thing is, the UK market is by far the most important market in Europe for TV rights.  I'm not sure whether this will result in a significant reduction in UK prices charged; more likely, a significant increase elsewhere.

Either way, Murdoch and the PL both lose money...which can only be a good thing.

Mind you it will probably lead Murdoch to take over all the other EU's satellite broadcasters as he has done in Italy and Germany.

I think with the internet as it is, pirate TV will only get more and more prevalent in this country.

Yes the TV deals from other countries are massive, but pirate TV will take over there too, and less and less people will big money pay for TV subscriptions.

This is the beginning of the end of football's ludicrous financial state.

Given this is a "A non-binding opinion" what is the next step? A test case?

What do you mean by pirate tv Spencer?

Just informed my mate...he is over the moon...been waiting for this news.

He imports decoders and installed all the pubs for Arkells............when Sky threatened action Arkells took them all out.

If this is the final full verdict he is back in buisness...big time.

What packages does he supply Lee?

No. It's up to the judges hearing the case as to whether they follow the opinion of the advocate or not and they usually do.

It's going to make the Premier League rights for the rest of the EU pretty much worthless, as broadcasters will have to sell the channels for the same prices they do in the UK and not many will pay what we do. Doubt it will happen over night though and there is always the possibility of an exception being granted as well as further legal challenges.

I think he means sites such as justin.tv and iraqgoals etc

He shouldn't get too happy. It will probably be a while before the final verdict and if it goes against them they'll find another way to block it - such as terminating the foreign broadcasting agreements and selling them EU wide to Sky and ESPN.

No it's not sadly. As jonny says, it's more likely to result in Sky and ESPN becoming about the only players in EU broadcasting rights as the Leagues will increasingly have to offer Europe-wide deals and they're the only ones with the kind of presence to be able to do that. Which means they might lose some money short-term but long-term they'll have less competition from smaller players and will be able to ramp their prices everywhere.

Twohundredpercent had a good piece on it (I thought it would be a blow to Sky too till I read this)
http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=10878

Think its the Algerian imports he uses/used......all different packages.

He does Gold/Silver/Bronze deals according to what people want............at a MUCH cheaper rate than Sky charge for pubs etc.

Fact is even if the law dosn't change that much this news means its highly doubtfull that he and hundreds of others will be fined now(like the landlady from Portsmouth...Brady)

Sounds like he may have a good next couple of years then once the TV deal's renegotiated in 2013, see the arse completely fall out of his business

Thanks.

Any idea what the deal is with re-broadcasting the far-east channels Prem coverage, but dog legging from in the EU?

Spot on......he has just told me people will have to make Hay while the Sun shines.

He feels Sky will get there way..........eventually.

I find it hard to believe the Premier League and Sky will just let it go for a couple of seasons if the ruling goes against them.

Other EU broadcasters will suddenly be able to sell direct to the UK (individuals as well as pubs) at a far lower price than Sky, making the UK rights which Sky have paid a fortune for practically worthless. I'd imagine they will find a way to cancel or buy out the TV rights contracts early, or the EU will grant a reprieve for a few years to enable them to sort out their contracts.

Remember this problem won't be limited to the Premier League and Sky, it will apply to everyone across the EU.

I find it hard to believe as well....but if EU law says they have to then it will take years for them to come up with other options.

Fact is if they were fairer with there prices anyway then they wouldn't be spending time and money on this case...people would want to use them.
Must be the only organisation who dosn't realise there is a fucking world wide recession on.

Absolutely, you can bet your life even if this non-binding judgment had an adverse effect on Sky, Murdoch would 'persuade' the EU to pass more regulations that put everyone else out of business because of cost. The EU knows which side its bread is buttered and that's the nontransparent process of corporate lobbying.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/03022011/58/premier-league-pub-landlady-ushers-tv-football-rights-revolution.html

Anyone know the exact details of the no live football at 3pm on a Saturday rule?

Is it from the FA or UEFA? Is it an actual rule or a gentleman's agreement?

FA I think jonny, their reasoning being that it would affect attendances possibly at lower league level. There are actually shit loads of sat channels that show live EPL 3.00pm kick offs

http://liveonsat.com/LJ_foot_b_ukire_ALL.php

Cards for some of these packages can be bought quite cheaply on that well known auction site

http://tinyurl.com/4675gfj

http://tinyurl.com/464dafk

http://tinyurl.com/4od7trw

This is the Nova package mentioned in the original article. Quite a bit more but no doubt a lot less than what Sky charge pubs, and by the looks of it you also get an HD receiver thrown in

http://tinyurl.com/4nofcus

I read a 'fact' that sky make more money in a recession because people stay in more and watch TV to save money.

I read it on the internet so it must be true.

Quite probably true Batch

I thought this was going to be about Kate Adie in the County!!!!

TV Boxes that use codes off the internet to show all the channels for free.

That'd be cable though

Yeah, but you can get them for Sky dishes as well.

Really? Never heard of anything that would decode Sky using just codes, it's an incredibly secure system

Yeah, I know of a bloke who does them. He says you can get 10,000 free channels out of a sky dish with one of them. Basically every channel in western Europe.

A lot of this technology is comming out of North Africa, because they have got quite sophisticated bypassing the regulations of the autocratic governments.

They cant hide from it. In the future people will pay much much less for television.

Pretty certain Virgin have put a stop to that, or are in the process of doing so. Think they used to broadcast all the channels to you whether you were subscribed to them or not and now it only does the ones you've subscribed to. Or something like that.

It's one thing that Virgin can hide from as they can control who gets the channels.

10,000 channels from a sky dish, I find that very hard to believe. I'm certainly curious to hear more

I don't think they have jonny

Virgin have only just changed their system, at the end of last summer. Usually they change it every 3 years.

Err, yeah...spill the beans.

I know my Dad's neighbour pays fuck all (about £200 or something I think) for Italian Satellite, and he has more than most Sky subscribers.

My pub landlord has Irish sky an he gets EVERY premier league game, he makes a killing in tere.
I use to have a chipped virgin box but they blocked it

Even 3pm Sat afternoon games?

Yep

They show them on some Chinese channel with English commentary

Through a Sky box? Bit strange that one, a bit close to home. I can understand Sky Italia and Sky Germany showing em, but not Sky Ireland. Would imagine then that the Chinese thing would be a different subscription

I think the boxes for it are around £200.

You need to find someone who knows what they are doing.

Your mate?

Sky dishes point 28.2 east, you can only receive what is in that footprint regardless of the box you use if you use a sky dish http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html . Gonna nee a motorised dish to get all those free ones.

There are rumours of videoguard (what sky use) being hacked/circumnavigated. But if it as been the hackers are keeping it close to their chest. Not easy to find anyone selling 'em.

edit: just seen Spencer's last post. Interesting....!

Not so secure if you work for them.......and the wages aint great.

Motorised dish for 10,000 European wide channels. Most definitely. Not possible on a Sky dish you would have to be outside with a satmeter and manually move the dish to each sat on the arc. Good chance also that the mini dish would be too small for a lot of the other sats eg 1W

Videoguard been hacked? Wouldn't believe it unless I saw it

@Leefer are you saying that the installers know a way round the encryption?

Well maybe a friend of the installers...maybe even them.
Wouldn't suprise me though Dave...........nothing is sacred these days anymore.

It would surprise me

Years back the thought of chipped boxes would have been laughed at........no it wouldn't suprise me if someone someware knew how to hack in.

I'm with leefer, I'd be more surprised if it hasn't been done. In fact, I'm genuinely surprised it isn't already widely done

They've been doing that for years with cable. Sky is a totally different kettle of fish, though they have been known to hack other broadcasters pay tv systems aka Chris Tarnovsky

http://www.aaafta.com/forum/general-fta-news/14219-chris-tarnovsky-others-front-grand-jury.html

If it is, it's very, very quiet and with good reason

Forgive my ignorance stfcinbmth but what makes sky's encryption so much harder to pirate?

Football was invented way before Sky came on the scene and some might say those days were better too. Who remembers the weekly like football on a Sunday afternoon on BBC/ITV?
 As a consumer we should have a choice but we dont, its Sky or nothing. Even if you have Virgin Media you still have to get Sky Sports so its a monopoly by Sky.
 Worse still is as a consumer you dont even get a choice in the match they Broadcast over here! On Wednesday Sky was showing Fulham V Newcastle for the British market while also broadcasting Liverpool V Stoke for a Chinease sports channel. Why was this game not available to British subscribers?

Skys encryption hasn't been hacked, but there is something called cardsharing that allows people to set up a server with their sky card in, and other people can then connect to it over the internet and decode the channels with a linux based satellite box and a dish