Why India v England is on Channel 4

HUW TURBERVILL - EXCLUSIVE: Channel 4 landed deal for a tenth of £20m asking price put to Sky and BT, as Test cricket's long-term home in the UK was left to make difficult choices

One, two, three, four, five;

Everybody in the car, so come on, let's ride’

The news that Channel 4 – yes, you read that right, Channel 4 – were going to show India v England made some people happy, and nostalgic, and sing Lou Bega’s Mambo No.5… but it also left a lot of people scratching their heads.

It is one of the few times a terrestrial TV station has shown an England overseas Test series ball by ball ever.

Why are Channel 4 doing it? Their interest in cricket seemed to be packed away when they lost the rights to home Tests after the 2005 Ashes.

And why are Sky not showing it?

Apart from the Ashes in Australia last time, they have broadcast every England Test series abroad since the trip to West Indies in 1989/90.

Were BT tempted? They have been showing matches from Australia for the four last years, although the contract is up for renewal next winter, with England of course down under.

Sky bosses feel that they are occasionally underappreciated, and those who want a return to free-to-air do not understand how much money the game will miss out on.

^{Sky will not broadcast India vs England} 

Their coverage is excellent, their commentators are superb, especially the holy trinity of Nasser Hussain, Mike Atherton and David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, and the money they have injected into the English game for the last 21 years has gone a long way.

They had one Test a summer exclusively from 1999-2005, then from 2006–2009 paid the lion’s share of an overall £220m rights package for exclusive home coverage; then £264m from 2010–13; 280m (estimated) from 2013–17; and then that was renewed for two years in 2017, presumably at the same rate.

The Cricketer columnist Mike Selvey summed up Sky’s frustration. He tweeted: “Glad the Test series will be broadcast here and good on Channel 4 for coughing up. The implied celebrations that it's not on Sky irritates though, given they have broadcast international and domestic cricket, home and away, male and female for three decades. Sky money sustains it.”

It is worth noting that this deal with the BCCI will not give any money to the counties, and the UK grassroots game, facilities and so on.

The fact of the matter is, though, that for the last 15 years people who won’t pay the Sky subscription – up to £30 a month on top of the basic bundle – have craved this news. Mark Nicholas, Dermot Reeve, Simon Hughes, Richie Benaud, Ian Smith, Wasim Akram, Mike Atherton… those were the days.

The announcement that BBC TV would be showing live cricket every summer from 2020 to 2024 was treated with glee (again with similar nostalgia pangs for Tony Lewis, Jim Laker, Ray Illingworth, Jack Bannister and of course Benaud again)… but then when we discovered that Test cricket was not part of the deal, many thought that it did not go far enough.

No one believes that this is part of some attempt by C4 to break back into cricket on a sustained basis – until now they have not returned my emails, however. They have little sport in their portfolio – a bit of F1 and some rugby union – but they always liked cricket for its “younger multi-cultural audience" according to then-chief executive Paul Jackson. This seems an opportunistic one-off, looking to capture a big audience during lockdown.

But what is happening with Sky?

Why show the Lanka Premier League and the Abu Dhabi T10s… but not the Tests in New Zealand this winter, and now this long-awaited series?

Well, it is understood those domestic quickfire tournaments were free of charge to the broadcaster (the sports rights market has collapsed).

And on in the daytime.

And maybe more viewers watch the short stuff (of which there is more about at the moment because of the pandemic).

A depressing thought for many, but it’s probably true.

It seems to come down to money as well. Rights holders Star, the Indian giants, were asking too much at £20m. Sky tried their best to broker a deal, but when they couldn’t bring the asking price down, they walked away. Reports suggest they and BT did return with 11th-hour bids – Sky deny this in their case, however.

Channel 4 have acquired the rights for considerably less – The Cricketer believes it was £2m. That Sky didn’t come back in at the death explains why they didn’t try to trump this for £3m… and it is also believed that it was commercially expedient for Star to use Channel 4.

Are Sky worried that they will lose subscribers? Are they struggling to fill their dedicated cricket channel now?

Well, they have recently shown the Sri Lanka v England, South Africa v Sri Lanka and Pakistan v South Africa Test series. They had also planned to show South Africa v Australia until its postponement, and the next four summers, including the new Hundred competition, are mapped out.

They are not made of money.

They paid the lion’s share of the £1.1bn TV deal, with BBC, for the England cricket rights to 2024.

^{Sky is the long-term home of Test cricket in the UK}

And the Premier League football deal – £1.2bn a year until 2022 – has stretched their finances.

They spend £250m on cricket a year, with the England and Wales Cricket Board (and their Indian Premier League), the International Cricket Council, Cricket Australia (Big Bash) and the Pakistan Cricket Board. It is not a bottomless pit.

Insiders say that they feel that they have hit their ceiling audience number for subscribers when it comes to cricket. The business has to consider what is best for all its customers is a message coming out – they have to make choices like everyone else. There is certainly no animosity towards Channel 4, who they allowed to show the 2019 World Cup final. They hope subscribers will not abandon ship ahead of a packed cricket summer.

Football is their bread and butter and with vultures like Amazon hovering they can’t afford to sacrifice valuable funds on loss leaders like middle-of-the-night Test series.

Will they ease Test cricket out, as some suggest? They seemed to like the fact that it took up eight hours a day on their dedicated channel.

Romantics will hope that Channel 4’s surprise, opportunistic move will see Test cricket and terrestrial TV rekindle their romance.

Pragmatists – realists – will observe that actually terrestrial TV audience are declining at an alarming rate, and subscription channels like Netflix, and digital platforms like Amazon, Facebook and Google, will snap up live sports in the years ahead.

For terrestrial TV fans, savour this while you can is probably the best advice.

SIMON HUGHES: Memories of when Channel 4 made cricket better

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