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John Grogan: Cricket, lovely cricket – but only if you pay for it
JUST before the summer parliamentary recess, Geoff Boycott arrived 45 minutes late in a House of Commons Committee Room. I had invited him to talk to MPs and Peers about his views on the broadcasting of cricket.
I informed him that we had been having an interesting discussion in his absence. "Not half so interesting as you'll have now, lad," he responded in a flash.
He then began his speech with the comment: "Now my mother used to tell me 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' and that is what the English Cricket Board (ECB) did with the last broadcasting contract."
Yesterday, the English Cricket Board once again put all their eggs in one basket and awarded all live cricket rights to Sky from 2010 to 2013. The next two Ashes series will now be unavailable to those who cannot afford subscription TV.
England's new captain Kevin Pietersen emerged as a hero in the 2005 Ashes series, but the faces of next year's emerging English stars will not be nearly as well known to many of the nation's primary school children. As a result, future interest in the game can only be more uncertain.
Since Sky took over the televising of Test Matches in 2006, the average audience has been about 300,000. By contrast, Channel 4 reached peaks of about eight million viewers during the Ashes series. As a consequence, the governing body of the ECB, made up of one representative from each of the counties, was split down the middle during the election of its chairman last year.
One of the issues which divided the two main candidates was broadcasting policy. Giles Clarke, who was ultimately successful, made his reputation negotiating the 2005 broadcasting deal. His main opponent, Mike Soper, argued that it was worth having some free-to-air exposure, even if the loss of revenue was up to 20 per cent, and, in any event, the potential for sponsorship income would be all the greater with more people watching.
The vote was 9-9 on the first ballot, with one abstention. The issue was so sensitive with counties afraid of offending the winning candidate, that Yorkshire refused to tell me which way the White Rose county voted, even though I am a member of the club.
Rumours abound that Giles Clarke will be challenged next year in his bid to be re-elected as ECB chairman, particularly as the only other member of the board who was closely involved in the television negotiations was Clive Leach. He is the former Yorkshire Television boss and now chairman of Durham County Cricket Club. No doubt both men will be keen to stress that the BBC did not bid for the rights awarded yesterday.
Nevertheless, the basic reason why the Olympics will be on free-to-air TV, and why live cricket has completely vanished, is not down to the BBC – or, indeed, the governing bodies of sport – but the Government. The Olympics is a listed event protected by law which must be offered to free-to-air TV broadcasters at a "fair and reasonable price".
By contrast, when Andy Burnham, now Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, was special adviser to Chris Smith, the then Secretary of State, in 1998, cricket was taken off the list amid spurious assurances that some live Tests would still remain on terrestrial TV.
For months, I, and Parliamentary colleagues from all parties, have been asking Andy Burnham in his new job to get on with the review of the listed events which the Government promised for 2008-2009. Moreover, the report of the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport, which investigated the cricket broadcasting contracts awarded in 2005, recommended that the forthcoming review of the list should take place "ahead of the next contract decision".
We suggested that he should re-list some part of international cricket, perhaps including the Ashes series which Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe has said should, in his opinion, be available to all viewers.
Meanwhile, Giles Clarke was elected as ECB chairman on a platform of extracting maximum value for broadcasting contracts and no public service broadcaster is now ever likely to win out in such a contest with subscription TV operators. Their negotiating stance seems to portray a completely different attitude to say the Rugby League and Football League, who made clear from the start in their recent tender processes that they wanted to reserve some of their rights, if possible, for free-to-air TV, and still managed to increase their overall television revenue.
Ultimately, the only man who can sort out is Andy Burnham, but I fear he may have missed his chance.
John Grogan is the Selby MP and chairman of the All Party Parliamentary BBC Group.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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