Ordinary Gweilo

The Standard provides official confirmation that Cable TV has won the rights to the English Premier League starting next season, though there seems to be some dispute about the amount that Cable TV paid.

They will be showing more matches, at least in part because there will be games at 12.30 and 5.15 (UK time) each Saturday, meaning that they will be able to show 3 or 4 games live on Saturday, 2 on Sunday and 1 on Monday (well, Tuesday morning).

I had an email from someone who was concerned about the English commentary, but I imagine that this will be the same as it was when Cable TV last had the rights. The rights include English commentary from an experienced team of commentators based in the UK, and this is what ESPN/Star Sports has been using (supplemented with commentary from Sky Sports for selected games). I fully expect Cable TV to continue to provide this, alongside a Cantonese commentary if you like to hear people getting slightly hysterical (in best Jonathan Pierce style). What we will lose is the pre-game and post-game analysis that ESPN currently offers.

Shares in i-Cable fell on this news. The obvious question is whether football is the ‘silver bullet’ in the same way that it was for Sky in the UK. This seems like largely a defensive move because there are now alternatives to cable TV that are cheaper (depending upon which channels you want), and it’s hard to see cable TV gaining many extra subscribers because of the EPL rights, especially because they currently have exclusive rights to ESPN and Star Sports.