News on ART, Showtime and Premiership football for 2007/2008

[BGonaSTICK]

This has recently been reported in the Arab press:

Originally Posted by 7days.ae

It seems ART are not prepared to give up on the Premier League without a fight – however dirty it gets. The pan-Arab broadcaster, home to the Premier League for the last three seasons, was dealt a hammer blow last September when it lost the rights in a bidding war with rivals Showtime.

Now, as football fans across the UAE are weighing up their options for next season, ART has been accused of using “desperate and misleading” tactics to trick customers into renewing subscriptions.

On Monday, an SMS message was sent to subscribers claiming top Premier League football will still be on ART next season.

The message read: “Dear Customer, do not pay any additional charge, watch the best games of English Cup and Premier League on Man United, Chelsea and Liverpool Clubs Sport Channels on ART Sport.”

Clubs channels, such as MUTV, will indeed be broadcast on ART Sport next season. However, the message failed to mention that channels like MUTV are bound by regulations preventing them from showing matches on the same day they are played.

Showtime yesterday described the message as a “clear attempt to disguise the truth”, and the Premier League also moved to clear up any confusion.

Phil Lines, the Premier League’s head of international broadcasting, said: “Showtime is the only network that is able to broadcast live games. No other broadcaster in the region has the rights to air any of the Premier League games live or even delayed on the same day. “It is important to clarify that club channels will not be showing any live matches nor will they be able to show delayed broadcasts of matches on the same day that they are played.”

Viren De Silva, channel manager of ART Prime Sport, yesterday denied the SMS message was misleading, and said the issue of delayed games had yet to be properly studied by the channel. He said: “We will have to show what the club channels show, which may mean matches being shown with a delay, but we haven’t looked into things properly yet.”

Marc Antoine d’Hullain, CEO of Showtime, said ART were deliberately “disguising” the truth, but said the tactics would backfire. “They are not going to fool anybody – it’s not the right answer,” he told 7DAYS. “If they go too far in misleading subscribers the next step for them is to lose the rights to the club channels. It’s a desperate measure from ART. Not only are they losing the Premier League, they are losing it one year after the World Cup. They had a lot of one-year sign ups at this time last year, and those subscribers are leaving now.”

Showtime is committed to showing every Premiership game next season, and is in the process of signing a “big name” presenter to front their studio show.

You will need a large dish indeed to get Showtime with any degree of reliability - but it's possible.

STICK

[gav99]

which satellite will u have to point your dish at to pick up showtime as i have just invested in a meter dish and motor

[nanochickin]

Nilesat 7w

_http://www.lyngsat.com/nile.html

I wouldn't hold out much hope of getting much on a 1m dish off Nilesat though

I can get some stuff off the vertical transponders on my 90cm dish but only if its really clear and its about 3 o'clock in the morning. Have a look at the url below

http://www.satellitehelp.co.uk/forum...c,2374.15.html



Nano

[wod]

if you had a 2metre dish then maybe you would pickup some of the channels but 1metre wont get the channels

[BGonaSTICK]

It could be tough to even get a card in the UK, let alone afford one

[chavslav]

i think the way forward is a digitalb/supersport card, that seems to be the popular choice.

more are turning up on ebay, premiere card was around the 600 mark....

[wod]

i've seen premiere on some sites for around 400

[nanochickin]

It could be tough to even get a card in the UK, let alone afford one

£425 is about the cheapest I've seen Showtime cards going for in this country (See URL below)

I've had 2 Digitalb cards off this guy now and he 100% trustworthy, with excellent after sales service. I can definitely recommend him

_http://www.marconidigital.com/index.php?cPath=345&osCsid=ehe8l2r323qi4vbhc47s3a8 gu4




Nano

[BGonaSTICK]

That's where I got my ART card. One of the largest UK sellers.

[nanochickin]

The guy is being 100% upfront about Art losing the rights to the prem footie this year, he is now only selling six month cards, unlike most of the sellers on ebay



Nano