English Entertainment
Fox Sports introduces downloads for bowl championship series
MUMBAI: Fox Sports has announced that, for the first time ever, full-length games from the 2007 Tostitos bowl bash will be available on the internet via several digital download sites beginning 28 December.
Developed in partnership with the Bowl Championship Series, the complete content offering is a comprehensive collection of digital downloads made available online in association with a major sporting event. It also marks the first time that Fox Sports has made downloadable content available for sports fans on the Web, asserts an official release.
Fans can access the Tostitos Bowl Bash downloads by visiting Fox at http://Foxsports.com, http://direct2drive.com, Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Unbox, AOL Video, CinemaNow and Instant Media.
Fox Sports on MSN and Direct2Drive will also offer a comprehensive programming hub for the Tostitos Bowl Bash, including a free, live simulcast of the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic, which marks the first time a 1 January bowl game has been streamed live on the Internet, adds the release.
Through this digital distribution program, football fans will be able to purchase preview shows covering each of the BCS games airing on Fox Sports and also pre-order full-length games, highlight packages and Short Cuts – a condensed version that allows users to watch each game in approximately 20 minutes. Fans can purchase single-game highlights or a Best of the Bowl Bash highlight package that will feature the best plays from all five games in one program produced exclusively for digital distribution.
Fox Sports presidentd E Goren said, “Sports fans are consuming content on new and different platforms every day, and our goal is to expand the reach of Fox Sports and the BCS to as many of those media platforms as possible. By working with great distribution partners both within the Fox family and externally, we have given college football fans an incredible amount of choice when looking for official BCS content online.”
Fox Sports Enterprises executive vice president Gary Ehrlich added, “Our goal is to expand the reach of the Bowl Championship Series through as many platforms as possible, and digital rights have become a more important part of the media mix every year. This content offering represents important first steps in digital delivery for both the BCS and Fox Sports, and we look forward to finding more ways to deliver sports content to fans via digital download in the future.”
Preview shows will be available through all distribution channels starting 28 December and will in many cases feature both game overviews and team-centric preview packages. Though exact timing may vary, most full-length games will be available for download within 24 hours of a given game’s completion, and several distribution partners will enable fans to pre-order any of the games starting 28 December.
Preview shows, Short-Cuts and the Best of the Bowl Bash highlight program is be priced at $1.99 each, while full-length games at $2.99. Every Bowl Bash full-length game and the Best of the Bowl Bash highlight package is priced at $19.99.
In addition, select retail partners will allow fans of participating teams to purchase all products related to a specific BCS Bowl game – including previews shows, the full-length game, the Short-Cut and the Best of the Bowl Bash highlight package for $6.99.
While serving as one of the distribution channels for downloadable BCS content, Fox Sports on MSN will also offer its users a wealth of free video and audio content related to college football’s biggest week. The site will deliver free live audio streaming of four BCS games, provide pre- and post-game video reports from several bowl locations, and serve as the home for Fox College Bowl Pick ’em – the official fantasy game of the Bowl Championship Series.
“With more than a month of hype leading up to the games, college football fans are hungry for any and all BCS content in advance of the broadcasts. From pre-game shows to live game streaming, we are delivering the same great Fox Sports content to fans, whether they’re tuning into the games on television or visiting us on the Web,” said Fox Sports Interactive senior vice president Brian Grey.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
