SKY Business

londonTiger

lvf wrote: »

FYI, Sky has not and has never had the right to screen football on a Saturday at 3pm. In the football world, it is now seen as one of the daftest laws out there, and is supposedly in place "to protect attendances at the 3pm kick offs". The blackout is between 2.45pm and 5.15pm. It was that bad that Sky were banned from showing the first 15 minutes of 'El Clasico' (Barcelona v Real Madrid to the non-footy fans!) live earlier this season. See:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/real-madrid-vs-barcelona-why-will-the-first-15-minutes-of-el-clasico-not-be-shown-on-british-tv-9813800.html

Given the fact that the 3pm kick offs are live, my guess is a European decoder in that pub. Sky have absolutely no power over this and any complaints to Sky are going to fall on deaf ears, especially as they are doing nothing wrong against Sky. The Premier League, maybe, but Sky have not been wronged. See the following link for more information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17150054

I hope this clears up the confusion on the rival pub and the frustration on the complaint as well. Good luck with the rest of your case, I hope others can help with that.

Interesting, so is this illegal then? Do the commentary come in a foreign language or English?

Pubs that stream a European decoder - can they do this without any real risk of prosecution, since the European company will need to sue them or does the UK police enforce this?

lvf

Having a European decoder box is not illegal. That is the point made in the BBC link I gave above, it was a court case won by a landlady of a pub who received her pub's television services from Greece. The case was won as she claimed that the prosecution on her was in violation of EU free trade.

The commentary would simply be that of the service being shown. For example, if you got a Greek service in, chances are the commentary would be in Greek as that would be their main viewer base, however some might broadcast in the language of the league itself, as is the case with some Arabic stations.

Now whether or not showing live football during the 2.45-5.15 blackout on a Saturday on a foreign network in the UK is illegal is another matter, one I don't know the answer to.

VisionMan

With foreign decoders, the law now says no English feed commentary is allowed and no Premier League idents or music. So so as long as a pub avoids the above, they are not breaking the law. Bizarre or what?

But the decision is to do with The Treaty of Rome, which allows full and unrestricted trade across all the European Union. And that they concluded that included TV. But you can get/install what ever you want in your own home and its not illegal.

Its unfortunate the OP signed a contract they couldn't afford but both it and the debt is enforceable.

Edit - The test case is called the Karen Murphy case. And she won. ish.

londonTiger

VisionMan wrote: »

With foreign decoders, the law now says no English feed commentary is allowed and no Premier League idents or music. So so as long as a pub avoids the above, they are not breaking the law. Bizarre or what?

But the decision is to do with The Treaty of Rome, which allows full and unrestricted trade across all the European Union. And that they concluded that included TV. But you can get/install what ever you want in your own home and its not illegal.

Its unfortunate the OP signed a contract they couldn't afford but both it and the debt is enforceable.

Edit - The test case is called the Karen Murphy case. And she won. ish.

So what do they do? put on radio football commentary over the tv broadcast? I would do that if I was in that spot. Find a solution to manually sync the radio commentary and football feed by setting a delay on the faster broadcast.

londonTiger

too many people clueless about business get into business. OP needs to learn a few business basics, do you research before signing contracts - your consumer protections do not apply for business. Also burying you head in the sand by cancelling payments does not fix the problem. It makes it worse and wrecks the business credit report and makes life difficult when your overdraft gets slashed and you can't get beer kegs from your supplier on credit because your credit score is !!!!!!

londonTiger

loplisover wrote: »

What should I do?

you should have kept to your contract and pay them.

at the very least, you should have kept making payments and not cancel the service.

by cancelling you pay them the remainder of the contract and you get absolutely nothing for your money.

really poor judgement there, and if you did your research a little bit you would have know what tv service to get - i know noting of this business and i just found out what footbal tv plans to get in a pub in a few minutes!

your only option is to speak to sky and request access to the service again until the remainder of the contract and use it to get as much benefit out of it and then switch to the euro decoders as others have said.

they have more power of pursue money from busnesses and they know businesses have larger funds than individuals so they will exercise their legal rights to the full extent of the law.

spiro

Looking at the figures the economics of Sky Sport don't seem very good, £832pm/£9984pa call it £10k. Premiership season is 9.5 months, call it 10. That means you need to make a minimum of an extra £1k net profit (not sales or gross profit) per month. The following figures are guesstimates - average price per pint = £3, gross profit is 50% (£1.50), take out all other costs could easily reduce £1.50 to below £1.00/pint net profit. Working on £1 means you need to sell an extra 1000 pints per month purely as the result of a football match being on Sky.

Browntoa

loplisover wrote: »

Your answers are very blunt and not very informative. Can you please explain, are you trying to say that if we had gone about this in another way we would have had a cancellation fee rather than paying the remainder?

My replies were just summing up the reality of what you had done , you cannot just stop paying and expect them to forget about the contract

You could have come to an arrangement to pay out the contract

Possibly BT sport for pubs would have been a better option with lunchtime games on a Saturday , much cheaper I believe

londonTiger

how does bt sport have 3pm football and sky doesn't?

londonTiger

I would look to sue the government for privatising BT which owns plusnet which caused your line to fail.