Burns concedes failure of pay-per-view experiment
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Your support makes all the difference.David Burns, the chief executive of the Football League, yesterday conceded that pay-per-view television has been a failure for the 72 Nationwide clubs.
The League's new £95 million television deal with Sky Sports does not include any pay-per-view games, following the disastrous experiment with ITV Digital.
Under the ITV Digital deal, customers had to pay £4.99 for individual pay-per-view games, leading to a situation where viewer numbers were occasionally fewer than the crowd attending the game.
Burns said: "The experience of the Football League two years ago with pay-per-view on Sky and last year with ITV Digital is that Football League games do not lend themselves to pay-per-view within the current model." His comments came the day after the League settled for a £95m package over four years – a small sum compared to the £315m, three-year ,deal it negotiated with the now-collapsed ITV Digital.
Two First Division club chairmen have hit out at the level of income the deal will bring. Simon Jordan of Crystal Palace said: "I am totally stunned and disgusted at the way this has been handled by the League. I am shocked by the small amount of money we have got and staggered that the news was put in the public domain before the clubs were told.
"This is just typical of the incompetents who run the Football League and I hold David Burns and the whole executive responsible."
The Ipswich Town chairman, David Sheepshanks, is unhappy at the length of the deal. A former chairman of the League's board, he asked: "Why commit the League to this length of agreement when there is every prospect that today represents the bottom of the market and the future could see significant improvements in value?"
Negotiations are continuing for a Nationwide League highlights package to be shown on terrestrial television, with BBC and ITV the only contenders.
Burns has been forced to defend the League's decision to negotiate with ITV, despite the ITV Digital problems. He said: "We are charged with doing the best deal we can for all our clubs. We have to secure our future and both the BBC and ITV would make good partners."
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