Sky Sports has four sports channels and exclusive live rights to the Cricket World Cup. How many channels do you think are showing the event?
The answer is one. When games are being played simultaneously the second match is available via Sky Interactive. This is an excellent service, but it is unavailable to the millions of viewers who watch Sky Sports via cable.
On Friday the West Indies played against Ireland at the same time as India took on Sri Lanka. The second game was of enormous interest, I hesitate to say do-or-die in the circumstances of this World Cup, but it was make-or-break. Both the Windies and Ireland had already qualified for the second stage of the competition. Which match did Sky show? And which one was only available to Sky customers?
On Saturday England played Kenya at the same time as the world's two best teams (Australia and South Africa) met in the group stage. Sky can legitimately argue that they should give preference to the England game. But for anyone really interested in the sport, the England game was over well before the end, while the other was a run-feast tempting to viewers. Again, for viewers who wanted to choose which match they watched, this service was only available to Sky viewers.
Why not show the other matches on other channels? Will Virgin customers who subscribe to Sky Sports get a rebate for only being offered half a service? Is this a legitimate commercial move for Sky to make?
