Chapter 521 Competition for Broadcasting Rights

"News of the World reporter claims eavesdropping is very common in their area..."

"Everyone does it..."

Hall said:

"People with power have lost their self-control and no one is investigating us."

This is a report that has just been published in the Guardian. It comes from an interview between Guardian reporter Nick Davis and Sean Hall, who previously worked as a reporter for the News of the World.

In this interview, Sean Hall also suggested that former News of the World editor Andy Carlson was aware of newspaper employees tapping phone voicemails.

Andy Carlson has just resigned as editor-in-chief of the News of the World due to the "wiretapping scandal". Before that, he had claimed that he knew nothing about employee wiretapping.

At the same time, according to the news, Sean Hall and Andy Carlson previously worked together on the next column of the British "Sun" newspaper.

In 2003, after Carlson became editor-in-chief of the News of the World, he recruited Hall to work under the News of the World.

In fact, in Barron's previous life, Sean Hall was the protagonist who kicked off the "bug door" incident again in 2010, and a year later, he was found dead in his home.

The police at the time claimed that the cause of his death was unknown, but ruled out homicide...

So at this time, through Barron's arrangement, his staff "helped" "Guardian" reporter Nick Davis find Sean Hall and obtained this detailed revelation from him. .

Sean Hall claimed that the actual situation reported by the "News of the World" about the "buggate" was much more serious than the results of previous police investigations.

News Corporation's "eavesdropping" incident has not only intensified in England, but has also attracted attention across the ocean in the United States.

On February 20, as relevant reports emerged one after another and more and more people made accusations about wiretapping of News Corporation's magazines, Murdoch's son James Murdoch was busy negotiating with those people to reach a settlement...

Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, issued a strongly worded statement on this day.

He warned the New York-based News Corporation that it would face serious consequences if it was found to be conducting eavesdropping in the United States similar to that in Britain, especially if it involves victims of the 9/11 incident or other Americans.

He also encouraged relevant agencies to launch investigations to ensure that Americans’ privacy rights were not violated.

At this time, the Premier League Committee and the Premier League Company are negotiating with various platforms regarding the broadcast rights for the next three seasons in the UK from 2007-2010.

Prior to this, according to the European Union's resolution, one TV station cannot continue to monopolize the broadcast rights of the Premier League. Therefore, all 138 Premier League games this time will be divided into 6 broadcast packages, and it is stipulated that no one media can monopolize more than 5 broadcast packages. .

Participating in the competition this time are BSkyB (Sky TV), ITV (SEM Group), BBC, BT Sports (video platform owned by British Telecom), DailyVedio.com (video platform owned by O2 Telecom and Digital Future), and Ireland's Setanta TV stations included.

In fact, as a free public television station, the BBC is often only interested in Premier League highlights, and its participation in the competition for broadcast rights is more symbolic.

But having merged with SDTV and backed by the financial resources of SEM Group, or to be precise, ITV is backed by the financial resources of DS Group, it can be considered as a powerful one.

For BT Sports, DailyVedio.com and Setanta TV, the more goal is to obtain one or two broadcast packages out of a total of six.

As BSkyB, which has been cooperating with the Premier League since 1992, it definitely has certain advantages in the competition. After all, they have made a lot of money from paid sports channels relying on the Premier League broadcast rights...

At the same time, there is also a huge dispute between ITV and BSkyB regarding the broadcasting rights of the Premier League. In fact, BSkyB grabbed the broadcasting rights of the Premier League from ITV in 1992, and it still used dishonorable means.

At the beginning, the Premier League had not yet been officially established. The league rights were played by ITV, and the contract amount was 44 million pounds over four years.

At that time, ITV's Greg Dyke, who had the power to negotiate copyrights, was keenly aware that the future live broadcast rights of this top league would be the biggest piece of fat in British sports media and even the entire television media market.

In order to get this piece of fat, Dyke had close interviews with the six core clubs planning to establish the Premier League. On the other hand, the quotation given by ITV was also soaring.

However, the initial price of 80 million pounds over four years had nearly tripled from the past, and the final offer of more than 260 million over five years was considered by people at the time to be an astronomical figure that could not recover the cost at all.

But even after doing their homework to this extent, ITV still lost to Murdoch.

A leaky phone call from then-Tottenham boss Alan Sugar changed everything.

After learning the news, BSkyB decisively issued a tender worth more than 300 million pounds. ITV, which once thought it had a guaranteed victory, was eliminated.

As for why the Tottenham boss provided intelligence to Murdoch?

Because a year ago, he learned that his newspaper rival Maxwell was going to buy Tottenham Hotspur, so he helped his business partner Alan Sugar participate in the bid and ultimately succeeded.

This foreshadowing ultimately played a decisive role in the copyright war.

As a loser, Dyke was naturally unwilling. ITV filed a lawsuit against BSkyB at the time, but in the face of Murdoch, who was extremely proficient in power games such as offensive and defensive alliances, this action was naturally in vain.

It wasn't until 1998 that Decker finally found an opportunity to take revenge on Murdoch.

Murdoch, who was at the height of his power at the time, offered US$1 billion to take over Manchester United, but the deal, which shocked the world, was ultimately aborted under pressure from all parties.

At the time, Dyke was a member of Manchester United's board of directors.

Back to the present, ITV once again stood in the arena with BSkyB to compete for the Premier League broadcast rights, only this time...

Why did Barron detonate News Corp.'s "eavesdropping scandal" behind his back in advance?

One of the purposes is the broadcasting rights of the Premier League.

"The Labor government has always been too soft on Murdoch. I hope their so-called investigation will not end up being just a formality. As far as I know, the scope of wiretapping involved by News Corporation is extremely wide. They are not just for obtaining news, but also for They would obtain business intelligence and obtain the Premier League broadcasting rights in 1992. They relied on spying for intelligence..."

As a member of the opposition party, Joe Harriman took advantage of the "wiretapping scandal" to use all his firepower on TV programs - not only against the current ruling Labor Party, but also against News Corporation...

She said:

"Everyone knows that the Premier League broadcasting rights from 2007 to 2010 are currently in competition, but I suspect that BSkyB has received enough inside information. After all, the internal calls of the Premier League Committee are not secret in front of them. Maybe they have heard something else. Here’s some more exciting gossip…”

Yes, dragging BSkyB into the negative impact of the "Eavesdropping Gate" is also one of Barron's plans.

It's not just Joe Harriman - in fact, her words are quite implicit. The "secret dealings" between the Premier League Committee and the Premier League Company and Murdoch have also been hyped up by many tabloids...

Of course, it is impossible for News Corporation not to fight back, but under the current circumstances, it is difficult for their newspapers to be too convincing.