STV BID FOR FREE-TO-AIR GAMES

ARMCHAIR fans are in for a treat if STV win rights for free-to-air coverage of Scotland’s World Cup play-off semi-final and potential final next year. Station chief executive Simon Pitts said they want to strike the same kind of deal with Sky that Channel 4 did with Amazon Prime over the live feed of Emma Raducanu’s US Open win. He told the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster that STV had tried before to bring Scotland games to the nation and would consider it again in future if a deal was done. ‘We’d be open to having those discussions,’ Pitts said. ‘Those talks have taken place before and haven’t led to us showing games. These are deals that have to work for both parties.’ Pitts said Channel 4 gave up a sizeable amount of promotion to Amazon Prime for the tennis final, including the streaming giant’s branding on almost constant display and no adverts throughout the broadcast. ‘We are open to having those talks with the holders of the rights, absolutely,’ he added. Pitts told the committee it would be too expensive to buy the rights to Scotland games, currently held by Sky. Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross asked what games they had looked at in the past, to which Pitts replied: ‘It’s not realistic to expect that a pay TV operator, that’s spent millions building up its rights to the culmination of Scotland potentially qualifying for a major tournament, would be open to sharing those rights. ‘We’ll keep trying, but there are no guarantees. I’m just trying to be honest with you.’