Terrestrial TV to show live Premiership matches
Channel 5 will broadcast five games as well as weekly highlights package
remiership Rugby matches will be shown live on terrestrial television for the first time next season,
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revealed last May that BT Sport, which has the exclusive rights to the Premiership until 2021, was considering allowing several matches to be shown on a free-to-air broadcaster.
Now it can be reported that a four-year deal, understood to be worth more than £1million, has been struck with free-to-air broadcaster Channel 5 to show five live games from next season.
Channel 5 will also broadcast a highlights programme every Sunday night, covering Premiership Rugby, the AngloWelsh Cup and Premiership rugby sevens, replacing the show that is on ITV now.
While the BBC used to broadcast live matches in the Heineken Cup before the tournament organisers sold the rights to Sky Sports in 2003, this would be the first time that top-flight English league matches have been shown live on terrestrial television.
Under the new contract, agreed after a competitive bidding process, Channel 5 will ‘simulcast’ five live games with BT Sport, who will continue to broadcast up to 80 live Premiership games per season.
The new deal does not impact on the existing contract with BT Sport, which is understood to be happy to share some of the broadcasting of live games to increase the profile of the tournament, with the hope of then attracting new subscribers.
The highlights show on ITV has attracted more than 400,000 viewers each weekend and industry insiders hope that a live match could bring in more than a million.
“This agreement with Channel 5 will supplement the brilliant, season-long coverage we have with BT Sport,” said Mark McCafferty, Premiership Rugby’s chief executive. “We have a very successful partnership with BT Sport that has seen our ratings grow by more than 40 per cent across the last four years. This new agreement with Channel 5 complements that partnership.”
The deal replicates an agreement between BT Sport and Channel 5 to simulcast live cricket, which was shown on terrestrial TV for the first time in more than a decade this year when Channel 5 broadcast five Twenty20 fixtures from the Australian Big Bash League.
The highlights programme will continue to be produced by Perform, the digital sports content and media group, which signed a five-year deal with Premiership Rugby last October.
The new agreement comes just a year after Premiership Rugby announced a broadcast deal with NBC Sport in the United States along with a number of other new international television agreements for this season, which has resulted in live league matches being broadcast in 200 countries, and reaching more than 170 million households around the world.