From the Sidelines (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

From the Sidelines

10:11am Friday 12th September 2008 in Sport By John Payne

A few weeks into the season and the reality is beginning to bite. Sky’s domination of football coverage is over.

I am pretty sure that most people thought that the end of world domination from Isleworth was going to be a good thing.

More competition for Sky, a reduction in prices and more football available for the general public to watch?

Not a bit of it. Sky may have lost England internationals and various other pieces of ‘essential’ football viewing (although I wouldn’t have called watching England essential before Wednesday’s glorious win in Croatia), but I have just got a letter saying subscribing to their channels is about to cost me another £1 a month.

Meanwhile, anyone wishing to follow the national sport on Setanta faces an extra bill in the region of £5 to £10 a month on top.

That isn’t choice or competition – it is just further exploitation of the sports-loving fan.

If only the TV companies would start having a bidding war and charging through the roof for Big Brother or home makeover programmes to lighten the load on those who love our national game.

To Sky’s eternal credit, you can very rarely question the quality of their coverage with a host of top-quality commentators and summarisers.

Like his views or not, Andy Gray is always worth listening to and Martin Tyler is simply the best around.

By contrast, Setanta’s coverage of football has been mundane in the extreme. They raided Sky for commentators – but I can’t imagine they got anyone Sky wanted to lose.

And the only way their regular co-commentator Craig Burley compares to the aforementioned Gray is that he has a Scottish accent. The amount of insight you get, even when he is talking about his Uncle George’s management of Scotland, is negligible.

Thankfully, however, Setanta have pulled out the stops for their England coverage by teaming under-rated commentator Jon Champion with Chris Waddle – a bit of a coup, with the man famous for the mullet and Diamond Lights having demonstrated an unexpected depth of football knowledge in recent years on Five Live.

Maybe the 4-1 win coloured my views, but I actually didn’t miss Sky’s coverage too much on Wednesday night.

And, exploitation or not, there is no limit to the amout of money it is worth to avoid the banal smug-fest that passes for international football coverage on the BBC these days.