Thank God for YouTube

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...and other such sites.

I know a lot of people (usually company execs) get a bit miffed at the YouTube thing - their precious content being screened for free - but in some cases if it wasn't for such websites, half of us would have no access at all.

Here's the latest example which has really peed me off - any one noticed it's getting much easier to annoy me these days! :)

If you've seen this blog before you'll probably have realised I'm a cricket fan. In the UK that means not getting to see much cricket on the telly because Sky has bagged all the rights - I have seen approximately 35 seconds of England cricket over the winter. So, I thought I'd sign up to ECBtv and pay for access to highlights. Nope, not allowed. I live in the UK, therefore I'm obviously not entitled to even pay to watch my own national team play. Make sense? No, not to me either.

Surely I can't be the only person who thinks this way. I mean, organisations that seemingly go out of their way to prevent people watching the sport they are charged with managing and promoting? Sports are spectator events... it's just crazy.

To top it, it turns out I can't watch half the sports clips on the BBC website either, including the British cycling team's recent success and even the interview with Kevin Keegan after Newcastle's win over Spurs.

Look you lot (and by 'you lot' I mean those who sign these bloody exclusivity deals) are you trying to drive fans mad? It's one thing to bang on about rights, money and piracy but quite another to ban home supporters even paying to watch their teams play. To my mind, this needs to be looked at seriously and quickly because restricting access like this can only have a detrimental effect on the future of these sports long term. What do you do with all this money anyway?

I absolutely refuse to pay £400 a year for Sky: I don't want to watch that much sport; but I'm perfectly happy paying a set fee for access to a game I want to watch - I don't expect everything for free. Someone somewhere has to start thinking of other, smarter ways to deliver media to fans - pay per view etc. God knows there are enough ways to deliver this stuff these days. Less exclusivity, more inclusivity. Thank you.

End of rant... (until next time)

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