German public-service broadcaster ARD criticised a decision by the country’s competition regulator, the Bundeskartellamt, to approve a media rights tender process by the domestic football league, the Deutsche Fussball Liga, which could lead to free-to-air television highlights being pushed back to a later time on Saturday evenings.
ARD’s long-running Sportschau programme currently shows free-to-air highlights of top and second-tier league football matches from 6pm on Saturdays. However, in the tender for the next rights cycle, from 2013-14 to 2016-17, the league will offer an alternative scenario to rights-buyers which would allow early-evening highlights to be shown on the internet only, with free-to-air television highlights delayed until 9.45pm.
The league will also allow bids for packages of rights which would see the current broadcast schedule maintained.
ARD general director Monika Piel told the Rapid TV News website that, by only allowing viewers to access free-to-air highlights online in the early evening, the league could “exclude a large number of the audience.”
“Especially in rural areas, for many people the internet is not a replacement for conventional television as the necessary reception possibilities for web-television are lacking,” Piel said.
The league thinks it might generate higher rights fees from pay-television broadcasters if the free-to-air highlights are shown at a later time. The tender was approved by the regulator on Friday.