LONDON: Television viewing figures for Sky’s live Premier League football matches fell by an average of 14 percent last season, the company confirmed on Monday against a backdrop of a huge hike in broadcasting costs.
Although the drop was partially down on viewers switching to watching games online and more matches being broadcast compared with the previous season, the data published by the Financial Times (FT) and confirmed by Sky indicates a drop in interest for live Premier League fixtures being shown on the pan-European satellite television platform in Britain.
“As we anticipated, the way customers engage with live sport is changing — with strong growth in newer, digital-first platforms — though linear viewing remains important for those big moments that matter,” said a Sky spokesperson.
Sky broadcast the vast majority of Premier League matches shown live on UK television last season that featured the likes of champions Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Leicester City and Sunderland.
Rival broadcaster BT, the only other company able to show live Premier League matches on television in Britain, suffered a 2 percent drop in average viewing figures for the season just ended, the FT business daily added, citing the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB).
“While BARB viewing figures are a useful barometer they do not give the whole picture and are not our measure of success,” BT said in a statement Monday.
“Viewing habits are changing, with many of our customers consuming our content through digital platforms including the BT Sport App, YouTube and most recently in Virtual Reality,” it added.
The Premier League’s 20 clubs are currently enjoying the proceeds of a £5.14 billion ($6.5 billion) UK television rights deal for three years up to 2019 — a staggering 70 percent rise on the previous agreement. Sky paid the bulk of the total, at £4.2 billion, with the rest coming from BT.
Recent results from Sky show that its profits have already taken a knock from the huge hike in the cost of showing live football games from England’s top tier. At the same time, thanks to the massive increase in clubs’ TV revenues, players are seeing their wages rocket.
Including overseas rights, the present Premier League broadcasting deal is worth £8.3 billion.
Sky TV sees 14% drop in Premier League viewers
Sky TV sees 14% drop in Premier League viewers
OpenAI’s Altman says world ‘urgently’ needs AI regulation
- Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, told a global artificial intelligence conference on Thursday that the world “urgently” needs to regulate the fast-evolving technology
NEW DELHI: Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, told a global artificial intelligence conference on Thursday that the world “urgently” needs to regulate the fast-evolving technology.
An organization could be set up to coordinate these efforts, similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said.
Altman is one of a host of top tech CEOs in New Delhi for the AI Impact Summit, the fourth annual global meeting on how to handle advanced computing power.
“Democratization of AI is the best way to ensure humanity flourishes,” he said on stage, adding that “centralization of this technology in one company or country could lead to ruin.”
“This is not to suggest that we won’t need any regulation or safeguards,” Altman said.
“We obviously do, urgently, like we have for other powerful technologies.”
Many researchers and campaigners believe stronger action is needed to combat emerging issues, ranging from job disruption to sexualized deepfakes and AI-enabled online scams.
“We expect the world may need something like the IAEA for international coordination of AI,” with the ability to “rapidly respond to changing circumstances,” Altman said.
“The next few years will test global society as this technology continues to improve at a rapid pace. We can choose to either empower people or concentrate power,” he added.
“Technology always disrupts jobs; we always find new and better things to do.”
Generative AI chatbot ChatGPT has 100 million weekly users in India, more than a third of whom are students, he said.
Earlier on Thursday, OpenAI announced with Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) a plan to build data center infrastructure in the South Asian country.
