World Cup Highlights on Channel 4

Matt Hughes and Elizabeth Ammon.

The Times.

Monday, 6 May 2019

PTG 2785-13897.

Cricket is set to return to the UK’s Channel 4, a public-service-free-to-air-television network,for the first time since their record-breaking Ashes coverage in 2005 with the broadcaster close to reaching an agreement to show World Cup (WC) highlights this summer. In a deal with the rights-holders Star Sports and Sky Sports that is expected to be announced next week, Channel 4 are believed to have won the rights to show highlights all of England’s matches, both semi-finals and the final of the tournament, which starts with the hosts meeting South Africa at the Oval on the second last day of this month.

Channel 4 have not broadcast cricket since the final year of a seven-year live rights deal ended with England’s remarkable Ashes triumph in 2005, a scintillating Test series that attracted record viewers of more than eight million as the home side won the fourth Test at Trent Bridge to go 2-1 up in the five-match series and drew the final Test at the Oval.

The World Cup deal is a sub-licensing agreement with the global live rights-holder Star Sports and domestic broadcaster Sky Sports, with the International Cricket Council keen to attract as much exposure as possible for their showpiece one-day event. The BBC will also provide visual coverage of the tournament via in-game clips shown on their website, but are not understood to have bid for the highlights package because of the difficulty of finding space in the schedules at short notice, leaving the way clear for Channel 4.

The proposed deal will also be welcomed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), which is conscious of the need to broaden cricket’s appeal through terrestrial television and has agreed a deal with the BBC to provide 100 hours of coverage from 2020, including live coverage of England’s T20 Internationals and some matches in ECB’s the new Hundred competition.

Channel 4’s highlights packages are expected to be produced by Sunset and Vine, which was responsible for the live output 20 years ago and at present produces England’s domestic highlights shown by Channel 5. This UK summer’s tournament will be the first to have highlights available on terrestrial television there since 2011.