Commenting on today’s decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to award all live rights to domestic test match cricket to Sky Sports, a Channel 4 spokesman said: “Channel 4 made a full and substantial offer to try and retain the live rights to test cricket and to ensure that fans would still be able to watch the England cricket team free of charge. We were bidding as much per game this time as under the terms of the last deal, but we’ve still been substantially outbid by Sky.

“We’ve lost several million pounds a year on our cricket coverage ever since we took over televising the sport in 1999 and we simply couldn’t afford to take an even bigger financial hit. While we’re immensely proud of our coverage and are disappointed to be losing cricket from our schedules, we’ll be able to reinvest the millions we’re currently spending on the sport in other forms of programming.

“We hope the ECB does not come to regret its decision to turn its back on the hundreds of hours of terrestrial exposure that Channel 4 was offering.”

Notes to Editors

1.      Channel 4 took over the broadcasting of domestic test match cricket in 1999, signing an initial four-year deal. The deal was renewed for an additional three years from 2003 and will conclude with The Ashes series next year.

2.      Channel 4’s coverage started with a three-match series against New Zealand before the 1999 World Cup. Every year since then its has broadcast all but one of the test matches played in England, with the other test being broadcast on Sky Sports.

Contact: Matt Baker, Channel 4 – 020 7306 8666