Listening to Test matches abroad

The BBC used to be a great institution, renowned all over the world as a benchmark for broadcasting standards. They brought us Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, a rich diet of music (and I mean real music, not overpaid pop stars) and drama, and of course well-researched documentaries and nature programmes. Some of that still exists, but their content now is ever-increasingly ratings conscious and we have to endure endless logos and adverts for their programmes. Anything “highbrow” seems to embarrass them and is relegated to the graveyard shift or digital channels; Estuary English is rife in the broadcasting service that brought us the term “BBC English” and we don’t even get much decent sport any more. Add the fact that they have become a mouthpiece for the Labour Party and I’ll freely admit that I think it is high time to make the BBC a normal commercial channel and scrap the exorbitant licence fee.

Still, for me one programme stands out as a shining beacon among the gloom. That, of course, is Test Match Special. Aggers and his team continue to delight us year after year with entertaining, informative cricket commentary. The cricket coverage is still quintessentially English, fair and impartial to both the home and the visiting teams, and untainted by the political correctness which pervades so much of their output. Even when rain stops play TMS is more entertaining than pretty much anything else the BBC have to offer. Yet even here the BBC seem to want to spoil our fun. Basically, the internet TMS commentary on foreign tours is restricted to UK broadband users only.

Now, I can readily accept the argument that UK licence payers can’t be expected to pay for entertaining people living abroad, as a general principle. But in this case, how much of a problem is that likely to be? Will there be millions of Americans, Europeans and Japanese tuning in to get the latest score? Since most countries don’t give a monkey’s about cricket it’s hardly likely. The people most likely to be affected are English expats like myself who have (and in my case at present, still do) paid the licence fee for at least some of their lives.

Games played in the UK don’t (yet) present a problem, but try to get the commentary for an Australian tour and the chances are that the pop-up player (Real or Windows Media Player) will sit on “connecting” without making any progress. What actually happens is that the BBC website recognises your IP address and blocks it if that IP address comes from a country other than the UK. Your IP address is determined by your internet service provider so if, say, you live in Hungary the IP address will identify this. Sometimes persistent clicking on the audio link can get you through by luck – maybe if a lot of people are logging on at any one time it’s easier to slip past the net – but generally this takes a long time and is very frustrating.

The way round this is to use a proxy server. What happens is that instead of connecting directly to a web site, you connect to another server, which does this for you. It’s like making a deal through an intermediary rather than directly. You need to find a proxy server in the UK, and once you’ve set your computer correctly what will happen is that when you click on the TMS audio link, the BBC site will see a UK IP address and let you through. So how do you do this?

You can do an internet search for UK proxy servers and there is plenty of information available. I would recommend this link: http://www.xroxy.com/proxy-country-GB.htm

Then do the following:

In Internet Explorer (6 or 7), click on the Tools menu and select Internet Options
Click on the Connections tab
Click on the LAN Settings button
Check the option to use a proxy server and the greyed-out spaces for address and port will light up
Enter the IP address of the proxy server and the port it requires
Click OK to close the LAN Settings dialogue box
Click OK to close the Internet Options dialogue box
Try connecting to the commentary and you should be able to listen to the cricket.

This may seem like an ideal solution to an annoying problem for cricket lovers living outside the UK, but it's only fair to set out the disadvantages of using a proxy server. Generally speaking these servers appear to be rather unreliable in that connection speeds are slow and that one that works well one day may not work at all the next. The day before I wrote this I had no problems listening to the England/New Zealand Test (24th March 2008) for several hours, yet the same proxy server did not work at all today. In fact I spent a fair amount of time finding a connection that offered a fluent audio stream without annoying buffering breaks every fifteen seconds. On average it's likely that you may need to try a few before finding one that is fast enough to support the live audio commentary (or indeed works at all) and you can probably forget about getting the video scorecard to play without continuous buffering breaks. As I understand it several external factors have an influence on streaming, notably the number of people using the service at any one time, and if the proxy server isn't very good you can expect problems from time to time.

I've also found enough evidence from like-minded cricket nuts to suggest that the BBC deny access to proxy servers as they find them. Sad, but it's easier than bothering with improving programme quality I suppose. Be aware too that if you try browsing other pages while listening you may get a lot of denied entries and slow page loads. Yet despite all this the proxy server method is a useful way round the restriction, and even if it is far from ideal, it's better than nothing.

There may also be a security issue here in that you are routing the flow of data from the Internet to your computer via a third party about which you know very little. If you’re just listening to the cricket there’s no risk involved, but I strongly suggest you revert to normal browsing for things like online banking. All you have to do is uncheck the proxy option, and the proxy IP address and port will be saved but greyed out. You can always re-check the option and use the proxy again when the next match starts.

There is nothing illegal about doing this. No doubt the BBC will eventually find a way to detect all proxy servers and block them, but in the meantime this is one way round what I see as a rather petty restriction. There are, of course, some people who use proxy servers to mask their identity for more sinister reasons. I neither condone, nor take responsibility for, the use of a proxy server to secure anonymity to abuse Internet forums like Facebook or for other mindless or criminal behaviour. I wrote this article simply to help those like myself who are frustrated by being unable to get hold of TMS while abroad. Enjoy the cricket and good luck to our team!