Channel 4 have emerged as serious rivals to the BBC for terrestrial coverage of Tests and one-day internationals and in addition to BSkyB, one of the cable conglomerates have also been involved in negotiations over the past few days with Terry Blake and Brian Downing, director and chairman of marketing at the England and Wales Cricket Board.

It is a situation which calls for a responsible and if possible a unified approach during the two-day meeting of the First-Class Forum. Two delegates each from the 18 first-class counties and MCC will be left in no doubt about what is at stake. The well-being of the counties themselves and of the development programmes they all now support with the help of central money channelled through the charitable Cricket Foundation will depend on a balanced and lucrative television deal with various interested companies. On that depends the sponsorship of the County Championship, the National League and future one-day internationals.

The meeting is purely consultative, apart from a decision on whether next year's National League, which replaces the AXA (Sunday) League, should be played over 50 overs, as was apparently agreed last year, or 40, as the majority of county executives now feel is the duration of game which the public demands.

If the television deal is to be completed satisfactorily, however, a decision may need to be taken in principle about the volume of international cricket in England after 2000 before the Forum meet again on Dec 2-3. Television income has to be central to the following matters on the agenda, all of them potentially explosive issues:

1) How should the ECB income be distributed between those clubs who stage Tests and internationals, working hard to sell their events, and the small clubs who think the big ones already get more than their fair share?

2) Should England players be contracted to the ECB?

3) Should the international programme be expanded to seven Tests and 10 one-day internationals a season as the marketing and cricketing committees of the ECB would prefer?

4) If so, England players would be available to their counties even less than they already are. What, therefore, would be the best programme of county cricket for the future, remembering that preparing players to do well in international cricket is the key to the financial well-being of the game and to the feeding of the grass roots; but also ensuring a viable county game which is attractive and worthwhile in its own right.

The counties have been left in the dark about the plan or alternative plans which Jon Carr, director of the ECB's cricket operations, will be recommending today. He will tread warily no doubt, given the rejection of the idea for three equal conferences, proposed last year in Raising The Standard. The two-division championship was favoured by a majority of the players when they voted on May 11, but the existing championship retains a hard core of loyal supporters - Essex, the bottom county, were watched by an average home crowd of 6,827 per match last season compared to an average of 3,841 for their AXA League games - and some will feel that the existing 17-match all-play-all league is best left as it is if England players are to be leased to the board for the greater part of the season, which is what the Trangmer committee are expected to recommend.

Those who believe, like the Essex chairman, David Acfield, that it is only the international players who have been playing too much may feel that all the championship needs is better marketing and more prize money, although that assumes that a new sponsor will be forthcoming. The main domestic first-class competition remains crucial to the successful production of England players and although, in common with its counterparts overseas, it is never likely to attract really big crowds again, it has to remain the focal point of the professional game and be a tournament which is widely followed, if in most cases from afar, and in which the professionals themselves have confidence.

Certainly the existing championship format, more competitive than is often claimed, should not lightly be cast aside. Many an alternative to the present first-class programme has been considered, however, including regional cricket which, having been aired in this column for several years, now has influential support within the ECB.