The Sport Thread

Originally the extra fixture was for S4C but seems to have been for BBC Wales itself in recent years.

Interesting that yesterday the live match effectively took place within Football Focus. Although MOTD was scheduled as a separate programme from the kick-off time Football Focus was basically the MOTD style build up to the match and there was no on screen indication of the switch from one to the other apart from the game beginning.

confirmed it was in hd

That's exactly the reason. As both City and United are at home, one couldn't play on the Saturday because they never do. Usually they'd move to Sunday but when the draw was made both teams were still in the League Cup, so Man U moved to Friday instead. Liverpool did that against Oldham a few seasons ago, Everton were at home as well so Liverpool played on the Friday, not on television.



And the match was being played on Friday because neither the Beeb or BT picked it.



Aside from the fact the English regions don't have that automony, if you were going to do that you may as well show it on the entire network. But they're not, so clearly it's only permitted to be shown on BBC Wales. I know you can still see it everywhere but the network don't shout about it.

You could then say BBC London might as well show Tottenham v AFC Wimbledon, plus I'm sure theres games of interest across the regions which arguably deserve an airing in the teams region.

Indeed apart from in recent years in Wales has the FA Cup always shown it's live fixtures on a national basis or has there been times when (presumably on ITV) some games were shown on a regional basis.

It's a bit clumsy


So on BBC One Wales HD, it was a HD source downscaled to SD then upscaled to HD - no wonder the picture looked so ropey.

Is Wales Tonight in HD, I don’t think it is maybe the transmission suite in Wales still isn’t HD?

Wales Today is an SD studio. BBC 1 Wales playout is HD. That Wales Live thing on Wednesday uses BBC Wales'
HD OB truck in 'drive in' mode.

Unconfirmed report that Sky appear to have lost the Pro14 rights to Eir Sport, at least in Ireland.

http://www.the42.ie/eir-sport-pro14-tv-rights-3793899-Jan2018/

While it doesn’t mention the UK, Eir Sport’s close friends Premier Sports might be in line to pick up the rights there in that case, given they are badly in need for a replacement for the NRL.

Sounds more like they've won the rights TG4 had to me.

Although BT Sport and Eir are also friendly. Isn't BT Sport shown to fill in the Eir Sport gaps?

BT Sport could have gone in with Eir on a U.K. and Ireland basis. Don’t U.K. rights usually include Ireland?

I think the way the Pro 14 rights are done, certainly for the UK, it's each of the three unions sell the "regional" rights, hence BBC Wales and S4C show games live, as do BBC Scotland, and BBC Northern Ireland. The Sky deal is really on a pan UK basis, but in effect is the English rights to the competition.