I've seen speculation that it's disappearing so that a Pick HD can launch for the free PL matches.
Only way to know whether it's a permanent or temporary removal is if it comes back later in the year after everything has settled down in the world. I do hope it comes back because it's such a simple channel to run since it's just the main channel delayed by one hour, meaning that all you're running is a duplicate feed on a one hour delay.
TBH, we don't know why the +1 has been closed, and given the really short time frame for it, it seems like it was a very last minute decision. You would expect that if a channel is being closed, there would be some sort of announcement somewhere (even just a tweet) to say why it's being removed. The fact it's so last minute would imply it is a temporary measure for whatever reason.
Indeed, just to check, the first post about closing down Challenge+1 was only mentioned just last Monday. To announce that you're closing down a channel literally the following week would imply that the change was made because of the recent announcement by the Government about sports and that they just scrambled to find a random channel that could be temporarily pulled
(All this is just my speculative opinion ofc)
Last edited by SuperSajuuk on 31 May 2020 2:31pm