The Sport Thread

The BBC Three caption seemed to appear after 4 or 5 seconds of black screen and silence each time so maybe it was a 100% automated breakdown and there was no one senior enough to put the 5 Live audio to air.

I don't think that routing in Five Live Audio (and checking the rights to broadcast it on BBC Three) along with a graphic would be upmost in their mind - if they can actually do it within the confines of a breakdown situation where your prime job is returning to the live feed. Putting some text on the caption saying "For continued coverage switch to Five Live" might have been possible though.

Was a shambles really - certainly felt like a BBC Three production, rather than a BBC production!

As for 5 Live - I did switch to the commentary and it was cutting out all the time - not sure if that was there problem or mine (other channels seemed fine). Annoyed though they blatantly lied about the complete blackout - my first thought was I bet Sky have pulled the plug.

The Sky Sports outside broadcast of Portsmouth v Burnley seems to have had some major problems since the start of the second half, but they're coping well with it.

Coming back from the break, while Richard Keys started trailing the week's games we were stuck on the final freeze-frame of the Ford bumper, which stayed on screen for about a minute. After that, while the audio continued as normal, they managed to get the main match camera on screen before kick-off and the commentary started with no graphics, replays or cuts to any other cameras.

After around five minutes there was a visible flicker and from that point they were able use other shots and do replays, but only just now in the 58th minute have the graphics reappeared.

So, everything back to normal now, but for a while it appeared that lots of things went wrong and they did pretty well to get the one camera on air at first.

Sounds like a good effort from Sky there. From your description I'd speculate that the vision mixer failed, and while it was been rebooted/kicked they were able to either overplug a camera direct to line, or they have a simply emergency cut type mixer with a more limited range of sources available.

Standard in all OB trucks, and studio galleries is an emergency cut bus fed with primary sources. Should the vision mixer fail, you can stay on the air, albeit without any mix effects etc.

Well I say well done to the OB company involved

Any word yet on who has picked up Setanta's share of the FA cup contract?

ESPN from next season. This season will continue with ITV having one extra game and one game streamed for free on the FA website.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/07/fa-cup-espn-bbc-itv

Confirmed today actually. ESPN will show two games per round , but not till next season. This year ITV will show one extra game per round, with the FA showing a game on the website.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/07/fa-cup-espn-bbc-itv

ESPN needs that really with the loss of half their Premier League football. Indeed even with the 46 games this season it doesn't feel like ESPN are showing as many games as Setanta did.

ITV4 showing Leeds v Kettering replay tomorrow night too.

ESPN FA Deal (more than just the FACup) AND Clarification of the current season ... ALL FA CUP MATCHES FROM THE QFs ARE LIVE ON ITV THIS SEASON

The deal with the broadcaster will begin in the summer of 2010, running through until the end of the 2013-14 season, and will sit alongside the existing contract for The FA Cup and England Senior games held by ITV until 2012.

ESPN will show live, exclusive coverage of up to 25 FA Cup matches per season, including one exclusive Semi-Final match and a simulcast of The FA Cup Final (on both ESPN and ITV).

This season’s FA Cup (2009-10) will continue to be shown by The FA’s current broadcast partner ITV, who will show three live games from the Third to Fifth Round – one additional game – and all games from the Quarter-Final stage onwards.

All matches broadcast by ESPN and ITV will be available in high definition.

From 2010-11, ESPN will televise two matches in The FA Cup First and Second Rounds (plus up to two replays per round), three matches from the Third to Fifth Rounds (plus up to one replay), two Quarter-Finals (plus up to one replay) and one Semi-Final for each of the next four seasons.

ITV will continue to broadcast one match in the First and Second Round, two matches from the Third to Fifth Rounds, two Quarter-Finals and one Semi-Final.

Meanwhile, FATV will continue to broadcast one or two games per round up to the Fifth Round via TheFA.com and will continue to host games online in the future as the project expands.

Along with rights to The FA Cup, ESPN will also show all of the England Under-21s home fixtures.‪ Further, following the launch of the Women’s Super League in 2011, ESPN will have exclusive media rights for the new division.

thefa.com

In other news, Setanta (remember them?) have somehow managed to win the Republic of Ireland-only Saturday 3pm package of live Premier League games for the next three years. All the other ROI packages are held by the same companies (Sky Sports and ESPN) that hold the equivilant UK package.

Whether this will be enough to save Setanta is doubtful since newspaper reports about two months (as yet unconfirmed by Celtic Rugby) saying that they have lost the Magners' League rights to RTÉ and TG4. If true, this would make up a very big hole in a schedule that they have been straining to fill this season (put simply, there is not enough existing material for both Setanta Ireland and Setanta Sports 1).

Anyway, report at

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/1208/setanta.html