The Sport Thread

Exactly. The double hit is killing the BBC, and BBC Sport in particular. It seems with local radio and things like the Asian Network and 6 Music they're finding the cash to stop the services being axed - but BBC Sport seems to be getting nothing. The £15m per year the BBC is spending on an Iranian station that Iran blocks would have gone a long way in the sports department.

But the sport will also be covered by the commercial sector, and lots of the things the BBC have lost will be covered free to air, racing, french open tennis etc.

If 6 Music goes, it's unlikely the commercial sector will come up with anything to compensate.

I'm not sure it's in the interest of the licence payers, for the BBC to be bidding and winning stuff like Horse Racing, if a free to air broadcaster is going to be picking it up.

Well the BBC might have lost rights to yet more golf coverage, but its nice to see that - after 9 years - they've invested in a new set of golf titles: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01fcnff/Golf_The_Masters_2011_2011_Review/

Although these are Masters-oriented titles, so maybe we'll be back to the old titles for the summer.

Sky3D are to broadcast Eurosports 3D coverage of the Olympics to all SkyHD subscribers with a 3DTV.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a374995/sky-to-broadcast-eurosports-3d-olympics-coverage.html

Sky's sudden interest in the Olympics worries me slightly how things might be shaping up for 2016. I've no real issue with Sky being the pay TV broadcaster and offering the full whack but only if the free to air broadcaster has no restrictions on what they can offer. The IOC stipulate 200 hours of the summer games (and 100 hours of the Winter games) must be free to air, but should the games end up being shared by Sky and the BBC I would hope it's a case of at least 200 hours from the BBC - not 200 hours at most.

I doubt Sky would ever be interested in buying up the Olympics given it's only two weeks of the year so nobody would subscribe just for that, and all the really big bits would be free to air. They're just happy to use it in their ads to tell people they're the platform you can see the most of everyone else's coverage.

I would agree. F1 only provides a few hours of "primetime" viewing a week, but Sky have the opportunity to build a lot of content around it - a whole channel's worth! - and over a long period of time, too. The Olympics, like World Cups and Euro football championships is something that they are better placed to sell subscriptions off the back of because they will never be the "channel" to watch.

Sky/Fox/NewsCorp though now have deals in New Zealand, Australia and Italy for the games, shared with FTA broadcasters - perhaps the Olympics could be seen as something to target those who continue to refuse Sky. Maybe their interest is just for London 2012 and they're not looking beyond that, but at a time when we know the IOC have gone back to the BBC and said they need to up their bid there is every reason to suspect Sky's actions this weeks may be part of their plans to win favour with the IOC.

As for the World Cup and Euros - I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we see a deal where the rights remain split between the BBC and ITV as they are now, but Sky become a third partner and the only one to show all the games.

Are the 3D rights separate to the regular rights? I know the BBC are showing one event and the opening ceremony in 3D but do they have the rights to show everything that is produced in 3D? If they do, it makes me wonder why they don't use one of their 24 streams (or even add another one, what's 25 HD channels when you already have 24?) to show as much 3D as possible.

No, the 3D rights are with the regular rights so as you say they could use one of the 24 streams for 3D.

Clare Balding and co doing the Boat Race coverage justice, following the 'Swimmer; demonstration.

Was the in-boat camera (assuming there was one) used at all? I didn't see any shots from either boat at all. It seems a strange thing to drop.

I don't know why the commentators are complaining so much, it was the most exciting boat race that I can remember. They should have a swimmer every year.

EDIT: At about 15:18, a commentator thanked viewers watching on the world feed.

They're complaining because one idiot ruined a sporting spectacle, though I think questions will be asked of the umpires decision to send them back to the half way point too. If they'd restarted from where they were, even though they'd drifted ahead a bit, they could have restarted within five minutes. Of course if it was Yale v Harvard in the Boat Race every year we'd have half time anyway!

Was it Jonathan Legards first boat race too?