The Sport Thread

But those aren't mutually exclusive statements. Of course the five Sky Sports channels compete with each other. It sounds like Sky 1 is locked out to subscribers who have the channel in their package. It's clearly operating as an extra Sky Sports channel, just for those three hours or so. I know it's not named as one, but it serves as one.
I just checked NBC Sports website and it only lists Arsenal vs Sunderland on Wednesday. Nothing for Sunday. Seems they have some sort of temporary overflow system on cable though, extra channels that only broadcast when games clash. So they may not end up using Syfy.

Yes, and Sky 1 have also simulcast the F1 qualifying sessions quite frequently recently. Much of this is simply to prop up Sky One and get some more viewers, I would suggest.

There was a period around 2007, the time it wasn't on Virgin, when Sky 1 said it was going to deliberately start buying football rights itself, individually from Sky Sports, to help improve its appeal to men and build its audience, but I remember that only got as far as one Bolton Uefa Cup game. Sky Sports still produced the coverage, of course.

And back in 1994, when they only had one Sky Sports channel, they broadcast a couple of Premier League games, plus an FA Cup semi-final, on Sky 1 when Sky Sports had an England test match. And in 1996 China vs England, a Thursday afternoon kick-off, was on Sky 1 because Sky Sports 1 had a test match and Sky Sports 2 was only on at the weekends.

The reason they do it is to encourage Sky subscribers to upgrade to Sports, or Now TV Entertainment pass holders to buy a Sports pass. Especially effective with F1 Qualifying as it gives people chance to part with their money in time for the race.

One question, does anyone know the roughly what the viewing figures are for Sky Sports News HQ?

Additionally, I think it would be great to see Sky Sports News free to air, logically this could work?

You don't remember when it used to be on Freeview?

Sorry, no I don't.

Why did it stop being on Freeview then?

Surely, being on as many platforms as possible is better for reaching audiences?

Sky pulled it as they wanted to draw people to their platform. It also coincided with the move to Widescreen so that the clips which used to be next to useless to watch on 4:3 screens augmented by their graphics became attractive and watchable over time.

Basically a snub to Freeview and a political move thrown in, ESPN's frosty 2010 relationship with Sky over Premier League football production didn't help.

Sky were far less frosty with ESPN than they were with Setanta or BT, for the first year of ESPN's operation they were contractd to produce ESPN's coverage and they would regularly be promoted on the Sky Sports News ticker. Although the link was less apparent in later seasons, they still co-operated, when Fabrice Muamba collapsed Sky Sports News used ESPN's pictures and even had Rebecca Lowe reporting.

The removal of Sky Sports News from Freeview had nothing to do with ESPN, it was a commercial decision. At the same time they also took Soccer Saturday off Sky Sports 1 to make it exclusive to Sky Sports News. And then three years later put it back.

I think the HD channel launched then as well, so in effect they did it the American way by going widescreen and HD at the same time.

Weren't there complaints about the graphics being cut off, and Sky had to issue instructions on its website on how to change your aspect ratio settings from 4:3 centre cut-out to letterbox or 16:9?

ESPN cancelled the production contract after year one and went their own way, Sky weren't over impressed and I understand it was one of the contributory factors, albeit not a main one, to the withdrawal of SSN from Freeview.

Hmmmmmm - well I don't doubt your information, but I would guess that it would be a very minor factor.

The big thing was that it was a big 'one-up' to BT, who had just secured success in the 'Wholesale Must Offer' case, which meant that Sky had to wholesale Sky Sports 1 and 2 to BT and Top Up TV via the DTT platform. In retaliation, Sky pulled SSN from Freeview, as it was not part of WMO and was a way at getting back at BT and denying their BT Vision service from a key part of the Sky Sports portfolio.

Also, with regards to the ESPN production contract, I'd heard that ESPN only went with Sky initially because they had so little time to put their offering together in 2009. So, when the chance came to bed down for year 2 it made *far* more financial sense for them (i.e. it was considerably cheaper) for IMG to produce both the studio coverage and the match coverage, whereas this wasn't possible in year 1 because of the short timeframe.

As Steve said, ESPN were still cosy with Sky because ESPN used Sky as a wholesale operation for their channel (unlike both Setanta and BT) - therefore Sky got a cut of channel subscriptions, as it was their infrastructure being used and was also included as part of the sport pack - hence ESPN got promoted on Sky Sports News and it has also been mooted that Sky allowed ESPN some better games, rather than being quite as 'cut-throat' with the picks as they were with Setanta and are being with BT.

That actually was back in 2005, slightly before the Virgin dispute.

Sky One also showed a Middlesbrough game from the Uefa Cup that year as well. Away to Skoda Xanthi which I only remember as they had a brick wall instead of a stand behind one of the goals. Pretty sure Sky One came on air five minutes before kick-off and barely had time to do the teams.

If that's not some Steve Williams-esque knowledge then I don't know what is.