BBC Sports News Channel?

Since BBC Sport moved into it's new home in Salford and now has it's own dedicated studio one thing that keeps crossing my mind is will their ever be a BBC Sports News Channel? I know to some it may sound ridiculous but given BBC Sport has a bit more of a presence these days what with it's new home, improved website & now the new BBC Sport app a channel just seems like the next step. Since Setanta Sports closed there is only Sky Sports News covering this field in a 24 hour presence on TV. Just wondered if the chances of this are even remotely likely given the freeze on the license fee?

It's something I've often wondered about, too, David. I really don't think the funding would be available at the present time, but the idea of a BBC Sport channel is a nice one. What with children's programming being removed from BBC1 and BBC2 in favour of CBBC/CBeebies, it would make sense to have a BBC Sport channel to host the BBC's sports coverage. In between tournaments/matches, it could act as a rolling sports news channel as you suggest. Sadly, though, I think it's very much a pipe dream!

To me it's just like the natural next step, especially now BBC Sport has a much better setup to accommodate it. Of course though it all comes down to funding & whether the BBC feel it would be a worthwhile exercise.

How would they get a service licence for such an overtly commercial service?

They could provide this sort of thing through connected TVs though - linking in with BBC Sport online.

They're clearly cutting back BBC Sport right now, not expanding. They even lost the rights to the Grand National.

I think there's only really room for one Sky Sports News in the market, and even then outside of Soccer Saturday/Special (when its worth its weight in gold), its far too easy to accuse Sky Sports News as having more interest in telling us news about Sky Sports rather than being a Sky channel about sports news.

Surely though SSN's only real purpose is to advertise Sky Sports and all their magnificent sports?

One advantage that a BBC sports news channel would have over Sky Sports news is the more regionalised structure that the BBC has. To give you an example, Terry Butcher, the manager of Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC was recently in talks with Barnsley, about becoming their new manager. The BBC has a studio and a radio station in south yorkshire, and also has a studio and newsroom in Inverness. Therefore, reporters are more readily available than what would be the case with Sky Sports News.

When it was available on Freeview perhaps, but now isn't it only in the Sky Sports package, so anyone who has it already has Sky Sports.

It's in the Entertainment Extra package on Sky as well.

Cutting back on 'live' sport events yes. I'm talking about a sports news channel not a channel like Sky Sports 1 for example. A channel that's like the BBC News Channel only for sport.

Would be very boring without the rights available to SSN. As SS are rights holders they have considerably more access than a non rights holder would have for a news service. The amount of repitition would get nauseous rapidly.

The BBC Sport App on Connected TVs could be developed to provide users with a pseudo sports news service with a playlist feature in addition to the single shot report service offered now. That would seem to be a way forward.