Well the Cricket World Cup starts next week, with live coverage on Sky Sports and highlights on the BBC.
Looking at the listings, it looks to me like Sky are treating this World Cup worse than the World Cup in 2003. Then SS3 was effectively Cricket World Cup channel, where all the games were shown live and if not there were wall to wall highlights. This time, some matches are shown on SS1 and some on SS2, which does not help finding them and highlights are strewn between all the channels. This seems to me to be worse than having a single channel for all the cricket.
The first warm up game (England v Bermuda) was shown live on SS1 yesterday. As I don't have Sky, does anyone know what graphics they were using. If it was the tournament ones were they any good?
Sorry for all the questions. Discuss any element of the coverage in here...
Actually, it as shown on Sky Sports 1 and then they had to transfer to Sky Sports 2 so 1 could show football...
There wasn't really much point as shortly after they switched channels the final wicket fell and that was the end of the match - then the rest of the scheduled time was filled with analysis!
Seemed a bit silly to me, but I suppose the football wouldn't have waited until the end of the cricket match as it could've taken a while!
It doesn't seem that the channel switching will be taking place during the World Cup matches, so presumably they will be taking priority over other sports, it may well also take priority on the HD channels if Sky are showing the World Cup matches in HD.
I guess this sudden influx of live sports all happening at once was one of the reasons behind the decision to create Sky Sports 4, which they say will launch later this year.
You'll also have to be up either very late or very early to catch highlights on BBC TV, they're showing them around 11:30pm or midnight and 5am most days!
Why do highlights seem to be shown at such ridiculous times? Is it due to broadcasting rights or just scheduling?
I see that now there's a World Cup Preview show on BBC One on Sunday. When was that announced? Don't remember seeing it before...
Well, it's only a 20 minute feature and quite common for big tournaments to be previewed on Sunday Gran....
Oh, of course it isn't that anymore is it!
Mr Mosey is still ignoring any criticism of the murder of Grandstand in his blog - notice though the argument already has arisen about the treatment of Scotland and Ireland in the run up to the tournament.
( It appears that as in football, Wales have decided to boycott this one too!)
I guess this sudden influx of live sports all happening at once was one of the reasons behind the decision to create Sky Sports 4, which they say will launch later this year.
If they do that it might at least mean most of the time they don't need to shunt second cricket matches onto interactive - on many occasions they're running a whole second studio operation for the extra game, or at least playing in ads at regular intervals. Quite a few occasions where that has the potential to happen since they purchased the Indian rights.
And of course the UEFA cup is a nightmare for them.
Isn't Sky Sports 4 going to be just a rebranded Sky Sports Xtra?
For those of us not lining Mr Murdoch's pockets, BBC are doing their stat graphic thing on interactive again for this - seemingly for all matches, which IMO is a bit of a waste. Yes, fine for the England and home nation games - but not sure it warrants the extra effort for all matches.
P.S. As "BBC Sport" (the member, not organisation) has said it seems pretty stupid to schedule the highlights in random slots around 11.30pm ish on BBC1 when they'd fit much more naturally into the BBC2 schedule at 11.20pm after Newsnight - and it's a point proven now the schedules are out.
I think someone else is producing the graphics, not sure who though I think it was TWI who produced it last time, if thats the case then we will get the World Cup in Widescreen for sure as Sky already has a BT circuit from the Caribbean.
I wonder which channels are carrying in Europe, as Cricket is only a sport recognised in the UK!
EDIT: Its Fox Sports International and Ary Digital
Some matches will be shown via the red button. They did that yesterday when they were showing the England Australia warrm up match, the India West Indies match could be watched on interactive.
I have tried to find out who is producing the coverage this time with no luck. Nothing on the web and I have not received replies when I emailed the ICC and Sky Sports.
Will the BBC be sending out their own commentators for the TV coverage as for The Ashes they just used the Channel Nine team.
Channel Nine aren't covering the initial phases, they will be on FOX Sports Australia, so Australian viewers will have to pay for them. BBC will take the 'International' commentary just like Sky is.
Jimmy Adams
Paul Allott
Michael Atherton
Greg Blewitt
Ian Bishop
Ian Botham
Charles Colville
Tony Cozier
Darryl Cullinan
Jeff Dujon
Ranjit Fenando
Damien Fleming
Michael Holding
Nasser Hussain
Athar Ali Khan
Nick Knight
David Lloyd
Sanjay Manjrekar
Pommie Mbangwa
Rameez Raja
Barry Richards
Mark Richardson
Laxman Sivaramakrishnan
Michael Slater
Ian Smith
Aamer Sohail
Bob Willis
John Wright
