Sky News / Sky Sports One to USA?

There's plenty of rumor running around in the States of late -- DirecTV (which is primarily owned by NewsCorp), on their website's TV guide, includes lisitngs for Sky One, Sky Sports One and Sky News as channels 9995, 9996 & 9997, as of this afternoon.

There have been rumors of Sky Sports One and Sky News coming to D* for the past several years. Sky News almost came over right after 9/11, but management at sister network Fox News put the kybosh on that (they were supposedly afraid of diluting their audience ). And both Sky News' sports program and Sky Sports News programming is regularly aired on the Fox Soccer Channel at various points most days.

I've written D* management pratically begging for Sky News and BBC World for a long time now. Could it be so? Are my dreams finally about to be answered? And moreover, has anyone heard anything about Sky News or Sky Sports coming to the United States?

I'd be very surprised if Sky One went over there, after all, most of their stuff is imports that have already been shown in the states.

That's what I thought, but I thought I'd ask anyway, as stranger things have happened.

One of DirecTV's big guns, David Hill, was one of the main guys to start up Sky Sports here in the UK so you never know...

Lemme check to see, since i have directv.

Edit:
Nope, nothing, but I have an old box and I'm getting a brand spanking new DVR box nex thursday, so let me check then. I would love to have sky one.

Well i have setanta,so i guess there is a possibility...

Edit:
I emailed directv, and am awaiting a response. In the meantime, can you guys pester directv for CNNI and Directv so they might carry the channel. I think to get it we need more people, so even if you don'thave it, can you still email them?
http://directv.com/DTVAPP/customer/howToReachUs.jsp

Oh, BTW -- schedules for those three channels (Sky One, Sky Sports One, Sky News) are being presented on the D* website at http://directv.com/DTVAPP/epg/theGuide.jsp

And lest I think it was a fluke, I checked Zap2It.com's listings, and got the same thing for those same channels....

I checked my box, and it said channel not avalible. My box is old, from 2000.

Stupid response:

Dear ______,

Thanks for writing. I'm sorry we don't carry Sky news, Sky one, CNN International and BBC world right now. However, we often add programming based on customer requests, and I have forwarded your request to DIRECTV management.

Thanks again for writing and please stay tuned to DIRECTV.com for the latest news and information about our service.

Sincerely,

________
DIRECTV Customer Service

Well it says sunrise:
http://directv.com/DTVAPP/epg/d?id=22907384

I emailed specifically regarding the above link.

How curious.. I can understand Sky News - that's a rather easy one - but I'd have thought that rights issues would make Sky One and Sky Sports pretty problematic. Wouldn't the rights for each programme have to be negotiated again? Wouldn't showing Braniac (say) to the US mean that Sky would have problems selling it to a more widely available channel? Could they get away with showing the Simpsons under the same syndication rights that let it be shown on local Fox channels?

They'd probably have to blank out ads too - Channel 4 have recently got into a spot of bother over showing ads on their internet simulcast. Though I suppose Sky's playout can already handle opts: different ads for Ireland, and in the days of ONdigital, they didn't have DTT rights for Malcolm in the Middle, and had to replace it with other programmes.

Then again, is this maybe a deal similar to us being able to get Star Plus and Star News on Sky?

Brainiac is already shown in the US on G4 (nothing to do with the X-Factor band)