Sky sports

Ah yes, that well known international contest, the Conference Final

I think it's more the case that Sky have nowhere else to show the Sport, and that it isn't crucial to their Pay TV success, henceforth why they're using Sky Sports News. ISTR they used SSN in the early days (I think before Xtra was launched) to show UEFA Cup games too.

AIUI they do have a broadcasting licence for Sky Sports 4, which has been in the pipeline for a while. But now considering that PremPlus has finished for good, isn't this the best chance? From what I've heard PremPlus HD has become (or is going to become) Sky Sports HD X.

Prem Plus HD has become Sky Sports HDX and will soon transform into Sky Sports HD3, which Sky have also obtained a licence for.

Sky Sports HDX was just used for these 3 weekends when there's 3 HD sports showing at the same time - it's a busy month for Sky's 3 main HD sports, the football & rugby seasons are coming to an end, and the cricket one has just started. HDX will close after this Saturday's Scottish Cup final. Like Prem Plus HD it uses bandwidth from Sky Box Office HD 1 so the box office channel has to close whenever it's on.

Sky Sports HD 3 presumably will be a full-time channel so will have to wait until Astra 2C moves in place later in the year, by which time it'll be more needed as Sky Sports will have a bit more HD content by then, including the studio based stuff like Soccer AM.

Thanks for that - wasn't aware. S4C are broadcasting it live, but it's not on BBC Wales, which I thought seemed strange.

I love it when people use "big" words pointlessly ...

I love the promotion for tonight's CL Final

"You can catch the action on Sky Sports 1, the best place to catch the game, live "

Funny how the best place involves installation of specialist receiving equipment and an extra box connected to your TV, plus a subscription fee.... whereas any numpty with a TV with a built in tuner and a coathanger can watch it.

Apologies for double posting -

Yeh - BBC Wales must be really slipping up if they can't even get the TV rights to this little friendly. Not that I mind now I can watch it on my Freeview box.

Sorry if I'm a bit slow, but I thought that Prem Plus had finished as there is no longer any need for it with Setenta Sports now owning the nights to Prem Plus' previous number of 38

Yes, it has. The SD channel has already gone, and the HD one changed it's name to HDX for a short period and will be closing this weekend.

It's a bit more complicated than Setanta getting the rights' to the Prem Plus games. The previous deal was that Sky had the rights to all 138 games, and decided to put 50 of them on Prem Plus and 88 on Sky Sports. This time the 138 games have been split with 42 to Setanta and 96 to Sky, and Sky are putting all their games on Sky Sports. So if you only subscribe to Sky Sports, you're 8 games better off this season. But if you also got Prem Plus or bought the Prem Plus games your team was in, then you're worse off.

Just to confirm that Sky have got 92 Premiership games next season with Setanta 46.These figures together equal the maximum 138 games shown per season.On Sky Sports its an increase of 4 games.

Isn't it more the case that the long term rights for all Wales' home games belong to Sky, who sub-licence certain rights to S4C, which in this case means the live game. Usually it is delayed coverage.