Sky Sports Revamp

I think you mean Eurosport.

Indeed, not that Sky will be bothered, but BT Vision's Sky Sports offering has been considerably watered down by these changes.

The F1 has been 'main evented' ahead of the test cricket. Will be interesting to see how some sports are prioritised over another. BT customers miss out on Day 4 of the test, but it comes back again tomorrow when it is once again the 'main event'.

Given that BT had Sky Sports 1 & 2, I had thought that the Sky Sports Extra channel would be a permanent overflow channel for all sports, but it appears to only operate when Premier League games are not on Main Event.

No, at the Marseille time trial, Orla Chennaoui was at the journalists pool for Sky Sports News with reporters from Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland as a group.

Oh I see what you mean now.

This is part of the problem with Sky's strategy that I am sure will need changing in the near future. Sky need to tip the balance towards being a content provider and with a broadcast system rather than a broadcast system which does production; i.e. they should care what BT TV customers see.

I think overall, the new channels are a good step from the Sky Sports department - but they've been let down by the pricing strategy - it's all a little half hearted, and not aggressive enough. ~£12 for one channel would have been better. Swallowing the cost of HD as standard would have been better. A few overflow channels that come into action when required would have been better too - red button isn't that viewer friendly considering it doesn't appear on the EPG prominently.

As far as the presentation goes, it was the right move to remove some glass and shine. I think the typographical layouts on some of the graphics I've seen have been superb, even though I don't think SkyText is sporty typeface and can sit badly in a macho, 'head to head' programme. Nicer on the cricket! Animations are up their usual standard, and it makes sense to hold hands with what's happening with branding on the rest of the Sky channel portfolio - they all now use the slide out from the centre of the logo which is a good unifying tool. It will be interesting though, to see if it works on every graphic implementation.

Update - my father today and has had his pack further watered down from today was told by Sky this was because he does not have box sets (their words, not mine)

My father has now lost Red Button, HD on Sky Channels, all the Sky Q Apps on the box, the Sky Q App for smartphone and tablet, the Youtube, Vevo and Online Video apps on the box and it's worth saying, that when my father changed from his legacy package to the new package to make a saving on Sky Sports, NONE OF THIS was explained to him and he was told he would lose box sets and nothing else.

The Multi Screen options are (note the bad deal for non box-set customers)
£12 for Original/Variety Customers which allows use on one extra TV and Ultra HD on main box.
£16 for Original or Variety Customers which allows unlimited devices and Ultra HD on main box
£12 for Variety + Box Set Customjers which allows unlimited devices and Ultra HD on main box.

But there is a fairly big catch here, that Ultra HD Requires the red button to activate it and you cannot get the red button without box sets easily. You need to go to the guide find the program in the guide, press the "i" button, select more showings, select the same program that you are watching now, press "i" again, and then press other formats, and select Ultra HD, why is it made so complicated?

Could it be that Sky are making it hard to access Ultra HD on purpose in the hope that people will upgrade to their box sets pack?

And another possibly looming on Saturday coming, with the SANZAR Super Rugby Final. According to DigiGuide & Virgin EPG, SS Action is showing rugby league (fine), and SS Arena showing Gaelic football - far from fine especially when the PL channel is only showing a results program

Mix is simulcasting golf. So put the Gaelic football on PL channel (it's the same sport at least), that frees Arena to show the rugby union. Or drop the Mix simulcast of golf and free up that channel - it may rather grate that there's no need to pay for a major final as it were, but still.

This "Race to the end of the Program" nonsense has to stop, it makes Sky look very amateur and having very sloppy production and cheapens the whole coverage, but is a direct consequence of this current set-up which does not have enough channels to show all the sports that Sky have when they are being so rigid with what appears on what.

The cricket coverage right now is a complete joke, they have abandoned any kind of analysis for any daytime match of any description because the "Race to the end of the program" phenomenon to free up the channel for the next event and this is happening across all of the channels that have back to back live events whilst 2-3 channels on Sky Sports can be showing fillers.

I have seen on multiple occasions now sport events ending and within 20-30 seconds they're already off air and we're going straight into the next program. I know Sky wanted to cut costs of sport, but it feels almost like everything has been trimmed to the bone.

That's without the ridiculous goings on that happen on Main Event, switching backwards and forwards between sports that are in progress and the hard rough cuts between sports.

If Sky want this to work long term they need to deploy an additional sports channel to cope with the load or become less rigid with their allocation policy, because sticking stuff on the red button (which those without box sets cannot see and nobody at all can record) is not an acceptable solution

Right now it feels like a bit of style over substance

I don't think they will put anything other than 'Premier League' on Premier League. Which the vast majority of the time is an archive channel.

Putting Gaelic Football on PL also would not please anyone who doesn't take out PL because they want to see Gaelic Football which you wouldn't expect to see on that channel. But this is the problem, they are boxing themselves in with limited airtime for these minority sports due to the genre specific channels.

With the news that Sky are going to be losing the tennis in 2018, that will free up more space on Action & Arena.
Many other 'minority' sports may end up going the same way.

East England if You want analysis I suggest sky sports news. Sometime these so called analysis was just time filler.

I would broadly agree with this, but just to point out, of course, Gaelic Football isn't the same sport, and has as much a place on a football channel as American Football.