Times when one rival TV channel advertises on another

ITV Live Athletics in the 80s usually switched to Channel 4 midway through the coverage. The Anchor would tell viewers to turn over to Channel 4 (although those of us watching HTV Wales got a voiceover saying something like " and you can see the conclusion of the Zurich Athletics on Sunday at 2.05pm on S4C")

Well that's dumb. Why didn't S4C show sport live if Channel 4 was doing so? It's one thing moving around pre-recorded programmes, but delaying live sport? Seems to me the Welsh had an inferior service until digital came along.

Because S4C prioritised Welsh content in primetime over a random athletics meeting from Zurich.

Worth noting S4C still does get the odd promotion during the news on ITV Wales for content made by ITV Cymru Wales.

It definitely happens in normal times during the playoffs - FOX, ESPN and TBS all have various playoff games depending on which round and which league, so they generally cross-promote on air.

The *only* time I have ever seen a UK broadcaster pointing its viewers to a direct rival was the final day of the 2009-10 Premier League season, when Sky Sports (on Sky Sports News specifically) listed the ESPN game alongside the simultaneous match broadcasts on Sky Sports 1, 2 and 3. Was odd to see the ESPN logo on Sky Sports News.

I do also remember the FA Cup Final being shown for the host broadcaster (BBC?) on Sky UHD / 4K / 3D one year....

That was pretty much the only time ESPN was advertised on a Sky channel. I think part of it was because at that time ESPN in the UK was still owned by Disney (before BT) and they’d had a good working relationship with Sky. I believe you could also buy ESPN through Sky, which you couldn’t with Setanta and then with BT, until a few months ago.

Also, fairly sure all ESPN's match production was done by Sky

I've already posted this picture in The Sport Thread last week when it happened, but I didn't have a picture back on the 15th Sept when I originally made the post in this thread about the NFL

So here is CBS promoting ESPN Monday Night Football due to COVID related delays.

Yes, they added their own endcap to one showing and it had the starting date as 29/ 09 /12 instead of 29 August, from memory.

It was ESPN coverage of the Cup Final that was shown on Sky 3D one year. Sky promoted ESPN throughout their first year on air, they would quite frequently include ESPN fixtures in the ticker on Sky Sports News, as they sold ESPN as part of the Sky package. The links weren't as close in later seasons but they would co-operate quite a bit, certainly more than was the case with Setanta and BT. When Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch in an ESPN live game in 2012, Sky Sports News linked up with ESPN's Rebecca Lowe at the ground to talk about it.



For the first season, because the channel was launched at lightning speed, ESPN did indeed contract the production of their matches out to Sky Sports. From the second season they did it in-house.

UTV and BBC One NI simulcast an entire show on the night NI switched off analogue TV. Eamonn Holmes was presenting.

I believe it was called "The Magic Box".

Indeed it was 👍🏻