Reports of New FTA Sport channel

Gerry Wicklow

Reports that Setanta and others are to launch a new FTA sport channel by end of August.

FreeSports, which this week received Ofcom licences covering satellite, cable and terrestrial platforms, promises to offer a variety of sports on a free-to-air basis from the end of August.

Launching on Freeview initially it seems and even then only on its limited coverage COM8 mux.

Gerry Wicklow

I'm not a sports fan myself but if it does come to satellite it makes FTA/Freesat more and more attractive.

Harry Palmr

Be interesting to see how this pans out, Setanta obviously crashed and burned when they went head to head with SKY while I know nothing about Premier Sports. Dunno how they can challenge other established FTA channels with sport content like ITV4 and Spike.

Atlantic Dawn

Could be demand for it, main problem is with newbie sports channels is when they buy up stuff cheap initially and do get the viewing figures the Pay TV channels just end up snapping the sports up the following year.

Tom Mann Centuria

Premier Sports are excellent for Australian Rugby League and US Ice hockey, Eir sports 2 is rebadged Premier Sports.

dublinman1990

That sounds great. I wonder what rights issues would be cleared for Freesports if it's to go FTA on Satellite.

Will this channel be shown with ads during breaks of live sports events.

Maz2016

I don't have a huge interest in sports but I've always said the FTA system was always lagging sports and documentaries. It's good to see that starting to change with the arrival of Quest/Quest Red etc. Be good to see the sports category expand too The more the merrier- makes paying for premium tv less attractive and FTA more appealing. Hopefully in time maybe sky sports news could go free to air, although there might be a rights issue.

Capt'n Midnight

Maz2016 wrote: »

Hopefully in time maybe sky sports news could go free to air, although there might be a rights issue.

SKY and BT paid £5.136 BILLION for the premiership for 2016-2019

SKY have long known that sports fans are addicted.

Pick different sorts, or look at foreign leagues or look at foreign channels.

_Kaiser_

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

SKY and BT paid £5.136 BILLION for the premiership for 2016-2019

SKY have long known that sports fans are addicted.

Not so much anymore.. hence the recent changes to the Sky Sports packages in the UK (not available here though) and the recent pressure to combat streaming, and the further development of NowTV

More and more people are unwilling to pay the fees demanded for football or commit to long term contracts - especially the younger generation who apparently don't even have TVs in many cases.

Gerry Wicklow

I'm a formula 1 fan and was momentarily interested in their new specific sports offer until I realised you still need the basic sub as well. Presumably HD would still be extra too. In other words Sky still expect you to fork out for stuff you do not want. Given the amount of channels that are now FTA, Sky looks less and less attractive. They really need to up their game.

_Kaiser_

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I'm a formula 1 fan and was momentarily interested in their new specific sports offer until I realised you still need the basic sub as well. Presumably HD would still be extra too. In other words Sky still expect you to fork out for stuff you do not want. Given the amount of channels that are now FTA, Sky looks less and less attractive. They really need to up their game.

You're right.. you can't get Sky Sports on satellite without taking their basic package, HD is extra and you can't split the Sports channels in Ireland - it's all or nothing.

FRIENDO

Gerry Wicklow wrote:

I'm a formula 1 fan and was momentarily interested in their new specific sports offer until I realised you still need the basic sub as well. Presumably HD would still be extra too. In other words Sky still expect you to fork out for stuff you do not want. Given the amount of channels that are now FTA, Sky looks less and less attractive. They really need to up their game.

I'm after getting a Now Tv box Gerry, having a sky subscription never suited me, but now I can dip in and out with a one day or seven day pass for sky sports.

icdg

All Eir Sport and related (Premier Sports/BT Sport) discussion here:

http://m.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056889518&page=215