Sky Sports
| Sky Sports | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Launched | 25 March, 1990 |
| Owned by | BSkyB |
| Picture format | 576i (SDTV 16:9, 4:3), 1080i (HDTV) |
| Audience share | 2.7% (Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 & Xtra) (September 2007, [1]) |
| Formerly called | The Sports Channel |
| Website | www.skysports.com |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Freeview | Sky Sports News Channel 83 |
| Satellite | |
| Sky Digital | Channels 401-405, 408, 409 |
| Cable | |
| Virgin Media (ex-NTL) |
Channels 511-513, 516 |
| Virgin Media (ex-Telewest) |
Channels 511-514 |
| UPC Ireland (ex NTL Ireland) |
Channels 402-405 and 408 |
| UPC Ireland (ex Chorus Digital) |
Channels 60-62 |
| Tiscali TV | Channels 551-554 |
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. It has played a major role in the increased commercialisation of British sport since 1990, sometimes playing a large role in inducing organisational changes in the sports it broadcasts, most notably when it encouraged the FA Premier League to break away from the Football League in 1992.
Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, and Xtra are available as a premium package on top of the basic package. These channels are also available as options on nearly every cable system in the UK and Ireland. Unlike the other channels, Sky Sports News is provided as part of the basic package and also broadcasts on Freeview. Sky Sports is perhaps best known for its football coverage, due to this it suffers a loss of viewers in the summer when no football is played.
History
The early years (1990-1998)
Sky Sports originally began broadcasting of sports events as The Sports Channel in March 1990, as part of the British Satellite Broadcasting service on cable, becoming available on the Marcopolo satellite the following month. Sky Television did not originally launch with a sports channel of their own - though sports programmes were occasionally broadcast on Sky Channel - but instead chose to invest in Eurosport instead, which was marketed as one of Sky's four channels upon its launch on 5 February, 1989.
On 2 November 1990, British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television announced that they
would be merging. At first the Sports Channel gained a "British Sky Broadcasting" suffix on its logo, however from 6 April 1991 - when the channel
debuted on the
The channel was sold as one of the major draws of the Sky system. Sky Sports was sold as a subscription channel and encrypted using the VideoCrypt system. It was the second Sky channel to be encrypted (following Sky Movies in 1990. It initially aired sports such as rugby and golf in 1990, before acquiring rights to German and Italian league football in 1990.
However, it was following formation of the FA Premier League for the 1992/1993 football season, believed to have been assisted by the promise of higher TV payments, that Sky Sports became well known. By bidding £305m, BSkyB beat the BBC and ITV to acquire the live and exclusive FA Premier League football broadcasting rights for the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland for a five-year period. In doing so, they had taken live top-flight English league football from terrestrial and free-to-air television for the first time in its history.
In 1995, the channel launched Soccer AM, a slapstick morning chat show, talking mostly
about football events around the world, along with many gags in the world of soccer and the media. This show has proved highly
successful, and is still airing as of today. The current presenters are Andy Goldstein
and Helen Chamberlain. It became a media phenomenon for a short period of time in the
early 2000s when they lead a campaign to save a man from his non-football tolerating wife. The Save Chip! campaign was mentioned on non-Sky news channels, and even made its way into the title sequences of
a number of football simulation computer games. It was also given notable fame
for the word bouncebackability which was entered into the
Prior to the start of the 1996-97 season Sky Sports 3 was launched. The launch promotion involved many top sporting figures such as Dennis Bergkamp and Ryan Giggs to help the launch of the channel. Sky Sports had also acquired the rights to Scottish football and the Coca-Cola Cup.
Sky Sports Gold started on 1 November 1995 and ended as a separate channel by 1997 but only really petered out (as a filler slot on the other Sky Sports channels) by 2001.
Sky Digital (1998 - present)
October 1998 saw BSkyB launch Sky Digital. The move to Sky Digital saw the launch of two new sports channels in quick succession. First Sky Sports News, a 24-hour rolling sports news channel launched. This was followed by Sky Sports Xtra, in March 1999. The channel was initially available exclusively on Sky Digital. However, by summer 2003, the channel had launched on Virgin Media.
On 22 August 1999, Sky utilised a feature of, the then new, Sky Digital system to allow an interactive football match to be shown. Viewers were given the ability to choose the things such as which camera they viewed during the Arsenal vs. Manchester United. The concept proved popular[1] and soon Sky used the new interactive service, known as Sky Sports Active, for other sports.
Around 2001, a cross-branding deal ensured that a quiz version of Championship Manager would be produced with the Sky Sports name on it. Kirsty Gallacher was the host of the PlayStation 2 quiz.
In 2004, Sky signed an exclusive deal to broadcast live English cricket matches for four seasons from 2006 to 2009 for a fee of £55 million a year.[2] As with other of their exclusive deals this has caused some controversy, as the matches would no longer be available on terrestrial TV. Sky also signed an exclusive deal with the BCCI to televise the tour of India, worth around £352m.
Following its earlier collapse, Sky purchased the majority of Channel 4's stake in horse racing channel, At The Races (the remainder of the stake went to Arena Leisure, the other partner in the channel and owner of Ascot Racecourse). At The Races was insolvent, and despite being promoted as part of the Sky Sports line up, had failed to turn a profit. It remains a provider of live coverage to betting shops, however.
Prior to the start of the 2004-05 season, Football First, an interactive football programme was launched. The show typically airs at 8.25pm and replays full coverage of the day's featured Premier League match, followed through the night by highlights from every Premier League match played on the day, which gives the viewer a choice to see a match of their choice. Sky Sports won the rights to air 'near-live' coverage of the Barclays Premier League, permitting Football First to air for another three years.
Sky Sports also snapped up the rights for the A1 Grand Prix and has won the rights to Speedway, for the next five years. The channel also has the rights to American sports, including NFL and WWE.
Sky Sports Channels
Sky Sports Xtra
Sky Sports Xtra was the fourth Sports Channel launched by Sky Sports. It airs repeats and live events of many Sky Sports programmes, such as La Liga. The channel launched in April 1999, and is a free bonus channel for those who subscribed to both Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2.
The channel was originally launched as Sky Sports Extra but later rebranded to Sky Sports Xtra. The name Extra rather than Sky Sports 4 was chosen as the original intention of the channel was to simulcast sporting events showing on the main channels with the addition to interactive services.
More recently the channel has stopped simulcasting, and the interactive services have moved to the main Sky Sports channels. Sky Sports Xtra now shows live and recorded sports events, and is in an effect a fourth main Sky Sports channel.
Sky Sports HD Channels
Sky Sports has recently launched two new HD channels. Sky Sports HD launched on February 13 2006, and currently airs live cricket, Premier League and Football League, and Guinness Premiership Rugby. Sky has also announced that this year's Ryder Cup will be televised in HD. In July 2006 Sky Sports HD 2 launched on Sky Digital channel 409, at the same time Sky Sports HD 1 moved to channel 408, with Sky Sports News switching to channel 405. There was also an HD version of PremPlus, called Prem Plus HD, which broadcast on Sky channel 483 until the football session ended. It was briefly branded Sky Sports HD X and used to broadcast other Sky Sports content in HD, before it ceased broadcasting.
It has been announced that the new season of the rugby Super League will be broadcast in HD from the start of the season in February. The NFL Super Bowl was the first American event to be broadcast in HD in the UK.
Sky Sports News
Sky Sports News is a 24-hour sports news channel operated by Sky Sports. Sky Sports News launched on the 1 October 1998, with Sky Digital becoming BSkyB's first digital only channel. On 10 April 2000, Sky Sports News relaunched as Sky Sports.com TV, a move to bring it tie in to the launch of the skysports.com website. However, the name was soon reverted back to Sky Sports News.
The channel replaced Sky Sports Centre, a news show at 6pm, devoted to the key events in the sporting world. The show famously broke the news that Kevin Keegan would resign as Newcastle United boss, with immediate effect.
Presenters on the channel include Ian Payne, Simon Thomas and Georgie Thompson.
On 5 August, 2007 the channel was "refreshed" in line with the Sky Sports new look.
At the Races
At The Races was originally founded by the Go Racing consortium, a partnership of Channel 4, British Sky Broadcasting, and Arena Leisure plc (owner of Ascot Racecourse, and acting on behalf of a further 27 out of the 59 UK racecourses) in July 2004. Following its high profile collapse (and Channel 4 removing itself from the consortium) the station - now purely a joint venture between BSkyB and Arena Leisure - focuses on horse racing from the UK, Ireland, North America and Germany, showing many live races and related shows. The station is "affiliated" with various betting companies, since gamblers are generally the sports main audience, and its pictures, provided by satellite link provider SIS, are also commercially distributed to betting shops across the country.
PremPlus
PremPlus was a pay-per-view channel dedicated to airing live Premiership Football. PremPlus launched on 18 August 2001, showing 40 pay-per-view matches from the English Premier League. The main presenter on PremPlus was Marcus Buckland with former Arsenal manager George Graham, providing punditry.
The channel was called Premiership Plus from 2001 to 2004, before being shortened to the current PremPlus for the beginning of the 2004-05 season.
PremPlus closed down after the last match of the 2006-07 season, due to the new Premier League television rights deal.
Sky Sports programming
Sky own exclusive UK and Ireland, or UK-only exclusivity rights to a number of sports, most notably the ones listed below. They also transmit a large range of other sports.
Football
Sky Sports signed an exclusive deal with Ford in 2001[3]
Premier League
Live Premier League coverage has been a critical factor of the success of Sky Sports. The foundations of Sky Sports have been built on the coverage and allowed a dramatic growth in the number of subscribers in homes as well as pubs.
Sky has had rights to the Premier League since 1992 when the Division One clubs broke off from the Football League to form the Premier League. The first live Premier League game televised was Nottingham Forest's 1-0 win over Liverpool in August 1992. The millions and then billions of pounds which Sky has brought into the game has changed English football almost beyond recognition [4]. Sky Sports have introduced many new features into coverage of the game since 1992 including the initially-controversial permanent digital on-screen graphic scoreboard, an idea that was subsequently copied by American sports (now known as a score bug) and by other British sport producers.[5]
BSkyB's relationship with the FA Premier League had caused a stir with the EU, which eventually intervened and ended Sky's 13-year monopoly of live broadcasting rights. BSkyB's current deal allowed the company to win four of the six tiered live rights packages and left the BBC with the two highlights packages. These events left the European Commission 'unhappy' and representatives of the Commission expressed views that the league had a lot of 'serious questions' to answer.
The deal was reviewed by the Commission, who came to the conclusion that they would threaten to take legal action against the Premier League if it failed to agree new arrangements giving other broadcasters a share of live TV coverage of matches. The EU believed that it would give 'better choice and value' for viewers.
Following the agreement, rival bids were launched. NTL and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin, ITV and Channel 4 were some of the big names that launched their own bids. Irish broadcaster Setanta also declared that it would make a bid, depending on the overall concepts in the 'bidding wars'.
Sky Sports won the rights to four out of the six available live rights packages for the 2007/08 season and beyond, with
another
Football League
Following the collapse of ITV Digital in 2002, the Football League reformed a connection with Sky to show live coverage of its divisions and the League Cup. The contract, worth around £250 million, ran until 2007. From 2007, ITV Sport have rights to show highlights from the Football League and the League Cup.[6]
Conference National
Sky has also screened live matches from the Nationwide Conference, the top tier of Non League Football, in some seasons. From 2007/08 season however Setanta Sports has won comprehensive live broadcast rights for the Conference.
UEFA Champions League
In 2003, BSkyB won joint rights to coverage of the UEFA Champions League with ITV, who had previously held exclusive rights with all matches shown on their channels only. ITV got first choice of 2 matches on Tuesdays, with Sky taking the remaining six (with coverage of any Scottish teams' games being shared with stv) and all eight matches on a Wednesday. Matches that are not shown on one of the Sky Sports channels are usually available through the interactive service. In 2005, Sky Sports and ITV renewed their Champions League contract up until 2009. Currently, any Scottish match being played on a Wednesday is shown on non-premium channels Sky One and Sky One HD.
FA Cup
Sky Sports initially broadcast matches from the FA Cup and also international matches involving the England national football team. Today it continues to show both, now sharing live coverage with the BBC.
In a joint deal with the BBC, Sky Sports had secured the rights to the FA Cup in June 2000.[7] Under the three-year deal, Sky had been given live and interactive coverage to the competition, which previously was occupied by ITV. The channel on the other hand, did not have the choice of first pick of games. Sky Sports had also had rights to every home Live England International, until the BBC picked up the coverage in 2004. It currently broadcasts England away internationals exclusively, though loses this right when the new deal with ITV and Setanta Sports kicks in after Euro 2008 in the 2008-9 season.
Internationals
Currently, Sky Sports holds the rights to every home Live Scotland and Wales Internationals, whilst sharing coverage of away ties with the respective BBC Nations, BBC Scotland and BBC Wales. Sky Sports also show some of Englands away Internationals Live and delayed coverage of home games. Republic of Ireland matches are also shown and coverage is shared with RTÉ.
Spanish La Liga
Sky Sports also show live matches from the Spanish La Liga on Saturday and Sunday nights. They also show a review show called "Revista de La Liga" on Tuesdays.
Rugby league
The power of television over sport can perhaps be best portrayed by the change of rugby league from a winter sport to one played during the summer months under the banner of the Super League. These changes caused great controversy when they were introduced in 1996, yet they have been seen by many as positive and as having an impact even greater than the broadcaster has had with football. The sport is now seen as being in a healthy state with two or three live matches from the Super League every week fronted by 'Eddie and Stevo' - Eddie Hemmings and former Great Britain World Cup winner Mike Stephenson - who are a rare example of a dual studio-presentation and commentary-box partnership in sports broadcasting. They are joined by Phil Clarke in both the studio and on commentary, Bill Arthur, the pitch-side reporter, and a guest (generally a coach or a former player). Barrie McDermott, Terry O'Connor or Shaun McRae often occupy the guest position. Live Super League broadcasts routinely rank amongst the top 10 most watched programmes in a week on Sky Sports regularly. Sky has sold rights to a highlights package of the Super League to BBC Sport.
Sky also hold the rights to show the Rugby League Tri-Nations live, whilst highlights are shown on BBC Sport. Sky also announced in 2007 that they had bought the rights to televise National League matches midweek. Australia and NZ's National Rugby League (NRL) competition was shown until 2005-06 season when Setanta Sports outbid Sky for the rights, despite the NRL being half owned by News Corp.
Sky Sports will show the 2008 World Cup exclusively live.[8]
Sky Sports' shows a weekly rugby league magazine show, Boots 'N' All, during the season.
Rugby union
Sky began its live coverage of what is now known as the Guinness Premiership on the 10 September 1994 with the match between Bath Rugby and Bristol Rugby and continues to do so by showing one live match, usually on a Saturday, every week.
In 2003, it began its coverage of the Heineken Cup, outbidding previous rights holder BBC Sport with its offer of £20 million for 3 years., showing usually 6 matches each pool weekend as well as all knockout matches. [9] For the first time in 2006, Sky Sports will hold exclusive rights to live Heineken Cup rugby in the UK and ROI, with RTÉ only able to show tape-delayed coverage and S4C able to show only highlights. Sky Sports will start to broadcast games from the European Challenge Cup from the season 2007/08, with one game every week.
Sky Sports has also had exclusive UK rights for live coverage of the last three British and Irish Lions tours. This is partly because of Sky's links with News Corporation television channels in the southern hemisphere. Sky's links with News Corporation, also allows them to show live matches from the Super 14 competition.
Sky Sports rugby coverage is presented by Simon Lazenby and Dewi Morris, with commentary for internationals and Guinness Premiership from Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes. Sky will often take the host broadcasters commentary for Super 14 and Tri-Nations, with commentators including Hugh Bladen, Murray Mexted and Tony Johnson.
Cricket
Sky was the first broadcaster to show live coverage of an overseas tour involving the England cricket team on the tour to the West Indies in 1990. It has maintained this coverage with commentators and statisticians such as David Lloyd, Ian Botham, Nasser Hussain, Benedict Bermange and Richard Isaacs. With this line-up Sky has acquired most of the cricket rights which are available, both in England and abroad. Sky has the live rights to all English domestic cricket and, following the controversial agreement made in December 2004 with the England and Wales Cricket Board it has the rights to live coverage of all England internationals.
Boxing
Following the departure of Frank Warren's Sports Network to ITV during 2005, many of the top British boxers no longer fight on Sky. However, many top American fights are still broadcast as well as the remainder of Britain's top fighters including Ricky Hatton. Some of the channels top fights are shown on the Pay-Per-View channel Sky Box Office instead of Sky Sports. Presenters and commentators for Sky Sports' coverage include Dave Clark, Wayne McCullough and Johnny Nelson.
World Wrestling Entertainment
In 1989, Sky Sports acquired the rights to WWF Wrestling (now World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE), from America.
As of late 2004, Sky signed a new deal giving them the rights to show WWE Wrestling until 2010.[10] Part of the deal states that major PPV's such as WrestleMania would be part of the Sky Box Office pay-per-view service, and that SmackDown!'s first broadcast would move from Sky One to Sky Sports. As part of the deal, RAW is now shown live on Sky Sports 3 early Tuesday morning because of the time difference. SmackDown! is broadcast in Britain before it is aired in America: on Friday nights. Sky Sports 1 shows 7 WWE PPV's live a year.
WWE Heat is also shown on Sky Sports despite only being available in the US as a webcast. Sky also broadcast WWE's third brand, Extreme Championship Wrestling. For a couple of months it replaced WWE Velocity on Sunday mornings. It is now shown two nights after the US broadcast after a viewer complained to Ofcom in August 2006 about an image in the opening credits, and Sky agreed to air the program after the watershed.
The deal of 14 Pay-Per-Views did not account for WWE's extra
pay-per-views which have been added subsequently, and therefore WWE Cyber Sunday would
not have been picked up by Sky. However, a last-minute deal was struck between Sky and WWE, that allowed the PPV to be shown live
on Sky Sports 1.[11]
Motor Racing
Sky Sports also broadcasts major motorsport events. This includes:
- A1 Grand Prix - In addition, Sky Sports had their logo branded on the A1 Team Great Britain car during the 2005-06 season.
- Indy Racing League (including the Indianapolis 500)
- Grand Prix Masters
- British Superbikes (Highlights)
- Speedway
National Football League
Sky Sports also broadcasts a variety of live NFL games and NFL Network programming. For the 2007 season this comprises live coverage of 125 Regular Season games, including Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football and NFL Network's Run to the Playoffs. As well as pre-season games and the Play-offs and Super Bowl. The complementary coverage includes:
Sky will broadcast more NFL games than Premier League games in 2007. [12]
References
- ^ Sky Sports Active is the third most popular reason for people to join Sky; Independent Article, June 2001
- ^ Channel 4 Test coverage bowled out by Sky and Five Guardian Unlimited. URL accessed on December 15, 2004
- ^ BSkyB Press Release:Sky Sports and Ford Announce Premier League Sponsorship BSkyB URL accessed on June 22, 2001
- ^ Murdoch: How I changed football Mediaguardian]
- ^ Looking back to Sky's first live game Scotsman.com
- ^ League agrees improved TV deals BBC Sport. URL accessed on June 10, 2005
- ^ BSkyB and BBC get FA Cup rights Digital Spy URL accessed on June 16, 2000
- ^ World Cup deal for Sky
- ^ ERC Rugby: Sky Sports 3-Year Deal
- ^ Sky secures five-year WWE deal Sky Sports. URL accessed on November 242004
- ^ Sky to show 2 major WWE PPV's Sky Sports. URL accessed on November 12006
- ^ Sky confirms NFL programming from nfluk.com, accessed on 5 September 2007
External links
- Sky Sports at sky.com
- Irish tailored version of the Sky Sports website
- Pub Widescreen Campaign encourages and educates British pubs in how to show Sky Sports in true widescreen.
News Articles
- Football rights hat-trick for Sky
- Sky Sports Boost for Speedway
- Sky Sports snub sees three Brits get stripped of titles
- Sky Sports drafts in Flintoff for cricket coverage promotion
- EU tackles Premier League TV deals
- Sky unveils high-definition shows
- ITV and Sky rapped over World Cup
| British Sky Broadcasting | |
|---|---|
| Channels | Sky One • Sky Two • Sky Three • Sky Movies • Sky News • Sky Sports • Sky Sports News • Sky Travel • Sky Arts • Sky Box Office • Sky Vegas |
| Joint Ventures | At The Races • The History Channel • MUTV • Music Choice • National Geographic Channel • Nickelodeon • Paramount Comedy • Sky News Australia |
| See also | Sky Digital • Freesat from Sky • Sky Magazine • Sky HD • Sky Broadband • Sky Anytime • Sky Active • Sky Text • Sky Bet • [[Sky+]] • Sky Picnic |
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