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Sky Sports News to ditch Freeview and go pay-TV-only

by Sarah Griffiths on 18 June 2010, 09:14

Tags: Sky

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High-definition Georgie

Sky Sports News is set to become a pay-TV channel in a bid to benefit from the continued growth in subscription revenues. The company plans to shake up its successful channel, watched in millions of homes each week, by changing its availability and launching Europe’s first high-definition sports news service.

Sky Sports HD will become the fifth HD channel in the Sky Sports stable when it goes live later this year, with further announcements expected in the coming weeks.

The channel will also benefit from increased editorial investment to bring viewers broader coverage of sports news as well as faster reaction to breaking stories, says Sky.

Sky Sports News Picture credit: sport.co.uk

Sky Sports News in its new pay-TV format will be available to Sky, Virgin Media and Talk Talk TV customers as well as online and on mobile. The existing Sky Sports News channel, which is available on Freeview, will be replaced by Sky3+1, a time-shifted version of the existing Freeview channel, Sky 3.

“Sky Sports News has been a great success over the last 12 years and we have big ambitions to make it even better,” says Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports.

“As part of a subscription service, customers can look forward to expanded coverage and the launch of Europe’s first HD sports news service,” he adds.


HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Posted by bradyjames - Fri 18 Jun 2010 09:23
I don't think this is a very good move by Sky. I don't think they will get many extra paid subscriptions due to Sky Sports News being in HD and only available as a paid for service. However by moving it off Freeview and replacing with Sky3+1 they are going to lose the implied free advertising of having a news channel that tempts people with paid for Sports channels on the Sky network.

From my point of view I don't really care though. I very rarely watch Sky Sports News. Now and again Sky 3 has something decent on it but having a ‘+1’ version is just a waste of bandwidth. They would be better off running one of the cheap to broadcast Movie channels like ‘classic’ or ‘indie’ which would act as advertising for Sky and also provide a worthwhile use of the Freeview bandwidth.
Posted by Flakvin - Fri 18 Jun 2010 09:40
That's a real shame, SSN is one of two channels I have in my Freeview favourites, that and Dave. As for Sky3+1, who even watches Sky3??

Wish they'd remove Sky News from the Freeview line up, that channel gets worse by the day.

:(
Posted by Brewster0101 - Fri 18 Jun 2010 10:51
Flakvin
That's a real shame, SSN is one of two channels I have in my Freeview favourites, that and Dave. As for Sky3+1, who even watches Sky3??

Wish they'd remove Sky News from the Freeview line up, that channel gets worse by the day.

:(

I agree that Sky News could do with being dumped on freeview. BBC News is alot better and less dramatic.

I don't watch Sky Sports news but I know alot of people who do and they don't have any interest in sky TV. I don't think moving this channel is suddenly going to make all the freeview viewers pay aleast £18 per month to watch it again.

Sky 3 is a waste of time, money and space. Sky would be much better of putting some decent programmes on this channel if they are interested in viewers , sky 3 + 1 is a waste too. Talk about choking up the limited bandwidth with complete rubbish.

Would be good if Ofcom or the government stepped up and stop sky broadcasting from choking the freeview network.
Posted by Lee H - Fri 18 Jun 2010 11:34
I'm not bothered really at all about this news.

The reason for this is the fact sky sports news has ADVERTS all the time and if you watch the channel for an hour, I'm sure you see more adverts than actual news.

BBC score centre is just as good on the BBC systems, especially at the weekend for live score results, so I'll not miss this channel one bit.

Bye Bye sky sports news - take your extended ad breaks and don't hit the door on the way out :)
Posted by g8ina - Fri 18 Jun 2010 12:14
what lee said :)

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