Sky Sports
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the New Zealand television service, see SKY Network Television.
 |
This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since June 2006. (help, talk) |
| Sky Sports | |
 |
|
|---|---|
| Launched | 25 March 1990 |
| Owned by | BSkyB |
| Audience share | 3.4% (All Sky Sports channels combined) (October 2006, Source:[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 | |
| NTL | Channels 511-513, 516, 517 |
| Telewest | Channels 511-515 |
| NTL Ireland | Channels 402-405 and 408 |
| Chorus Digital | Channels 60-62 |
| Homechoice | Channels 551-554 |
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of 9 channels operated by British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant pay-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 subscription package on top of the basic Sky Digital 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 usually provided as part of the basic package and also broadcasts on Freeview. Sky Sports is perhaps best known for its football coverage, and it suffers a huge loss of viewers in the summer when no football is played.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] The early years (1990-1998)
Sky Sports originally began the 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 SES Astra 1B satellite - it was rebranded as Sky Sports. Sky and Eurosport discontinued their partnership upon the launch of Sky Sports, even though Eurosport continued to be available on the Astra platform.
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 wasn't until the 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 Tim Lovejoy 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 Collins Dictionary, and for the Easy Chant which has been used at football matches around the country and even the world. Following the success of the show a spin-off show launched in 2002, Soccer AM's All-Sports Show. The show deals with all sports, and is currently presented by Helen Chamberlain and Andy Goldstein.
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.
[edit] Sky Digital (1998 - )
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 NTL and Telewest.
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 most of their previous exclusive deals; this has caused some controversy as the matches would no longer be available on terrestrial TV. Sky had also signed an exclusive deal with the BCCI to televise the tour of India, worth around £352m.
Sky also purchased the horse racing channel, Attheraces from Channel 4. Attheraces was insolvent, and despite being promoted as part of the Sky Sports line up, had failed to turn a profit.
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 50 minutes of highlights from every Premiership match played on the day; which gives the viewer a choice to see a match of their choice. Sky Sports had won the rights to air 'near-live' coverage of the Barclays Premiership, 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.
In May 2006, Ofcom granted a new licence for Sky Sports 4. The channel is expected to launch later in 2006, and will mainly show live events. The channel has been necessitated by lack of space on the existing channels, meaning that BSkyB have to show some events on Sky Sports News and interactive services.
[edit] Sky Sports Channels
[edit] 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.
[edit] Sky Sports HD Channels
Sky Sports have recently launched two new HD channels. Sky Sports HD launched on February 13, 2006, and currently airs live cricket, live Barclays Premiership Football, live Football League as well as 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 is also an HD version of PremPlus, "PremPlus HD" currently broadcasted on Sky channel 483. It has been anounnced that the new season of Rugby League Super League will be broadcast in HD from the start of the season in Feburary.
[edit] 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.
[edit] At the Races
At the Races was founded by Channel 4, but purchased by a partnership between British Sky Broadcasting, Arena Leisure PLC and 28 (out of the 59) UK racecourses in July 2004.
The station 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.
[edit] PremPlus
PremPlus is a pay-per-view channel which is 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 is 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. Currently the channel shows 50 matches per season.
PremPlus will cease to exist as from the last match of the 2006-07 season, due to the new Premier League television rights deal.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Football
Sky Sports had signed an exclusive deal with Ford, in 2001 [3]
[edit] Premiership
Live Premiership 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 Premiership since 1992 when the Division One clubs broke off from the Football League to form the Premier League. The first live Premiership 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[citation needed]. Sky Sports have introduced many new features into coverage of the game since 1992 including the initially-controversial permanent on-screen clock and score, an idea that was subsequently copied by American sports and by other British sport producers[citation needed].
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 the BBC with the two highlights packages. The events had left the European Commission 'unhappy' and expressed that the league had a lot of 'serious questions' to answer.
The deal was reviewed by the Commission and came to a 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 had also believed that it would give a 'better choice and value' for viewers.
Following the agreement, rival bids were launched. NTL and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin; and ITV and Channel 4 were some of the big names that launched their own bids. Irish broadcaster Setanta had declared that it would make a late bid, depending on the overall concept in the 'bidding wars'.
Sky Sports won the rights to '4 out of 6' of the available live packages, which were for the 2007/08 season and beyond, with another Pay TV company, Setanta Sports winning the remaining two. Despite losing two of the packages, the broadcaster will show more live matches from the 2007/08, making more use out of the matches available to it. Sky Sports flagship football show, Super Sunday will not be affected by the loss of packages however Sky Sports will be closing its PPV channel Prem Plus at the end of the 2006-07 season.
[edit] 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 runs until 2007 and is worth around £250m. ITV Sport have rights to show highlights from the Football League and the League Cup [4].
[edit] UEFA events
UEFA Cup football was shown on Sky Sports in 1999, as the channel was exclusively given the rights to the second division of European club football competition. However, the deal ended in 2000 and the rights were instead awarded to five and BBC Two.
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 ITV1, ITV2, ITV News Channel and ITV Digital. ITV got first choice of 2 matches on Tuesdays, with Sky taking the remaining six, and all eight matches on a Wednesday. Matches that are not shown on one of the Sky Sports channels are usually available through the red button interactive service. In 2005, Sky Sports and ITV renewed their Champions League contract up until 2009.
[edit] 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 [5]. 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.
[edit] Internationals
Sky Sports had also had rights to every home Live England International, until the BBC picked up the coverage in 2004, though Sky Sports continue to show selected away ties.
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.
[edit] 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 Mike 'Stevo' Stephenson and Eddie Hemmings. Live Super League broadcasts rank amongst the top 10 most watched programmes in a week on Sky Sports regularly. So far in the current Super League XI season the number of viewers has peaked at 283,000 for Warrington Vs. St Helens. 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. Australia's National Rugby League competition was shown until 2005-06 season when Setanta Sports outbid Sky for the rights.
[edit] Rugby union
Sky began its live coverage of what is now known as the Guinness Premiership on the 10th 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 1996, a deal between Sky and the Rugby Football Union led to the England national rugby union team to be exclusively shown on Sky. This deal caused great controversy at the time, in which England would not appear during certain matches of the Six Nations Championship for six years. Currently BBC Sport show England's Six Nations matches whilst their summer and autumn internationals are shown on Sky Sports.
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.[6] For the first time in 2006, Sky Sports will hold exclusive rights to live Heineken Cup rugby in the UK and ROI, with RTE only able to show tape-delayed coverage and S4C able to show only highlights.
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. It is also due to Sky's links with News Corporation, who are the exclusive worldwide rights holders of Super 14, that Sky is able to show games from this competition live.
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.
[edit] 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. All domestic cricket is broadcast live and following the controversial agreement made in December 2004 by the England and Wales Cricket Board it now shows all international cricket. The fact that it has such a monopoly has been a source of great anger among the many cricket fans who cannot afford to subscribe. Sky Sports are the Host Broadcaster, in the West Indies, for West Indies Cricket and has the great broadcaster and journalist Tony Cozier as part of their commentary team. Sky have more recently signed an exclusive deal with the BCCI, to air the Tour of India.[7]
Sky Sports launched a major advertising campaign to promote the new summer live and exclusive cricket coverage[8], in Spring of 2006. Its theme focused on the love and passion of cricket, and the main emphasis of the advertisement was on England inspirational all-rounder, Andrew Flintoff.
The channel had also launched a devoted interactive coverage to the sport and have introduced two new animated characters for the younger viewers; named Willow and Stumpy. They explain various cricket terms (such as googly) that newcomers to the game might find hard to understand.
[edit] 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 Paul Dempsey, Wayne McCullough and Johnny Nelson.
[edit] Professional Wrestling
In 1989, Sky Sports had acquired the rights to WWF Wrestling (now World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE), from America. Despite being sports-entertainment as opposed to a competitive sport, the show proved popular.
As of late 2005, Sky have signed a new deal giving them the rights to show WWE Wrestling until 2010. [9] 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 would move from Sky One to Sky Sports. However as part of the deal, RAW is now shown live at 2am on Sky Sports 3 every Tuesday morning (Due to time difference). SmackDown is shown before it's shown in America, on Friday nights at 10pm on Sky Sports 3. Sky Sports 1 shows 6 WWE PPV's free and live a year. WWE Heat is also shown on Sky Sports despite being dropped from US television and shown as a webcast instead. Sky have also started broadcasting WWE's new third brand, Extreme Championship Wrestling, more recently.
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 and ECW December to Dismember would not have been picked up by Sky. However, a last-minute deal was struck between Sky and WWE, that allowed both of the PPVs to be shown live on Sky Sports 1. [10]
The following Pay Per View's are shown on Sky Sports:
- New Year's Revolution
- No Way Out
- Backlash
- ECW One Night Stand
- Great American Bash
- Unforgiven
- Cyber Sunday
- ECW December to Dismember
WWE Cyber Sunday was shown live on Sky Sports 1 in 2006 - it is not known whether it will be on live in 2007. ECW December to Dismember was shown live in 2006.
The following Pay Per View's are shown on Sky Box Office:
Sky Sports also shows Saturday Night's Main Event when shown in the US.
[edit] Motor Racing
Sky Sports also broadcasts major motorsport events. This includes:
- A1 Grand Prix (Qualifying + Race) - In addition, Sky Sports had their logo branded on the A1 Team Great Britain car during the 2005-06 season.
- Indy Racing League
- Grand Prix Masters
- British Superbikes (Highlights)
- Speedway
- Elite League Speedway
- Speedway World Cup
[edit] 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
- ^ 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
- ^ ERC Rugby: Sky Sports 3-Year Deal
- ^ Sky nets rights to England's Indian Test Guardian Unlimited. URL accessed on February 24, 2006
- ^ Sky set for "heaviest ever" cricket marketing Media 247. URL accessed on April 13, 2006
- ^ Sky secures five-year WWE deal Sky Sports. URL accessed on November 24, 2004
- ^ Sky to show 2 major WWE PPV's Sky Sports. URL accessed on November 1, 2006
[edit] See also
[edit] 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.
- Sky Sports 1 TV Listings and Schedules
- Sky Sports 2 TV Listings and Schedules
- Sky Sports 3 TV Listings and Schedules
- Sky Sports Xtra TV Listings and Schedules
- Sky Sports News TV Listings and Schedules
