Fox Footy

Fox Footy
Launched	17 February 2012
Owned by	Fox Sports Pty Limited
Picture format	576i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Country	Australia
Language	English
Sister channel(s)	Fox Sports Fox Sports News
Availability
Satellite
Foxtel	Channel 504 (SD/HD) Channel 206 (SD)
Cable
Foxtel	Channel 504 (SD/HD) Channel 206 (SD)
Optus TV	Channel 504
IPTV
Foxtel Play	Channel 504

Fox Footy is an Australian rules football subscription television channel dedicated to screening Australian rules football matches and related programming. It is owned by Fox Sports Pty Limited, operated out of their Melbourne based studios and available on Foxtel, and Optus Television. The channel is a revival of the former Fox Footy Channel, which was in operation between 2002–2006. The channel recommenced prior to the 2012 AFL season after a new broadcast agreement was reached between the former Premier Media Group, Austar, Foxtel and the Australian Football League (AFL).^[1]

History

It was announced on 28 April 2011 that the channel would be revived for the 2012 AFL season. The channel returned exclusively on Foxtel and its broadcasting partners, under the proposed new name of "Fox Sports AFL",^[2] which was later changed back to its original name "Fox Footy". The channel relaunched at 5:00 pm AEDT on Friday 17 February 2012 with the first NAB Cup round-robin match between Hawthorn, Richmond and North Melbourne broadcast exclusively that night. Fox Footy has exclusive broadcast rights to all NAB Cup games exclusively (except for the NAB Cup Grand Final which is also broadcast on Seven), all home and away matches and all finals matches (except for the Grand Final which will screen exclusively on Seven) until 2016. All matches are broadcast live to air in both Standard and High Definition with no commercial breaks during play. Foxtel have since broken this promise, broadcasting several games in SD. When two live matches are being played simultaneously, Fox Sports 3 broadcasts one of the matches.

From the start of the 2012 AFL season, Fox Footy had become the most watched Pay-TV network in Australia. ^[3]

Programming

Personnel

Brian Taylor left the network at the end of the 2011 season to join the Seven Network. He was replaced by former Network Ten commentator Anthony Hudson. Coverage of certain matches including Friday nights and public holidays is picked up from the Seven Network, with commentators including Dennis Cometti, Bruce McAvaney and Matthew Richardson, amongst others. The pre-match and post-match show, and other regular segments such as 7 Plays in 7 Days, are removed from the Fox Footy broadcast (those segments only air on the original Seven broadcast), and the official Seven logo is concealed.

References