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Yeah, that’ll be the next thing and it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any studio coverage that day.
Schedule wise the major change seems to be that live NHL has disappeared off the Premier Sports schedule but remains on Viaplay. That might be a consequence of Viaplay having acquired U.K. rights for the league separate from Premier Sports, before they took it over. Oddly, there is still deferred NHL coverage, but no live games. That means the only live NHL coverage in Ireland is on the NHL’s own streaming service. Coverage of the Viaplay Elite League has also disappeared. Other than that live events on the two channels are identical, though Premier has lost Viaplay’s wraparound studio coverage of the URC, which is now “whistle to whistle”.
(This post was last modified: 07-12-2022, 10:43 PM by
Rdd.)
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I’m guessing it’s World Cup related but is there a reason why the Second Round FA cup coverage on the BBC was done from Salford rather than at the grounds which ITV were able to still do.
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(09-12-2022, 08:58 PM)Alx321 Wrote: I’m guessing it’s World Cup related but is there a reason why the Second Round FA cup coverage on the BBC was done from Salford rather than at the grounds which ITV were able to still do.
I assume just World Cup, for the 2nd round Double Header the other week BBC Sport were able to use the same pundits for both matches
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(This post was last modified: 10-12-2022, 01:24 PM by
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Simon Thomas hosting Soccer Saturday for the first time today and he mentioned that he's hosting next week as well.
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RTE and ITV both using the official titles and music for the Heineken Cup (unlike Channel 4 who used their own) but their own graphics in the build up for their respective games.
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(11-12-2022, 03:52 PM)Rdd Wrote: RTE and ITV both using the official titles and music for the Heineken Cup (unlike Channel 4 who used their own) but their own graphics in the build up for their respective games.
Funnily enough, France TV are continuing in the complete opposite fashion (i.e. their own titles and using the official graphics).
I looked at the fixtures list in depth for the first time over the weekend, and on paper at least the free-to-air aspects in the UK and Ireland looks like a massive improvement on the previous cycle. ITV are not showing any team more than once in the group stages, and Leinster or Munster are shown everytime by RTÉ. One minor disappointment though is that ITV are not airing a highlights show to round up the action; though you could argue they are giving the highlights more respect than Channel 4 showing them at 8am the following Saturday or at 3am on Sunday night.
Interestingly, the BT Sport highlights show showed the best of the tries from the Challenge Cup just now. I wonder if they might still have some kind of rights to the competition, possibly showing the latter stages non-exclusively? Kudos to BT for producing their own commentary on all matches over the weekend, even the South African v. French ties; Viaplay still used the South African commentary for matches in South Africa involving British/Irish sides in contrast.
Another Challenge Cup tidbit, it was a little odd to see that Scarlets v. Bayonne on Sunday afternoon was not shown on Viaplay. Three other matches on Friday/Saturday were also not available on Viaplay (according to the official website): Cardiff v. Brive was on S4C exclusively (without English commentary for "contractual reasons" though) and two others didn't have any British/Irish involvement.
Final point, the format will really not help to sell the competition/sport to a casual audience. I'm still baffled after having it explained a few time over the weekend.
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I find that funny by France TV considering the theme music is by Frenchman Jean Michel Jarre. But each to their own I guess. The new titles aren’t bad, better than the last set, but not great either. They could do worse than go back to the old penalty kick titles of the late 2000s and early 2010s, they were short but very sweet.
RTE don’t have a highlights show either now, which is a pity as there always has been one up till now and means the provinces not selected for live coverage don’t get any FTA coverage at all.
The only Challenge Cup match I saw any of, Connacht v Newcastle, had wrap around coverage on Premier Sports (which given it was presented by Graham Little, I presume was shared with Viaplay). Mind you looking at the schedule I presume all other matches were whistle to whistle.
Nobody I know likes the format now, it is a real case of “they changed it now it sucks”. Most rugby fans I think (to use a sweeping generalisation) would prefer the old 6x4 format back, with its October start and back to back Christmas fixtures. Even the 5x4 format used from 2014 to 2020 would be better. They’ve ruined the best group stage in sports (the self-selecting QF draw ensuring that virtually everyone had something to play for in match day 6). You can make the last 16 with one win now. And what has been gained - one weekend freed up? None of that has anything to do with TV of course, but it won’t win viewers IMHO.
(This post was last modified: 11-12-2022, 11:10 PM by
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Andrew Marchand's subscription-based sports media newsletter for the New York Post (yep, it might not be the most reputed source, but its sports section is quite decent) has got a scoop on two of the reasons of the delay on the Apple TV-NFL deal for Sunday Ticket: they wanted it to merge it into Apple TV+ to attract a bigger audience and more subscriptions to the streamer, but the NFL wants to be sold separately at a premium price to avoid the broadcast networks to lose revenue and ratings.
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Not sure it’s been mentioned here but BoxNation closes on Wednesday, it’s been a zombie channel for months with its last live boxing having been back in April (and to be honest what little live boxing it had in the couple of years before was simulcast on Premier Sports), though it did get a bit of use for UEFA Nations League overspill.
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Three of the existing four MLS' North American TV rights partners, Fox, TelevisaUnivision and Bell Media, have renewed their agreements with the soccer league as the Apple TV+ deal nears. The deal runs up to 2026. ESPN and ABC are out.
www.mlssoccer.com
