Originally Posted by cheekyangus (Post 35982417)

I agree with Raider999, I don't think Sky lost La Liga. Same way they didn't lose ATP Tennis. They've only got so much space to fill, existing rights get more expensive and certain sports have inconvenience scheduling, they either clash with higher rating events or take too much time to show. They also need to give the illusion of variety, so they can't just show football.

BT Sport is the same. It's juggling budget, audience perception and scheduling. Eurosport takes a different approach, it predominantly shows sports that take large chunks of schedule to do properly, hence cycling, tennis and snooker.

Notice how Sky sponsored a pro cycling team for years but never showed an interest in broadcasting it. There are a lot of events and they can take many hours to even show just one. Sky knew they didn't have the space to schedule it and the audience wasn't necessarily big enough to justify a dedicated channel (remember the Bike channel that existed but folded in recent years).

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Sorry for going off thread topic.

Still no sign of the STV HD 103 switch. Guess either the information was wrong, or it was postponed due to technical difficulties.

I suspect if Discovery end up with the 3 channels mentioned in that article they will end up closing them, or their own channels with similar subject matter.

Originally Posted by cheekyangus (Post 35982433)

According to TVWise Smithsonian Channel will be coming to Freesat, so I think that pretty much means it it be on all Virgin Media packages.

Based on combination of information from TVWise and a516digital it will HD only on all platforms except Freeview, which will be SD.

Really looking forward to this channel.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter (Post 35982451)

FTA channels tend to go in either the lowest Player package or the higher Mix package.

Originally Posted by cheekyangus (Post 35982456)

Yeah, I know, I just didn't know it was going to be a FTA channel until today. Given its UK distribution common connection to LoveNature I thought it was more likely to be Pay. I'm glad it's FTA though, means I get it via multiple methods in the house and there's a backup if VM TV has technical difficulties.

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 35982491)

Would I be right in saying that once the Smithsonian launches the UK will have more linear TV channels than at any point in history?

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 35982491)

Would I be right in saying that once the Smithsonian launches the UK will have more linear TV channels than at any point in history?

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 35982493)

Both I suppose, for the purpose of the thread the VM figure would be helpful.

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 35982501)

If someone were to be pedantic I suppose Virgin have closed SD simulcasts.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter (Post 35982550)

True, I suppose it depends on what's defined as a channel. Media Boy might know if the total number of services has increased or decreased as he sometimes takes note if this.

Originally Posted by Media Boy (Post 35982549)

From Saturday Sky Cinema Drama will be called Sky Cinema Valentine until February 18th.