HD : Sky Sports News may go online or cease 24/7 broadcasts.

[RichardCoulter]

Sky Sports News 24-hour coverage might be ending or it could go online:

https://www.balls.ie/football/sky-sports-news-394630

Falling viewer numbers blamed on the removal of the channel from Freeview!

[MalteseFalcon]

I was under the impression it was live from 6 in the morning to around 10/11 at night when they showed the same sequence over and over again. Is that not the case? Either way, I only tend to watch on a Saturday during the season for the football scores.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by MalteseFalcon

I was under the impression it was live from 6 in the morning to around 10/11 at night when they showed the same sequence over and over again. Is that not the case? Either way, I only tend to watch on a Saturday during the season for the football scores.

If that's the case, it would seem to be a very cheap channel to run! Can they really not make it pay?

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by MalteseFalcon

I was under the impression it was live from 6 in the morning to around 10/11 at night when they showed the same sequence over and over again. Is that not the case? Either way, I only tend to watch on a Saturday during the season for the football scores.

Yes, I thought that too.

You'd think they'd have the sense to put it back on Freeview where they could promote Sky Sports relentlessly. Isn't Pick +1 on there? It could replace that.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Sky Sports News 24-hour coverage might be ending or it could go online:

https://www.balls.ie/football/sky-sports-news-394630

Falling viewer numbers blamed on the removal of the channel from Freeview!

It was removed from Freeview 8 years ago. Doesn't seem like a valid argument to me. Maybe it's the rise of 3pm illegal streams or BT's Sport Score broadcast on Twitter for free that's denting their weekend figures?

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Chad

It was removed from Freeview 8 years ago. Doesn't seem like a valid argument to me. Maybe it's the rise of 3pm illegal streams or BT's Sport Score broadcast on Twitter for free that's denting their weekend figures?

Yes, it was a long time ago that it was removed from Freeview wasn't it, so it does seem like a wet excuse.

I believe that they put it on Freeview to get people used to having it and then abruptly pulled it off to encourage people to subscribe to Sky to get it back again. In those day, the main point of the Sky channels was to undermine and weaken the platform, though they now seem to have embraced the advantages of having a few FTA channels in their portfolio.

I was wrong, Pick +1 Isn't on Freeview, but they could get it back on cheaply enough by putting it on Com7/8, by doing a quasi national coverage deal with Comux or even offering their content for nothing as alternative filler to the local TV channels.

---------- Post added at 12:47 ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 ----------

Originally Posted by MatthewEastaugh

I think the chances of Sky Sports News being completely closed any time soon - just after the start of a new football season - are somewhere below 0.01%.

Heck, even that article doesn't say it could 'be withdrawn', just that they're considering 'moving away from 24-7 broadcasting' - which could just mean being on air from 9am to 11pm (for example) rather than 24hrs a day. And that's they don't just do the other options mentioned (sponsored content / advertising in the ticker), or even just decide there's no problems anyway.

It does say that it may go online, whether that means additional online articles or a complete move over to online streaming for the channel isn't clear. I imagine that it means the latter as I believe it already has an online presence somewhere (I don't know for sure as it's not a channel I watch).