Until now, Sky has clung on tightly to their crown jewels, their rights to the majority of the Premier League match coverage, but following a recent ruling by the regulators Ofcom, Sky’s been forced to make their Sports channels available to competitors at a more reasonable rate. Here’s what we know of the proposed offers:
BT Vision: It’s understood that BT Vision plans to offer Sky Sports 1 to subscribers of its on-demand TV service for £15 a month for the 2010/2011 football season. BT Vision customers can also subscribe to ESPN, for matches not covered by Sky. ESPN is currently free to BT Vision Value pack subscribers. More on BT Vision
Top Up TV: We understand that Top UP TV would like to offer both Sky Sports 1 and 2 for around £20 a month from later this year. More on Top Up TV.
We’ll update you as we get more information on the plans to bring Sky Sports to providers other than Sky.
Source: Guardian Online
what channels will these be on and will it be on a freeview box to
Channel numbers won’t be decided until close to service startup (as this is four months away, not sure why the channel number matters to you at this stage!)
I’d guess that the service will operate in a similar way to how ESPN is broadcast. The service goes out encrypted over DTT, and it can be viewed on suitable hardware with a valid subscription card. See https://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/channels/espn.html to see how this works for BT Vision, Top Up and Freeview with ESPN at the moment.
Thats good but isnt this an opportunity to put a non-football free to air sports channel on freeview myself If I wanna watch a game like many will watch on Sky down pub a lot of people DO NOT WANT PAY PER VIEW the needs of the basic non topuptv freeview viewer are still not being addressed. I have always said this but EUROPSPORT WOULD BE EXCELLENT ON FREEVIEW