Funnily enough I've never seen Moguls on UK Eurosport, but at least it would be live - I sometimes jokingly think there's some poor soul stuck all by themselves in an empty room with no windows at Eurosport trying to figure out 37 different Eurosports - there's probably more - and balancing all the different sporting rights in each country and what is favourite in one and favourite in another, and sometimes just picking a few things out which they then try to balance out across the 2 channels, plus some things like figure skating with its 8 different segments over 2 days for a GP are just too complicated, so if there's lots of other sport they just pick a couple of disciplines and be done with it. This probably explains why we've been not been getting live skating while they've been showing highlights of other skating, some of which has also been shown before.
Re Comcast's takeover of Sky and skating coverage, the thing that will interest me most is if Sky start showing cycling actually. Despite the success of Team Sky they don't show it at all and you'd think it would be a no-brainer to show it, which would be a real blow to Eurosport of course - the home of cycling as they like to call it. Could be an interesting year or two ahead as the full ramifications of Sky's takeover by Comcast, and Discovery's plans for Eurosport take full effect.
Have to say my heart sank when I saw your PGA tour stuff - it's all year round, they don't stop after the PGA Tour Finals at the end of September, they start the next year one straightaway with only a break mid-Nov to the end of the calendar year. How they'll fit that into 2 channels remains to be seen - actually thought Sky would have renewed because they were making a fuss about renewing the European Tour (they need that so they can show the Ryder Cup), but allied to the loss of ATP Tour tennis next year to Amazon Prime, well I can't see me subscribing much longer either.
EDIT - Have just been thinking about the PGA Tour stuff. 2000 hours a year is massive, 5.5 hours a day, average, so what's it going to be like on the 4 days a week i.e. Thurs to Sunday when they actually play tournaments. Unless they get an extra channel, Eurosport is going to change forever.
Re skating, we'd still be OK with that from Asia due to the timezones, but we'd be stuffed unless very lucky if it's in the evening UK/Europe time. Afternoons would probably be OK, Sky normally starts its coverage 6 p.m. UK time, so even a bit earlier you'd be OK, but overall it has to be bad, or very bad, for skating - it's the fact they play week in week out as well that would do the damage, that 2000 hours has got to come from somewhere.
There used to be IceNetwork, I am not sure it's still there, but are the Rusian and Japanese Nationals going to be streamed anywhere and available in the US?
But what gets me is the coverage that is Player only doesn’t have commentary. Is he trying to put himself out of a job?
If Eurosport were going to launch any more linear channels, they would have done it years ago when they first started getting more rights than they could fit onto their existing channels. Like, the fact that they didn't do it for the Olympics (apart from on platforms owned by Discovery's main shareholder, Liberty Media) says a lot about how much they don't want to do it.
Everything is now driven towards getting people to subscribe to the Player. Like, during the GP Final, Simon Reed was encouraging viewers to get the Player to watch the LIVE coverage. I've never noticed that being done before during the figure skating coverage.
It looks as though we're going to have to concede defeat and admit that streaming is the only way we are going to see figure skating regularly.
Such a shame.
CaroLiza_fan
I’d never heard of Eleven Sports and just read this article (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...e-facing-closure-in-uk-after-only-four-months) yikes. I also hope Eurosport are on notice after this.
And that comment there just proves the point.
Because they weren't available on Sky or Virgin or BT, most people didn't even know Eleven Sports existed. I only knew they existed because I regularly visit a website about broadcasting news. And it has been running stories about them over the months.
Here is their most recent story about Eleven Sports, which is what I read last night and based my previous post on:
https://www.a516digital.com/2018/12/eleven-sports-uk-on-brink-after-failure.html
In fact, that website is also where I found out about Discovery starting to close channels, TV5 Monde going online only in the British Isles (story 1, 2, 3), and the terrestrial TV stories from Flanders and Switzerland.
It is sometimes useful to look at what is happening elsewhere in the broadcasting sector to gauge whether Eurosport is taking the right approach to things.
CaroLiza_fan
And there I was about to do a post in which I said the Player is the way to go, and especially with it's great picture quality. However I suppose the difference is that Eurosport can always plug the Player via its TV coverage, plus it's always plugging the Player in its snooker coverage - sorry to be such a traitor to skating!
Also Discovery has deeper pockets, plus the same can be said for Amazon Prime with it's taking on of ATP tennis from next year and US Open tennis already. Also I believe you've got things like Facebook in the States with NFL, I think, so it may be these bigger corporations can ultimately make it work, look at how the stuff Setanta used to show has ultimately made it onto BT Sports via ESPN in the meantime.
Rescued from my original post -
Yes, Eurosport as a cycling sponsor makes a lot of sense.
Darts, well I've long wondered how the BDO championship could seriously remain as the 'world' championship on the likes of the BBC. It's only because it occupies a quiet time of the year for broadcasting purposes, post Christmas/New Year hangover and all that. I'm amazed anyone takes it seriously, that’s if anyone does at all - the PDC has long been the home for anyone that was any good - perhaps Eurosport is the true home for it after all.
However by chance they're ended up with the Player, and where you have to say the picture quality is really good for example, so yes it's probably a big part of Discovery's takeover of Eurosport and their plans for it.
However they will have to provide commentary if they’re to do it properly. There’s no way they’ll get away with what they’ve got at the moment. For example on the Red Button at Wimbledon, there's always one court where the BBC coverage doesn't have commentary, and it's never the same. OK figure skating is a bit more 'lean forward', but you can be pretty sure Amazon Prime will have commentary on all their tennis coverage, and Discovery will need to make sure the Player is the same if it’s to become a true Over the Top broadcaster rather than what it is at the moment.
Also it's becoming clearer Eurosport is adding more and more sporting rights, whereas both Sky and BT Sport seem to have said they're looking to slim down and concentrate on fewer sports, Sky for example because of the huge cost of Premier League rights. So yes, interesting times ahead, and I think the idea of Eurosport International 1 and 2, and then a separate one for national rights makes perfect sense, and if there’s something that happens to be shown on Euro Intl 1 or 2, and on the local national channel at the same time because there’s not enough to show on the latter, or because something local also has international significance then so be it, it’ll still be better than what we’ve got at the moment, and especially what seems to be the likely future situation, they’re definitely expanding after many years of slowly but surely losing rights.
It would be nice if they did what they used to do for the streams of the linear channels, and what they brought back for the additional streams during the Olympics - having the ability to select the audio on the streams. That way you can choose whether to have commentary or not.
And they wouldn't necessarily have to pay their own commentators to do it. During one of those Women's football matches, there were a couple of times where you heard the World Feed commentary for a few seconds. And I couldn't help thinking "Why didn't Eurosport let us listen to that?"
CaroLiza_fan
IceNetwork was replaced by NBC Sports Gold. It shows all the GPs, Euros, 4CCs, and Worlds, but as far as Nationals goes, it only shows U.S. Normally in U.S. I've been also been able to watch Russian Nats, which I really enjoy. It has been streamed on ESPN3 and, I think, other places. I am hoping to find a way to watch Japanese Nats (Daisuke!) and Canadian Nats. Canadians, in particular, has been difficult to find in U.S.
You are saying RusNat on ESPN3? I have ESPN3 through my Xfinity and as I look at their schedule I don’t see RusNat yet. Maybe it will appear when the time comes closer...
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