Coming soon to Virgin TV (2012) Vol. 1

[Chad]

Originally Posted by Media Boy

When Premier Sports do join Virgin I think viewers will be ask to pay extra if they want it.

At £7.99 per month it's going to be a bit of a hard sell. Upon reviewing their content I'd say the channel is better than Eurosport, but not as good as ESPN. Their only regular live content at the moment is Ice Hockey, Greyhound Racing and Blue Square Premiership....... well 1 Blue Sqaure game in the whole of January really.

I notice if you have SKY, and take a 12 months subscription, you'll only pay £74.88 which works out at £6.24 per month.

Give them credit though the live action does pick up in February and March. I have noticed however that about 50% of their live content such as NASCAR, NHL and Copa Libertadores are on midweek from midnight through to the early hours of the morning.

I'm just wondering who loves these sports enough to stay up to 5am on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday watching them live?

If the channel goes into the XL package, great! I just can't see how they can justify £7.99 per month. For around the same price you can get ESPN, ESPN HD, ESPN America and ESPN Classic. Who are Premier Sports trying to kid?

Originally Posted by Chad

At £7.99 per month it's going to be a bit of a hard sell. Upon reviewing their content I'd say the channel is better than Eurosport, but not as good as ESPN. Their only regular live content at the moment is Ice Hockey, Greyhound Racing and Blue Square Premiership....... well 1 Blue Sqaure game in the whole of January really.

I notice if you have SKY, and take a 12 months subscription, you'll only pay £74.88 which works out at £6.24 per month.

Give them credit though the live action does pick up in February and March. I have noticed however that about 50% of their live content such as NASCAR, NHL and Copa Libertadores are on midweek from midnight through to the early hours of the morning.

I'm just wondering who loves these sports enough to stay up to 5am on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday watching them live?

If the channel goes into the XL package, great! I just can't see how they can justify £7.99 per month. For around the same price you can get ESPN, ESPN HD, ESPN America and ESPN Classic. Who are Premier Sports trying to kid?

Chad is there any figures for the number of subscribers to Premier Sports on Sky?

[Chad]

Originally Posted by mlayzell

Chad is there any figures for the number of subscribers to Premier Sports on Sky?

I can't find any. All subscriptions are handled by Premier Sports directly. It's something I've tried to find info on before. When the channel launched for about the first 5 months they showed a real dedication to boxing which really caught my attention. This died out, especially with the recent arrival of Boxnation.

Originally Posted by Chad

I can't find any. All subscriptions are handled by Premier Sports directly. It's something I've tried to find info on before. When the channel launched for about the first 5 months they showed a real dedication to boxing which really caught my attention. This died out, especially with the recent arrival of Boxnation.

The figures have got to be low, unless you are an out and out NHL fan, I might get it for the end of the season just to see Luton lose in the play offs again

[Chad]

Originally Posted by mlayzell

The figures have got to be low, unless you are an out and out NHL fan, I might get it for the end of the season just to see Luton lose in the play offs again

I too suspect the figures are low. Their actual lack of weekend live sport is astounding.

What might interest you is this article:

http://www.spedeworth.co.uk/news2.php?id=467

So Premier Sports are happy to sign a broadcast deal for a new sport if it guarantees them 500 new subscribers.

And this article suggests they were trying to pull in 1000 new subscribers:

http://www.touchline.tv/football/blu...premier-sports

It all seems a bit small fry to me. Championship rugby might help boost their subscription figures but again the games are live on a Thursday night. I've never known a subscription sports channel to offer little or no live action on a Saturday or Sunday.

I doubt they could cover anything on a weekend while maintaining a profit. On a Saturday everyone's watching Soccer Saturday or Final Score and on a Sunday live Premier League, weekdays are their key market.

[Lew]

Originally Posted by alwaysabear

All it needs is an american football helmet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOxnS0zZT8c and your back in 1985.

Ah, the memories.

[nstokes]

Originally Posted by denphone

What shops are you talking about as l know nothing. l just follow my partner in and do what she tells me.

You know what shops and every guy says they do what she tells you to but alot of the time you want to do it

Originally Posted by Media Boy

The 10 channels testing story was Originally Posted by ottoni.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/35359834-post257.html

oh ok, i knew i saw it somewhere, my bad

[Arthurgray50@blu]

If reading between the lines on the Premier Sports site about Blue Sq Football.

Most of the problems on the demise of Setanta Sports was lack of subs for football etc which l believe is the goldmine for broadcasters, without this 'football being shown live on the PS channels they won't get many subs.

I will only watch it for the football.

[alwaysabear]

I would like to see the NHL , but it all depends how much they want for the channel, as I can probably only watch some of HNIC on Saturday into Sunday. It would also be nice for the play-offs leading to the Stanley Cup, so depending on cost I might just sub for a couple of months.

[andy_m]

I have to say about PremierSports that I think "small fry" is slightly unfair - I would say "niche", but I appreciate that's being a bit picky. If you're into NHL in particular then there probably isn't a more comprehensive NHL package on any one channel in the world. £7.99 is really good value if you're a fan of what they show, but it isn't an addition to the Virgin lineup with the sort of mass market appeal that would mean the inclusion of it in a channel bundle would really allow them to compete with Sky Sports in the same way that ESPN is. For that reason amongst many others this will be a subscription only channel on Virgin, and since I imagine most people who are serious about American sport are probably with Sky because they can get ESPN America in HD and NFL on Sky Sports, I can't see it will ever achieve a great deal more than it already is.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by alwaysabear

I would like to see the NHL , but it all depends how much they want for the channel, as I can probably only watch some of HNIC on Saturday into Sunday.

Yes if it is priced at £7.99 a month there is not much chance of them getting that many subs but if Virgin were to put it onto the XL pack now that would be a popular and wise move in my opinion.

[andy_m]

Originally Posted by denphone

Yes if it is priced at £7.99 a month there is not much chance of them getting that many subs but if Virgin were to put it onto the XL pack now that would be a popular and wise move in my opinion.

It would be popular, I'm not sure if it would be wise. Hockey is a great sport - as is some of the other stuff they carry, but the channel won't sell subscriptions in this country like Premiership football will. That's why Premiership football is free to XL customers through ESPN, it's a loss leader to Virgin Media. For them to also subsidise a sport that really won't get people signing up to other, paid for, services wouldn't make any sense from a business point of view, I don't think.

Chad's post earlier that suggested PremierSports would spend money to get just 500 viewers was really insightful. I'd be really interested to know what the figure is for VirginMedia.

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by denphone

Yes if it is priced at £7.99 a month there is not much chance of them getting that many subs but if Virgin were to put it onto the XL pack now that would be a popular and wise move in my opinion.

That would be the best option for me.

[Media Boy UK]

Just seen this over on DS Forums.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...81&postcount=1

NOTE: I was not told any dates on when Premier Sports will be announced.

If using any of my posts on other web site can you post ''Media Boy is reporting''. Thank you.