Sky Sports and ITV have decided upon the split of live matches for the last 16, first leg stage of this year’s UEFA Champions League.
Once again, the first legs of the eight matches are split up over two weeks, with two matches per day over the round. ITV will show one first-pick match from each Wednesday, leaving Sky with the remaining six. The second legs follow the same format, with ITV’s picks still to be decided.
Next Wednesday (15th), ITV1 will be at San Siro for the potential firecracker between Milan and Arsenal, while the following week the channel will broadcast Marseille v Inter Milan.
The only other English team to make it through to this round is Chelsea, and they also face a trip to Italy to face Napoli on Tuesday 21st February on Sky Sports. Sky will also show the rest of the fixtures from this stage live, with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich all in action.
Now that the dire UEFA Europa League group stages are over, we reach the knockout stages. Channel 5, ITV and ESPN have decided upon the live matches they will be showing from the first leg of the last 32 fixtures.
Channel 5 have the first pick, and have unsurprisingly gone for Manchester United’s trip to Ajax on Thursday 16th February at 6pm. This moves them away from their usual 8.05pm slot, but United at 6pm means more viewers than pretty much any other side playing in the late kick-off. Both these sides were eliminated from the group stages of the Champions League, so move to this competition.
As were Manchester City and Porto, who meet on ITV1 at 8.05pm that night. This match has been bumped up from ITV4, the usual home of the broadcaster’s Europa League coverage. That channel has Legia Warsaw v Sporting Lisbon earlier in the evening.
That leaves Stoke City’s tough game against Valencia on ESPN, along with a couple of all-continental ties including Lazio v Atletico Madrid.
The new Sky Sports F1 channel will also show GP2 and GP3 live. The two feeder series to Formula 1 run for the most part parallel to the main championship, with GP2 having 12 rounds and GP3 just the 8 rounds. Each weekend features two races, both of which will be live on the new channel. There is no news on fellow support series Porsche Supercup, so that is expected to remain on Eurosport.
Sky have also confirmed that their Formula 1 magazine programme with Georgie Thompson and Ted Kravitz will be shown weekly.
ITV are expected to release football commentator Peter Drury and co-commentator Jim Beglin after Euro 2012 this summer. Former Irish international Beglin has been steadily phased out of his duties over the last couple of years as Andy Townsend has become more prominent, while the decision to drop Drury is more surprising. With ITV’s Champions League coverage moving to Tuesday nights, it means number 1 commentator Clive Tyldesley can easily do that match before travelling to wherever for a Europa League game on the Thursday. As the channel will still need more than one commentator, they could still keep Drury on as a freelancer unless he moves to another network full time.
Sky Sports will show the Tony Bellew v Danny McIntosh fight for the British Light Heavyweight title after promoter Dave Coldwell won the purse bids and joined forces with Matchroom Sport to provide a TV date. Bellew (right) is signed to Frank Warren Promotions, who are a major player behind the rival BoxNation channel. After the announcement this week, Bellew said: “It’s a dream come true to be back on Sky Sports.” Don’t think his promoter will be too chuffed after hearing that.
The Super League season starts this weekend. The early list of live matches on Sky can be seen here.
Interestingly, from May Sky will be showing their secondary live match per round on a Monday night rather than a Saturday evening. This is down to the channel wanting more live sport on a Monday once the football season has ended during the summer. The now-traditional Friday night slot will stay untouched.
Two of England’s rugby matches in the Women’s Six Nations will be shown live on television this year, with a third available online with a free, legal stream. First, on the 25th February the game against Wales will be on the BBC red button at 6.15pm. On the 11th March, England’s trip to France will be on the Sky Sports red button service at 12.45pm, while their final match against Ireland will be live on the RFU website on the 17th March at 2pm.
The live matches for the fifth round of the FA Cup have been confirmed.
The two fixtures on ITV1 see League Two Stevenage welcome Premier League outfit Spurs to Broadhall Way on the 19th February, and the winners of the Sunderland and Middlesbrough replay hosting Arsenal the previous evening.
As usual, ESPN will have three live matches, starting with Chelsea v Birmingham on the Saturday lunchtime, followed by everybody’s least favourite team Crawley against Stoke and Liverpool v Brighton on the Sunday.
That will be a very busy day with three games back-to-back across the two broadcasters.
The two replays from the FA Cup fourth round to be televised on ITV1 and ESPN have been selected.
ITV have the first pick, and unsurprisingly have gone for the North East derby between Middlesbrough and Sunderland on the 8th February. They showed the original tie at the weekend which finished 1-1. The winner of the replay faces a tough test against Arsenal in the fifth round, a match that will also be live on ITV1.
With only two other replays for ESPN to pick from, they went for Sheffield Wednesday against Blackpool on the previous evening. The two sides also drew 1-1 in the first match, and the winner will travel to Goodison Park to face Everton in mid-February.
Bad news for BT Vision subscribers after it was confirmed the new Sky Sports F1 channel will not be coming to the platform. Earlier this week it was confirmed that the station will be coming to Virgin Media, but those with BT Vision will have to rely on the BBC’s coverage of 10 live races, and extended highlights of the rest.
Premier Sports have announced another batch of live Blue Square Bet Premier matches running through until April. All the top sides are in action as they battle it out to reach the Football League, including the potential thriller between Wrexham and Luton on the 7th March.
Fri 17 Feb
Southport v Grimsby Town
19:30
Premier Sports
Wed 22 Feb
York City v Gateshead
19:30
Premier Sports
Wed 7 Mar
Wrexham v Luton Town
19:30
Premier Sports
Fri 9 Mar
Kidderminster Harriers v Fleetwood Town
19:30
Premier Sports
Fri 23 Mar
TBC
19:30
Premier Sports
Fri 30 Mar
Luton Town v York City
19:30
Premier Sports
Tue 10 Apr
Fleetwood Town v Wrexham
19:30
Premier Sports
Welsh language channel S4C have confirmed their live Welsh Premier League fixtures for February and March, with all four title contenders in action, plus a Welsh Cup quarter-final.
Sat 4 Feb
Bangor City v Prestatyn Town
15:45
S4C
Sat 11 Feb
Aberystwyth Town v Carmarthen Town
15:45
S4C
Sat 18 Feb
Llanelli v The New Saints
15:00
S4C
Sat 25 Feb
Welsh Cup quarter-final
TBC
S4C
Sat 3 Mar
Bangor City v Neath
15:45
S4C
Sat 10 Mar
Bangor City v The New Saints
17:15
S4C
Premier Sports have renewed their deal with BriSCA F1 to show highlights of the national stock car series for another two years. Coverage of all 24 rounds will be shown every Tuesday night at 9pm, starting on the 3rd April, and concluding with the season finale on the 20th November at Belle Vue.
After much deliberation, ITV have extended their deal with the Football Association to show the FA Cup and most England internationals until 2014.
The contents of the agreement are similar to what they are currently receiving, with up to 16 live matches from the FA Cup each season (including the first pick throughout), plus all of England’s friendly internationals, and their home qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Away qualifiers are sold through the relevant FA from each country, so are not covered by this contract.
A couple of extras have also been tossed in, mainly the Community Shield, the traditional curtain-raiser to the season. While it is a glorified friendly, it usually is an attractive prospect for broadcasters at the start of the year, and has been shown by Sky Sports in recent years. Also, ITV4 will show six matches from the later rounds of the FA Youth Cup, which has been without a home since the demise of Setanta Sports in 2009.
However, the main bonus for ITV is the cost of the deal-£90m. It sounds a lot, but in comparison to the £275m they have paid under the current four-year contract which expires in the summer, it works out at more than a 30% saving (£20m a year) for the broadcaster.
The 2008-2012 contract was signed at the height of the television sports rights market back in 2007 before the global recession, which has seen a marked drop in most TV rights fees for all bar the elite competitions in sport.
The deal summed up:
£90m over two years
One live FA Cup match in rounds 1 and 2, two live matches in rounds 3-6, one semi-final, and the final
First choice of matches in every round, plus the fourth pick in rounds 3 and 4, and the third pick in rounds 5 and 6
First choice on replays in rounds 3-6
England’s home 2014 World Cup qualifiers live
All England friendlies live, both home and away
Community Shield live
Six FA Youth Cup matches per season, including the semi-finals and the final
Covers online as well as television, plus mobile rights if necessary
The FA have announced the five live matches from the fourth round of the FA Cup to be televised live on ITV and ESPN.
The highlight of the round is the obvious first pick between Liverpool and Manchester United on ITV1. Due to policing requests, this match will be a lunchtime kick-off on Saturday 28th January. The fixture is always one of the highlights of the season, and a ‘big cup feel’ should only add to the drama. If it is half as good as the Manchester derby in the FA Cup third round, it should be a cracker.
Meanwhile, ITV’s other live game is the North East derby between Middlesbrough and Sunderland on Sunday 29th January.
ESPN again have three live matches, beginning with Watford v Tottenham to kick off the fourth round on Friday 27th January. The following day at 5.15pm sees Brighton face Newcastle.
The all-Premier League tie between Arsenal and Aston Villa finishes off fourth round weekend on the Sunday afternoon at 4pm.
The BBC are scaling down their coverage of the Australian Open tennis tournament that begins on Monday. In the past they had shown live action on the red button every day, with selected Andy Murray and later-round matches on BBC Two, but this year they will only televise both singles finals and one of the men’s semi-finals. British Eurosport will once again have comprehensive live coverage and highlights throughout the tournament.
The Wrexham v Brighton FA Cup third round replay, that was originally only scheduled for Welsh-language coverage on S4C, will now also be shown on ESPN Classic on Tuesday 17th February. The match is on the Classic channel, as ESPN are also showing Leicester v Nottingham Forest at the same time.
Premier Sports have added an extra live boxing card in the early hours of Saturday 21st January. The triple-header from the States is part of the Shobox series, and is headlined by an exciting Super Bantamweight title fight between Rico Ramos and Guillermo Rigondeaux.
Meanwhile, BoxNation have confirmed two more live cards from Germany as part of their contract with promoters Sauerland. This Saturday, the 14th January sees Robert Stieglitz face Henry Weber for a Super Middleweight belt, while the 4th February sees a Cruiserweight title rematch between Yoan Pablo Hernandez and Steve Cunningham.
Still in boxing, and ITV1 will celebrate the 70th birthday of Heavyweight great Muhammad Ali with a documentary looking at his many visits to Britain over the years, including interviews and archive footage. The programme airs this Monday, the 16th January at 10.35pm. Also over the rest of the week on ITV4 at 9pm, veteran presenter Des Lynam looks back at some of Ali’s best fights, including bouts with Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman.
Finally this week, ESPN’s pitchside coverage of Monday’s FA Cup tie between Arsenal and Leeds had it’s problems. The Leeds fans were very audibly chanting swear words throughout the broadcast, and pundit Martin Keown suffered an unfortunate incident. Check the video below:
Four third round replays from the FA Cup will be televised live across ITV1, ITV4, ESPN and S4C.
Despite an absolute stinker of a first match, Wolves and Birmingham face each other again on television, this time on ITV1 on Wednesday 18th January.
Even with a relatively unattractive bunch of replays, ITV will get an extra match to make up for the time last season when they were unable to fit in a live fifth round replay. This game will be on ITV4 on Tuesday 17th January between Queens Park Rangers and Milton Keynes Dons, with the winner hosting Chelsea in the fourth round.
At the same time, ESPN will show the Leicester v Nottingham Forest, with the re-arranged Wrexham v Brighton the following night. The latter will also be shown with Welsh commentary on S4C.
Sky Sports and ITV have decided upon the split of live matches for the last 16, first leg stage of this year’s UEFA Champions League.
Now that the dire UEFA Europa League group stages are over, we reach the knockout stages. Channel 5, ITV and ESPN have decided upon the live matches they will be showing from the first leg of the last 32 fixtures.
The new Sky Sports F1 channel will also show GP2 and GP3 live. The two feeder series to Formula 1 run for the most part parallel to the main championship, with GP2 having 12 rounds and GP3 just the 8 rounds. Each weekend features two races, both of which will be live on the new channel. There is no news on fellow support series Porsche Supercup, so that is expected to remain on Eurosport.
The live matches for the fifth round of the FA Cup have been confirmed.
The two replays from the FA Cup fourth round to be televised on ITV1 and ESPN have been selected.
Bad news for BT Vision subscribers after it was confirmed the new Sky Sports F1 channel will not be coming to the platform. Earlier this week it was confirmed that 
Welsh language channel S4C have confirmed their live Welsh Premier League fixtures for February and March, with all four title contenders in action, plus a Welsh Cup quarter-final.
After much deliberation, ITV have extended their deal with the Football Association to show the FA Cup and most England internationals until 2014..jpg "ITV"){kind=small}
However, the main bonus for ITV is the cost of the deal-£90m. It sounds a lot, but in comparison to the £275m they have paid under the current four-year contract which expires in the summer, it works out at more than a 30% saving (£20m a year) for the broadcaster.
The BBC are scaling down their coverage of the Australian Open tennis tournament that begins on Monday. In the past they had shown live action on the red button every day, with selected Andy Murray and later-round matches on BBC Two, but this year they will only televise both singles finals and one of the men’s semi-finals. British Eurosport will once again have comprehensive live coverage and highlights throughout the tournament.
Four third round replays from the FA Cup will be televised live across ITV1, ITV4, ESPN and S4C.
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