The Sport Thread

But I read earlier that they'd closed because they'd gone into receivership... are they under new owners?

Sky simulcasting the first round of the Open on Sky One.

Sky have announced that they'll be broadcasting 124 Premier League matches in UHD this season, for Sky Q Silver subscribers.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10500323

Bizarre on screen graphics for The Open ....

The Sky Sports The Open HD DOG wholly superimposed on the top of the most detailed section of the individual hole details display., when that's slid in from the right.

But at least the ad breaks are short and punchy, rather than long and ponderous ones I was fearing.

Notice it's simlcast on Sky Sports 4 as well. Not sure what purpose that serves? Is SS4 still an additional 'bolt on' channel to the Sky Sports group of channels?

I saw someone on Digitalspy say it was because Sky Sports 4 is the "home of golf".

My thinking is that it's a sop to Ofcom, by putting it on SS1 it's available to BT Customers whereas if only on SS4 it's not. The stripping of the Championship from the widest possible audience wouldn't go down well and might be seen as enough to re-open BT's dispute which although settled according to Ofcom and Sky, BT are still appealling to the Supreme Court.

Sky's contract with the R&A stipulates the ad breaks must be short, no longer than two minutes I believe is the maximum length.

Davis Cup:

Sue Barker, Jamie Baker, Andrew Castle and John Lloyd in the studio in Salford. Castle and Lloyd commentating off-tube.

Off air at 16:00 due to rain delay. Delays to be expected all day.

Covers are coming off in Belgrade, and being on clay play could resume quickly. Meanwhile BBC2 are halfway through a 30 minute episode of The Best Dishes Ever.

They were back just in time but the rain has returned. They are probably going to be playing late into the evening, I suspect will all be on the Red Button.

Odd graphics for the BBC Open highlights.
So, I wasnt expecting to see the 'glass' Sky Sports graphics, but I would have thought we would have had the BBC house style for the player, hole and score top left graphic.

What we have instead, is a monsterously big score box, which appears to be a mash of The Open IMG produced webfeed graphics and bits of the NBC Sports Channel's.

Take it Sky Sports/European Tour productions don't use Alston Elliot? So the BBC can't plug their graphics into the same NTT data stream, and pull the highlights graphics out in the BBC sport style, and have ended up with this ugly screen clutter.