The Sport Thread

The EBU have signed a new deal with the Tour de France until the end of the decade, and as a result ITV4 will continue to show it until 2019.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/itv-lands-new-tour-de-france-deal#.Ui5B3D8phn9
http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/ebu_keeps_tour_de_france_rights_until_2019/

Yep - quite an amazing outcome. BBC Sport must have been SISLive's biggest (or close to biggest) OB client. That's a huge chunk of work to lose. Lots of rumours flying around already as to how it happened.

Probably no surprise, but Eurosport's NFL coverage was simply a full relay of ESPN Monday Night Football.

Yes, with every sponsor message intact (and my there are a lot of them!!!).

More details from the BBCs press office: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/bbc-sport-ob.html

Yes. For the company that currently resources pretty much most of what BBC Sport produces to not even be on the framework (and thus able to bid) for future BBC Sport work is a very odd state of affairs.

Broadcast are reporting that SISLive are now working on an assessment of their future over the next month. (Hardly a surprise now they've lost so much work.)

The rumours continue to fly.

Was SIS born out of the BBC itself?

SIS bought BBC Outside Broadcasts to form SIS Live when BBC Resources was split up.

No - but it bought BBC OBs.

BBC Resources (the wholly owned commercial facilities bit of the BBC) originally ran BBC Studios, BBC Post Production and BBC Outside Broadcasts. All of them were put up for sale. Only BBC Outside Broadcasts found a buyer...

SIS (Satellite Information Services) who had a business running closed-circuit TV feeds for betting shops (horse racing mainly) and who had moved into the SNG / Uplink market (SISLink) bought them to create SISLive.

SISLive (universally abbreviated to SIS in the industry) also bought a very small OB company called Dales, and then a little while later bought O21 (which was owned by ITV plc at one point, and then Gravity Media) who were another of the bigger players (with strong links to ITV Sport)

BBC OBs had an old and pretty knackered fleet of mainly SD trucks (some more than 20 years old). They needed huge amounts of investment (that the BBC patently weren't going to make) to allow them to continue in the modern facilities market. SIS made that investment, and now they have a pretty decent fleet - with some excellent trucks. Just not enough work for them from March 2014.

I notice that ITV Sport's coverage of British Superbikes has British EuroSport graphics. Not seen those graphics used on any other highlights package, but I may have missed a few. Anybody else know of any highlights on free to view with those distinctive British EuroSport graphics?

One rumour is that SIS may be added to the framework after all - so they can bid for future BBC Sport work. (Note the framework is for BBC Sport not pan-BBC as some have assumed)

They go back a while - I know someone who used to install TV systems in bookies for them when they were known as Mecca Bookmakers.

Don't know if this has been previously introduced, but I notice that the score graphic on Sky Sports has reduced in size quite a bit.