Sky Sports Revamp

Said the same thing earlier in the thread if you're a fan of any of the sports that are split across Action and Arena too.

I considered taking F1, Action and Arena as my main interests are tennis and F1, but I may as well keep all of the channels for the £1.50 extra.

Coupled with an 18 month contract, it's not very attractive.

I guess that is what Sky want, but if you're thinking of cancelling it's hardly going to make you stop for a lot of people, since there is not much savings to be had, the retention offers are going to be better you'd think.

Think there may have been a golden opportunity missed here with regards to the pricing. Maybe respectively tapering the offers down would have been better. £18 for one channel isn't particularly attractive as already stated especially on an 18 month contract. 12 month maybe, but 18?

Something better pricing-wise could be for example £8 for one channel, £12 for two, £18 for three and £28 for the lot. But at the end of the day the prices are set for commercial reasons, Sky has never been particularly cheap as far as sports is concerned so it's no surprise that hasn't changed. Time will tell how long those £18/22/26/27.50 prices will last and also how good the retention deals (if any) are.

Looks as if the idea if to make the one-channel option much less better value than the full package. Comments like the following are probably the thinking that they are banking on.

Now sorted

So, I take that to read that the prices stay the same until this point next year (or more likely 1st Aug 2018) and then they'll go up - catching new sport specific subscribers into paying extra for another 6 months before they can hit the 'exit' button.

Rebranding it as Sky Sports Racing was one of the first things mentioned when rumours of sport specific channels first surfaced but I think it was reliant on Sky buying out their partners, which clearly didn't happen. Even then though you'd think it would benefit from the association.


Have they not got any idents featuring sportswomen then?


I think Action and Arena are bundled as one channel but clearly it is priced to encourage you to take them all, just as it was when you used to be able to buy Sky Sports 1 & 2 separately (think you got SS3 with either, SS4 with both). I suspect to many people will look at Main Event and think they'd get that plus the Premier League, but to get the main event channel you need to get all channels. Obviously too soon for The Open to see if the new pricing structure has any impact but even if 10% of subscribers don't opt for the full bundle that will hit ratings for events like The Open, The Ashes and F1 and further limit their viewership. Indeed sports like rugby league and darts may suffer too considering they previously more often than not ended up on Sky Sports 1 if the schedules allowed.

The issue to with this strategy is virtually all channels will have less live content - indeed overall the live sport offered by Sky isn't increasing at all, it's just being spread over more channels. The cricket and golf channels will pretty much be the equivalent of SS2/4, though I guess overspill of the cricket will end up on Action, Arena or Mix now.

You're right. If I try to take a Sky package as a new customer, Action and Arena are one channel.



Which I really don't see the point of, as everything being shown on Main Event is being simulcast on another channel, right? If anything, Main Event should be thrown in with any combination of channels as a shop window to the others i.e. "here's what you could be watching more of if you also subscribed to this channel".



It would have to be Mix, wouldn't it, or under a red button, as is/has being done with golf overspill this week.

Back on the presentation itself, I'm liking the graphics on the T20 cricket tonight and impressed how it all joins up together and has completely been updated.

Also impressive how everything has been changed - from the pod graphics to the mic shields. Not spotted anything 'forgotten' as yet.

Yeah I agreed it feels like a unified change for once I quite like it the DOG looks close to the edge but it's very nicely designed.

OK had chance to watch across all the sky sports channels and a couple of things..
Name astons. It's difficult to tell, but the right hand edge of the name caption is either a grey oblong block, or transparent glass. This is getting lost in front of whatever its positioned over, and looks like a smudge.
Better to have the new corporate colours - red oblong on the left hand side, blue oblong on the right hand side, for the name captions.

Next - Any reason why all the channels are sky sports (top) channel name (bottom) and yet Sky Sports News all on the same line? Not a show stopper for me, but still inconsistant.

The 'Live' dog is very small isn't it? It's like they are trying to hide the fact it's live at all. Although at 6am this morning, the way the new DOG's were on screen, I was concerned that for live events we'd drop the gray colouring and go for full on coloured DOG's.

Nice replay wipes on the T20 cricket coverage. Very BT Sport inspired - and given live PLP International feed Premier League games have a similar duel colour left and right wipes (albeit with the lion head logo) suspect sky sports premier league may adopt the PL replay wipe for it's live games, as it now doesn't look out of place - unlike the last few seasons with the wizzy whooshy premier league trophy replay wipes.

Still not entirly convinced by the sheer amount of lower case lettering for pretty much everything though.

Thank goodness they dropped the "HQ" out of Sky Sports News