The Sport Thread

It seems Virgin Media in Ireland have stopped taking new subscriptions to Setanta Sports, though the channels haven't been pulled. Odd development and one I imagine both parties will be anxious to resolve before the start of the Premier League season.

The move comes as a Sky staff member appears to have let the cat out of the bag (through their regular EPG updates post on their forum) regarding an impending name change for Setanta's channels, with Setanta Ireland becoming eir Sport 1 and Setanta Sports 1 becoming eir Sport 2 (though still being really Premier Sports). That would leave the remaining overseas service, Setanta Asia, as the last remaining Setanta branded channel (though it has been sold to Discovery and presumably is destined to become Eurosport branded).

Lottery draws switched to BBC Two tonight due to extra time in the football. Would this be the first time the draws have been shown on BBC Two since the lottery started in 1994?

The lottery was on BBC2 on the night of the Olympics opening ceremony.

I expect it's happened a few times, particularly with overrunning Henman/Murray matches on a Saturday.

Genome says no:
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/74201cadb83a4abe9adf9d53c946d1c3

There's also a smattering of EuroMillion entries for BBC Two so they are not strangers to airing footage of little balls coming out of big machines.

Frustrating though how they wouldn't adjust the schedule earlier in the day to stick with a tennis match they'd not long swithced too but soon took on a BBC1's programme due to football, something which nowadays they didn't really need to broadcast live considering all the other draws are just a slide at the end of the news.

Who would have thought we would have 5 sports channels named after phone companies.

Don't forget Setanta don't have Premier League anymore. Sky have rights to the 3pm games in Ireland from the start of this season.

BT Sport has more than 3 channels!

They don't, but BT Sport, which they sell as part of their package, will have the Saturday 5:30pm games. By stopping new subscriptions to Setanta they are stopping new subscriptions to BT Sport also.

The existing carriage deal between Virgin and Setanta runs out at the end of this month, though I'd have thought they'd have sorted something like this before now.

Could BT Sport deal directly with Virgin Ireland, rather than going in or through with Setanta?

I think the problem there is that they have done a deal for Setanta to handle all their sales in Ireland.

Long time BBC gymnastics commentator Mitch Fenner died today aged 70

See more at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/gymnastics/36704311