 | |
| Ownership | |
|---|---|
| Owner | British Sky Broadcasting |
| History | |
| Launched | 19 August 2001 |
| Closed | 6 May 2007 |
| Former names | Premiership Plus (to 1 July 2004) |
| Links | |
| Website | www.sky.com/sports |
PremPlus (originally Premiership Plus) was Sky Sports' first and only pay-per-view channel which was dedicated to airing live and interactive football from the Premier League. The main presenter on PremPlus was Marcus Buckland with former Arsenal manager George Graham, providing punditry.
PremPlus was launched on 19 August 2001, showing 40 pay-per-view matches from the Premier League. The first match featured Chelsea v Newcastle United. [1] The name Premiership Plus had run throughout the 2001–02, 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons before being shortened to PremPlus for the beginning of the 2004–05 season. Also, from the start of 2004–05, PremPlus showed 50 live PPV matches, an increase of 10 compared to previous seasons.
Matches could be purchased simply by telephone or, in later seasons, interactively through the TV, and a season ticket for all matches in a season was available at a substantial discount.
Pre-match coverage was shown free to air, with the channel blacking out to non-paying viewers approximately five minutes prior to kick-off. The host would repeatedly exhort viewers during this time to purchase the match.
There was a PremPlus 2 channel, but was only shown on NTL. It closed when PremPlus stopped broadcasting in 2007. In 2006, PremPlus HD launched with the other HD channels on Sky. It was replaced by Sky Sports HDX when PremPlus stopped broadcasting.
PremPlus failed to live up to Sky's expectations[ citation needed ] as few British football fans were willing to pay for individual matches on top of paying a monthly subscription for other matches.[ citation needed ] After six seasons on air it closed down at the end of the 2006–07 season, when EU competition laws forced Sky to break its monopoly on the Premier League, having broadcast 270 matches live and exclusive from the Premier League. The last ever game shown on PremPlus was Aston Villa v Sheffield United. This marked the end, at least for the time being, of attempts to introduce pay-per-view into the British sports television market, outside of occasional combat sports (wrestling, boxing, and MMA) events.
In October 2020, with football fans unable to attend matches due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sky Sports and BT Sport were given the rights to broadcast football matches in the UK on their respective PPV channels, Sky Sports Box Office and BT Sport Box Office — additional matches that were not initially planned to be shown on TV. [2]
Sky Box Office is Sky's pay-per-view (PPV) system operated in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. There were three branded divisions of Sky Box Office – Sky Cinema Box Office, Sky Sports Box Office and Sky 3D Box Office. Until 1 February 2011, the system ran under unified Sky Box Office branding. On 4 January 2017, all Sky Cinema Box Office channels ceased broadcasting, with only Sky Sports Box Office remaining available.
SuperSport is a South Africa-based Pan-Africa group of television channels carried on the DStv & Canal+ satellite platforms as well as GOtv terrestrial platform. It provides sports content in South Africa, Nigeria and many other African countries.
Alan Parry is an English sports commentator, concentrating on football and athletics. He has commentated for all four main broadcasters of football in the UK – the BBC, BT Sport, ITV and Sky TV, as well as for both BBC and commercial radio.
ITV Sport is a sport producer for ITV. It was formed following the merger between Granada Sport and Central Sport.
Main Event is Australia's only pay-per-view channel. It transmits through Foxtel and Optus Television, who jointly own the channel. It broadcasts major sporting and entertainment events such as boxing, professional wrestling, mixed martial arts and concerts.
BT TV is a subscription IPTV service offered by BT; a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group, and was originally launched as BT Vision in December 2006. As of the end of June 2019, BT TV had 1.9 million customers.
ESPN Classic was a British-based European sports television channel which first launched in France in March 2002, followed by Italy in July 2002, and pan-Europe in December 2003. On 13 March 2006 ESPN Classic launched on Sky channel 442 in the UK and Ireland, the first channel in the UK under the ESPN branding. On 3 August 2009, ESPN Classic launched on Virgin Media channel 533 as a part of the XL pack, and in early 2011 video on demand content started to appear on the Virgin Media platform. On 14 August 2009, ESPN Classic launched on UPC Ireland channel 409 as a part of the Max package. It broadcast a range of archive sports coverage, with a large emphasis on football.
LFCTV is the dedicated official channel for English football club Liverpool F.C. which launched on 20 September 2007. It was formerly offered as part of the Setanta Sports package, but is currently a stand-alone channel.
BT Sport ESPN is a British pay television sports channel provided by BT Consumer; a division of BT Group under licence from American sports broadcaster ESPN Inc. The channel was operated by ESPN from 3 August 2009 to 31 July 2013, when it was sold to BT and became part of its BT Sport package. The channel focuses on coverage of American sports, in particular Major League Baseball (MLB) and American College sports, but BT also uses it to show European sport when BT Sport 1, 2 & 3 are otherwise engaged.
Fox Soccer Plus is an American sports channel dedicated to soccer and rugby league. Launched in 2005 by the Irish sports broadcaster Setanta Sports to offer live and tape-delayed mainstream sports events in the United States and Caribbean, it was rebranded on March 1, 2010 as a spin-off of the now-defunct Fox Soccer after its owner News Corporation acquired the channel and its coverage rights from Setanta in January 2010.
Premier Sports is an Irish pay television sports channel launched in 2009, owned by Premier Media Broadcasting. Premier Sports holds exclusive live UK and Republic of Ireland TV rights to La Liga, Scottish League Cup, Elite Ice Hockey League, NHL, approximately 75% of Gaelic Athletic Association games and NASCAR. Premier Sports has shared rights to the United Rugby Championship in the UK and exclusive live rights to 53 Premier League games in the Republic of Ireland. They also hold shared rights to the Scottish Cup with BBC Scotland.
Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group, and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It has played a major role in the increased commercialisation of British sport since 1991, and has sometimes played a large role inducing organisational changes in the sports it broadcasts, most notably when it encouraged the Premier League to break away from the Football League in 1992.
BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels provided by BT Consumer; a division of BT Group in the United Kingdom and Ireland that was launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Broadcast Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. BT Sport is available on the BT TV, Sky and Virgin Media television platforms in the UK and Sky, Eir TV and Vodafone TV in the Republic of Ireland.
BT Sport Box Office is a pay-per-view channel from BT Sport. The channel is available in HD on BT TV and Sky.
This is a timeline of the history of Sky Sports.
This is a timeline of the history of BT Sport.
This is a timeline of the history of football on television in the UK.
This is a timeline of sports channels in the UK other than Sky Sports, BT Sport and Premier Sports/FreeSports. The timeline also includes sports events which were shown on non-sports non-terrestrial channels.
This is a timeline of the history of rugby union on television in the UK.
