Sky propping up Sky One with Champions League Football 

16 September 2007 tbs.pm/75

In a change to schedules published in your TV guide, Sky have started to advertise the fact that they will be showing Rangers’ UEFA Champions League match against Stuttgart on Sky One at 7.30pm this Wednesday (19th September 2007).

The change has been made on Sky’s own TV listings site, which looks somewhat similar to the Sky Guide EPG, but when I checked the Radio Times site, it hadn’t yet been changed there, although by the time youo read this, it may well have been.

Why am I highlighting this late schedule change? Well, it’s not because it’s a first. Granted it doesn’t happen often but Sky Sports have produced live sports coverage for Sky One before, in fact, as far back as 1995, did we see Sky Sports live coverage on Sky One. So it’s hardly earth-shattering news.

But what it is, is a rather desperate ploy to support Sky One’s rather lacklustre viewing figures recently, which I recently spoke about here on EMC MediaBlog. ITV did this same ploy on the ITV News Channel, and it didn’t translate into regular viewers for the channel. Will Sky have any more success? Who knows, but I predict we will see rather more of Sky Sports on Sky One.