Category: TV
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6 Nations Remaining Free To Air
When I recently wrote about the end of Eurosport, I also referenced once more, the then ongoing discussion about what would happen with the Six Nations. The good news is that yesterday a four-year deal was announced for 2026-2029 between the Six Nations and the BBC and ITV. The tournament will continue to be available…
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Licencing One Streamer’s TV Show For Your Streaming Service
There seems to be a bit more of this happening: licencing your service’s programming in a “second window” to either a broadcaster, or now more commonly, a streamer. This week I read that ITVX is licencing Suspicion, an Apple TV+ original for its service. This seems to be the first time that an Apple TV+…
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Farewell Eurosport…
Yesterday, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced that from the end of February, Eurosport as a brand would no longer exist in the UK. All its programming would be wrapped into TNT Sports. From my perspective, this particularly impacts on how I watch cycling, a sport to which Eurosport has the vast majority of rights. But…
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Sports Disappearing from Free-to-Air TV
There were a couple of bits of news over the last week or so that have continued a trend that seems to have only grown in recent years – the disappearance of live sport from free-to-air TV. First came news that Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has signed an exclusive deal with the European Broadcasting Union…
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Battlelines: Sky, HBO & Max in the UK
I’m fascinated to see how Sky manages the seemingly inevitable launch of Max as a streaming brand in the UK. Things came to a head this week as Sky launched a lawsuit against Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) accusing it of a contract breach, in large part because of how a new Harry Potter series is…
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The Dark Side of True Crime – A Must Read
This incredibly important article written by Sirin Kale, and published in The Guardian last week is really worth your time. It tells the tragic story of John Balson, a producer of true crime television programmes who saw things spiral badly. I think the article speaks for itself. But it does continue to highlight for me…
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Sports Numberwang
I’m really only posting this, because I spent a bit too much time putting together a Thread of a response to a clickbait-y post about the major sporting events’ viewerships. I really shouldn’t rise to the bait, but… The Threads algorithm threw up this post. (A reminder that “Verified” just means someone who is willing…
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Peak TV vs Peak TV
If you Google “Peak TV”, the first search result is a Wikipedia article called “Golden Age of Television (2000s-present)” It reflects an era that started a little earlier with series like HBO’s The Wire and NBC’s The West Wing, but obviously carried on through the early 2000s, and broadly speaking, continues to this day. The…
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Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold
I am a complete sucker for climbing films, documentaries and series. I’ve never actually done any climbing. Most of my walks in the mountains have been exactly that – walks. I’ve watched docs like Touching the Void and The Alpinist, and seen dramas such as The Eiger Sanction and of course, Cliffhanger. I’ve also seen…
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Rebundling Sports in the US
Interesting news in the US, where Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and Fox have announced a new as-yet-unnamed streaming service that will combine all their sports offerings into a single subscription. Combining the resources of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNews, ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV and ESPN+ into a single…
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Three TV Classics Still Not Available To Stream
There is, of course, an endless list of shows and films that are not available to stream on any platform. But I wanted to examine three series, all dating from the mid-eighties to mid-nineties that are still not available in the UK, but some of which have been appearing in the US. Last autumn Moonlighting…
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Premier League Rights 2025/26 – 2028/29 UK TV Deal
This evening, the first games in Amazon’s deal for TV rights to two rounds of the Premier League get underway. But Amazon’s coverage ends after next season’s Festive period games, because from the 2025/26 season, they will no longer have live rights. Amazon, you will recall, have the rights to a midweek round of games…