Category: TV
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The Four Worst Things About FIFA’s TV Coverage of the World Cup
The 2026 World Cup has been pretty decent as a football tournament. I’ll leave aside the politics of the US, Trump and FIFA. The TV coverage has been mostly excellent too, even if during the first semi-final, we got a good look at the Sony mirrorless camera settings that FIFA is using for some of…
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US TV Rights for 2030 and 2034 Men’s FIFA World Cups
If there’s one story in the US media that is coming out of this World Cup, it’s that Fox and the Spanish language Telemundo are having an absolute field day with the enormous ratings they’re generating, even though all the host countries were out by the round of 16. More than 50m people watched USA…
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Streaming Most, But Not All Episodes
I’ve just enjoyed watching the second series of The Night Manager, which [spoiler alert] features in its cast, Hugh Laurie. And that made me want to go back and watch House, Laurie’s hit US hospital drama that shares a sprinkling of DNA with Sherlock Holmes. The series aired originally on Channel 5 in the UK,…
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UEFA Champions’ League TV Rights
Although I haven’t seen an official release from UEFA, there are lots of media reports saying that Paramount has won the rights to the Champions’ League (UCL) in the UK, for four years from 2027/28 bidding “well in excess” of the £1bn that TNT currently pays over the 2024/25-2026/27 three year cycle. TNT Sports, previously…
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Sports Streaming Update 2025/26 Season
Long-time readers of this blog will know I’m slightly obsessed with TV coverage of sports, and the rights situation. As football begins its new seasons across most of Europe, I thought it would be interesting to see the state of play across a range of leagues and look at some of the themes. Premier League…
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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…