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From what is a booming market in free-to-air digital television, sports has been making its mark ever since Channel Ten founded ONE HD. Every commercial network has been growing rapidly with at least two extra digital sister channels.
ONE HD works very well and fills a void with their choice of sporting content, but I believe, particularly for the sports crazy Australian public, that there is room for another sports channel on free-to-air or possibly two.
SBS prides itself in the multicultural and niche programming that is so popular among ‘specialty’ groups across the country, and I believe it could extend this to sport.
With the specialty sports that are growing hugely across the country and often overlooked by the twins Nine and Seven, SBS could really make its mark in a booming digital television period.
SBS could sustain a sports specific channel, maybe on SBS Three, which is just being wasted at the moment with duplication of what’s on SBS One. It could be called ‘SBS Sports’ or ‘Sport Three’.
Here are some of my ideas of what should be on this new channel:
Football
The ‘major’ sport on the channel that makes up a large bulk of the programming would be football with:
– The World Game show, an A-League highlights show.
– World Cup, more Socceroos matches, possibly World Cup qualifiers.
– Champions League, Europa League, acquire A-League, Spanish La Liga and possibly English Football-League Championship.
Cycling
All cycling currently on SBS with greater focus and specific programs:
-Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Tour Down Under, all other minor races
Cricket
English Ashes cricket, County cricket.
Also consider motorsports, Euroleague basketball, European handball, skiing, and French Top 14 rugby.
If SBS could manage at least some of these sports, it would bring a huge new demographic of viewers to their channel and prove a real financial asset once established, much like ONE HD – and without competing with ONE HD’s market/content share.
As SBS already have a relationship with ESPN to do with their Champions League broadcasting arrangements, this could be extended to acquire more programming on free-to-air and have better access for the channel to programming that isn’t given priority by Foxtel.
Perhaps SBS are already working on a channel like this, and for SBS Four there would possibly be an arts/drama channel, but I am yet to hear of anything of the sort so I am just putting this idea out there.
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