Should football have its own dedicated channel on Fox?

There's certainly enough content for football within Australia and abroad I notice Football Asia and Eng prem preview and reviews have been forgotten to be mentioned also. Nearly every other sport in the country when you amalgamate the content football delivers in Australia and Globally cant deliver as much live content as what football does I believe. The time the A League final is over we're almost half way through the AFL season or their live content I'm not suggesting its unfair just that there is bucket loads of live football and relevant content globally.. We're about to close on another A League season the Eng Prem is about to climax the finals of the European cup are almost upon us and shortly an Asian Continent champ has to be decide in the ACL we'll be off to a world cup in a months time back to the HAL and the ready for the Asian cup as the host nation and all the side programmes that go with the sport such as match day Saturday to Santo Sam and Ed to A League highlights programmes Eng prem prev and review La Liga live and highlights packages, you've got bucket loads of live genuine content Fifa world cup stories ECL magazine shows etc. I've not even taken Continental South American, African or American into major detail. Without football our house has no need for subscription tv we should have our own dedicated channel and wish the other sports the very best of luck with what they're doing. Its about time Fox really got stuck in had a hard look or think about what they're doing with the sport within Australia and Globally . .

While it would be nice to have a dedicated channel/s for football (mainly for convenience than anything else), I'm fine with the amount of football we get here even if it is over quite a few channels.

Hey anyone see the Fox Sports story that Galeckovic is odds on for the Socceroos ? or that West Ham is playing the Nix ? among other stories with a ? at the end ? ;-)

cliffclavin, good point -- but have you noticed that jam is harder to find and has been replaced by "fruit spreads"? This would be like signing up for Foxtel Rugby League and getting the Public Service Tip Football competition -- although with the mergers into Super Departments, the standard of tip football should rise, even if there are fewer teams.

Could they get around this problem by shifting Rugby League to one of the reality t.v. channels (which is a more natural fit) and give the vacant sports channel to soccer? :-)

touche!

I am not sure. I like peanut butter but my wife likes nutella, and jam, well, you can forget about jam. Its just sugar and I dont care what aisle it is in. On less important matters football could and should have its own channel but save that debate for sports forum like the Roar, and leave this masterchef page to foodies

Fair point about the production costs of ancillary shows. My only knowledge of the TV/entertainment industry is as a consumer but, if there are no sunk costs to establish the new channel, I'd be setting up the Channel purely with existing LIVE content & repeat the cycle to fill 24 hours. Then, create new shows IF - and only IF - the market shows there is an unmet demand for additional content that would require additional costs.

That's true if the only content the dedicated channel showed was live and replayed football matches, one after the other, with no comment. But if there's to be highlights shows, panel shows, analytical shows, archive replays, light hearted content etc - as there is on FoxFooty - then that comes at a far greater cost. I'm certain this is the reason that it hasn't happened yet.

I don't have the figures with me but I have read that there is a significant cost in expanding the satellite bandwidth for an extra channel which may be deterring foxtel from making such a decision. I doubt finding enough content would be an issue given that the afl only has nine games per week and for a significantly shorter period of time than the global football season. It may come down to the current ratings of football on foxtel and how many people they feel would be more inclined to invest in a basic subscription should there be a football based channel. I am only one person but I know that in my circles there are quite a few more subscribers to foxtel than there used to be so they could watch fox footy

@AR It all comes down to 1 issue.. what will it cost. As I said, if broadcasts are being disseminated via online platforms, the cost will be close to ZERO - there are no licence fees for creating a new tab on a website that would be dedicated to LIVE Football broadcasts. The only potential - and significant - cost would be if there is a Licence Fee for creating a new PayTV channel. But, I'd be surprised if the AUS Govt charged an additional Licence Fee.

I imagined it in this way... There's a supermarket aisle dedicated to Vegemite. It only features the one product, but its the most popular aisle in the supermarket because the demand for Vegemite is so strong. NUMV suggested that simply because there are more *brands* or flavours of peanut butter on the market, it has "a much stronger case" for its own dedicated aisle than Vegemite does. I disagree with that thinking. Yes, in a world where cost and space didn't matter, all the peanut butters would be conveniently grouped in a single dedicated aisle, all the jams on another and so on. But unless the demand for peanut butter justifies a dedicated aisle, then the supermarket will group the peanut butters amidst the jams, honeys and marmalades, in a general breakfast spread aisle. Make sense? (I'm laughing as I read this back to myself)

They need a Fox Sports 4 in Subscription Television. Hope that FOX Sports 4 will be in High Definition.

In response to 1), if there is zero risk of any clash of ALeague games with other games, then yes, a move to a specialised channel may not incur an additional price.

Definitely think there should be a Fox Sports 4. I was over in South Africa recently and noticed there sports channels are dedicated: SuperSport 1 = Rugby SuperSport 2 = Cricket SuperSport 3 = Football SuperSport 4 = Football SuperSport 5 = Football SuperSport 6 = Various Big difference there was because of there timezone big Euro football matches kick off in primetime

@AR This is not a case of "giving more shelf space to peanut butter". In your example, the store already has stocks of peanut butter in its inventory, but the brands are in different locations across the store - in different aisles. So, you should be asking : a) should the store stock all the peanut butter brands together in 1 aisle?; or b) should the store stock 1 brand of peanut butter in the Aisle with "Breakfast spreads", another peanut butter brand in the Aisle with "cleaning products"; another brand in the aisle with "biscuits", etc.

How good would it be to have all the classic matches etc shown when there is no live footy on

What are you on about in relation to (1) Currently: a) FoxSports pays $36m/year to broadcast 140 ALeague matches/year LIVE. b) There are no other LIVE football matches being broadcast on any FoxSports channels when LIVE Aleague is being broadcast. Why would anything have to change if FoxSports moved all ALeague content to a dedicated football channel? The ONLY change would be ALeague fans would not have to switch from FoxSp1, FoxSp2, FoxSp3, Speed to find ALeague content. The content would always be on a dedicated channel: "Fox Sports Total Football". In relation to (2) - I agree; we need to know how much (if any) additional cost is involved in establishing & operating a new channel of FoxSports. On the internet, there would be close to ZERO additional cost for establishing & operating a new channel with only football content.

Two things here: 1) In business, you pay for a guarantee. It is never free. 2) In order to pay for the runnings costs of a 24/7 dedicated channel, Fox would have to be convinced the demand exists. Do current ratings indicate the requisite demand? I don't know. I'd like to see it, but I'm not sure it's there yet.

It's not about the amount of available content, its about the demand. You can stock 18 different brands of peanut butter from all around the world, but if most shoppers buy vegemite, the peanut butter will have less shelf space.