July 07, 2009

ESPN announces UK sports channel

The new ESPN channel launches on August 3rd according to a BBC News story. It also confirms that it will launch an HD version of the channel, which will carry the 46 Premiership games picked up after the demise of Setanta, plus some of the US sports the channel also has the rights to show.
Sky's residential customers will have to pay a premium of £9 a month for the new channel if they already pay for Sky Sports or £12 a month if they do not.
No confirmation on Virgin Media's carriage, although the latest channel list from Virgin shows that ESPN will appear as channel 553 and will be a "premium channel". No sign of the HD version in that listing btw - given Sky's close partnership with ESPN in all aspects of the channel's evolution, I would frankly be stunned if we get the HD version on cable.

3 comments:

Jasmeet said...

The Guardian has confirmed carriage on Virgin Media
"Disney-owned ESPN's new UK channel will replace ESPN America on the Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable TV electronic programme guides."

Jasmeet said...

The following are now in testing
VMTest1 - History HD
VMTest2 - National Geographic Channel HD
VMTest3 - FX HD
VMTest4 - MTVNHD
VMTest5 - History HD
VMTest6 - Eurosport HD

Martin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.