BT Sports holds onto UK rights for UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League
BT has maintained its hold on European football coverage. The telco has made a clean sweep of the rights packages to the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League until 2024 in a £1.2 billion bid.
The deal, which commences in 2021 is for a total of 420 games for the following three seasons, representing an increase of 77 games on the previous deal.
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Sky Deutschland to increase security to combat piracy
German pay-TV operator Sky Deutschland is set to implement the same “anti card sharing” security as Sky UK in a bid to combat piracy of its channels.
Through the so-called unique pairing, the Sky receiver is paired up with the smartcard and no longer functions in third-party devices that are not offered by Sky. Pirates had previously used this as a loophole.
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Sky and Warner / HBO extent deal
Sky has confirmed an extension to its output deal with HBO and Warner Bros.
Sky customers will continue to enjoy first-run access to WarnerBros movies, plus ongoing access to Turner movie and children’s channels as part of a new deal.
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Intelsat successfully launch their “Mission Extension Vehicle, or MEV” for their old satellites – Major Intelsat 907 News for BBC Satback
This one is for those watching / hacking into the Freeview back up on Intelsat 907 for their 10 channel UK TV fix!
The Intelsat 907 satellite is approaching its end of life…we have known this for a few years now. In fact, a few months ago Intelsat updated their “Estimated End Of Life” expectancy for the Intelsat-907 satellite to Q1 2020. This is cutting it fine for a replacement!
However Intelsat have launched (on Wednesday 9th October 2019) their first “Mission Extension Vehicle, Continue reading »
Sky TV Channel Changes – October 2019
Sky has revised their channel line-up, with the launch of the the new Sky Crime channel.
And follows the closure of the Real Lives channel.
The new Sky Crime HD channel can now be found on Sky channel number Continue reading »
Satellite Solar Outage Time Again – October 2019
It is that time of year again when the Sun / Solar Outage can affect the power of satellite signals your satellite dish is receiving, resulting in a loss of some of the more weaker UK TV channels.
This is information for people who may be experiencing this for the first time, and a nice reminder for those that have lived here before
This occurrence happens in March and October for a couple of weeks every year, around the time of the Spring and Autumn equinox. In the northern hemisphere, sun outages occur before the March equinox (February, March) and after the September equinox (September and October).
This “satellite solar outage” happens at around 10.30 – 11.30 am and can last for upto 20 minutes.
Police raid IPTV streaming service platforms across Europe
Yesterday (18/09/19) Police in Italy, the Netherlands, France, and Bulgaria raided multiple locations in an effort to shut down what they say is the back end of many illegal IPTV services.
Xstream-codes.com is reportedly the company behind the software systems that run many IPTV services according to TorrentFreak.
“A multi-country action day coordinated by Eurojust in The Hague led to the dismantling of an international criminal network committing massive fraud with pay-TV, which shows organized crime expanding its illegal activities to large-scale violations of audiovisual copyright,” a statement from EU Eurojust said. “The damage caused by the criminal gang amounts to approximately €6.5 million, jeopardizing the existence of many legal providers of pay-TV on the market. More than 200 servers were taken offline in Germany, France and the Netherlands, and over 150 PayPal accounts of the criminals were blocked.”
F1 on C4 for more years as C4 and Sky extend partnership
Sky and Channel 4 have announced an extension to their live sport, advertising and on-demand content partnership
Following a successful 2019 season, highlights of Formula 1® and live coverage of the British Grand Prix will continue to be broadcast on Channel 4 as part of a wider, multi-year content deal (note it does not say for how many years!)
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BBC to switch off Red Button text service in 2020
The BBC is to switch off the news and sport text services on the TV red button early next year.
The decision spells the end of reading headlines, football scores, weather, travel news and more on TV sets, 45 years after the launch of Ceefax.
Red button text launched in 1999, taking over as Ceefax was phased out.
TVs will still be able to access other red button services, like picking a stage to watch at Glastonbury or a court to watch at Wimbledon.
“From early 2020, viewers will no longer be able to access text-based BBC News and BBC Sport content by pressing red,” a BBC spokesperson said.
“It’s always a difficult decision to reduce services, and we don’t take decisions like this lightly, but we have taken it because we have to balance the resources needed to maintain and develop this service with the need to update our systems to give people even better internet-based services.
“Viewers can still access this information on the BBC website, BBC News and Sport mobile apps – as well as 24-hour news on the BBC News Channel.”
However, it’s not a complete end to use of the red button as connected TVs will still be able to access other red button services.
There will still be the option to pick different streams to watch, such as choosing a stage at Glastonbury to see or which tennis court to view at Wimbledon.
With the red button gone, the BBC are encouraging users to head to the individual websites for their specific content.
The decision spells the end of text-based BBC News and BBC Sport content on the box, 45 years after the launch of Ceefax.
Red button was first available in September 1999 under the name of BBC Text but was relaunched in November 2001 as BBCi.
It faced another change of name in late 2008 to BBC Red Button and update again to BBC Red Button+ in 2015.
The BBC Red Button Twitter account is now closed and has not been tweeting since March this year.
La Liga UK TV rights announced
Premier Sports and LaLiga have today announced a historic agreement that will see every game from Spanish top-flight LaLiga Santander broadcast in the UK and Ireland via multiple platforms through the conclusion of the 2021/22 season.
Coverage will be found on La Liga TV, which will appear on the Premier Player streaming service from October, to followed by a launch on Sky in January 2020, making the service available to current and new subscribers to Premier Sports via satellite.