UK soon to lose all Terrestrial tv Boxing.

Not good news

As Setanta battles on, but it's not all good news on the television front though, as ITV – as I mentioned last week – are pulling out of boxing, leaving the sport without a terrestrial television presence.

And� think it’s a disgrace that the BBC aren’t getting behind the fight games, especially when it’s got a proven track record of delivering big numbers - and it's one of our most successful sports.

Khan’s fights on ITV pulled in six or seven million viewers even when they were on late at night, and the BBC could be equally successful if it made an investment in the sport.

There are some great people at the BBC who are keen to get involved in boxing again, and they are exasperated by the attitude of their bosses, who just don’t want to know.

This week, there’s been complaints from the Beeb about having to share up to £100m of the licence fee with rival operators, including helping to fund ITV’s regional news output.

But if it actually delivered what audiences wanted – and I’m talking specifically about boxing – then it wouldn’t come under attack.

***

A certain boxing writer did one of his typical doom and gloom pieces about the state of boxing this week.

I'm fed up with people knocking the sport at the moment, and while times are hard, if big fights get made there is no doubt they sell.



BEEB SHOULD PULL ITS FINGER OUT « Frank Warren TV News

Ever since ITV decided to bring back boxing its been nothing short of a farce.

They had a few special nights early on with calzaghe and khan then ever since have gone into complete oblivion screening only domestic fights.

Boxing will ALWAYS be on tv in the UK because it`ll still never lose its niche audience. Friday fight night is one of the highest rating shows on sky and setanta rightfully took advantage of britains lust for boxing by showing endless american cards.

This time next year there will be the same amount of boxing on tv regardless of the fact setanta go out of business!!

yeah but your missing the point of it no longer being shown on Terrestrial tv which is why the likes of Froch (Our only World Champ) can't even get to be seen like the Taylor fight.

Khan would never be as popular as he is now without ITV launching him through prime time ITV Sat night slots where anyone could tune in for free;)

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Originally Posted by smashup

yeah but your missing the point of it no longer being shown on Terrestrial tv which is why the likes of Froch (Our only World Champ) can't even get to be seen like the Taylor fight.

Khan would never be as popular as he is now without ITV launching him through prime time ITV Sat night slots where anyone could tune in for free;)

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ricky hatton became a household name without ever fighting on terrestrial

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

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Originally Posted by smashup

yeah but your missing the point of it no longer being shown on Terrestrial tv which is why the likes of Froch (Our only World Champ) can't even get to be seen like the Taylor fight.

Khan would never be as popular as he is now without ITV launching him through prime time ITV Sat night slots where anyone could tune in for free;)

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ricky hatton became a household name without ever fighting on terrestrial

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True but i think his style of fighting and largely his Personality helped him loads.

Froch has the Personality of a Door;D

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Originally Posted by smashup

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

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Originally Posted by smashup

yeah but your missing the point of it no longer being shown on Terrestrial tv which is why the likes of Froch (Our only World Champ) can't even get to be seen like the Taylor fight.

Khan would never be as popular as he is now without ITV launching him through prime time ITV Sat night slots where anyone could tune in for free;)

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ricky hatton became a household name without ever fighting on terrestrial

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True but i think his style of fighting and largely his Personality helped him loads.

Froch has the Personality of a Door;D

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If there is genuine talent around and he is contracted to a cable company like sky/setanta he`ll make a name for himself regardless of whether he is on terrestrial.

Lets face it 90% of fight fans have access to these channels anyway and would far prefer to watch the latest goings on on the likes of sky sports rather than watching emmerdale farm.

I put froch being unknown down to him being with hennessy and itv. If he had been a regular with sky still or a setanta boy he`d be much better known right now!

Hatton is a one in a million job. Plus he had all the Manchester support from the early days (Farnel, Gomez, etc) who all used to fight on the same bills making them massive.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

Ever since ITV decided to bring back boxing its been nothing short of a farce.

They had a few special nights early on with calzaghe and khan then ever since have gone into complete oblivion screening only domestic fights.

Boxing will ALWAYS be on tv in the UK because it`ll still never lose its niche audience. Friday fight night is one of the highest rating shows on sky and setanta rightfully took advantage of britains lust for boxing by showing endless american cards.

This time next year there will be the same amount of boxing on tv regardless of the fact setanta go out of business!!

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Have you got some figures?

I'm surprised if Friday Fight Night does great numbers, considering most of the shows are pretty crap. Think darts pisses all over it.

Just makes me wonder if we'll ever get the 15 Million days of Benn v Eubank back?

I mean the whole f*cking country was talking about those fights back in the day and everyone knew them.

Agree Hatton is a special case.

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Originally Posted by Fenster

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

Ever since ITV decided to bring back boxing its been nothing short of a farce.

They had a few special nights early on with calzaghe and khan then ever since have gone into complete oblivion screening only domestic fights.

Boxing will ALWAYS be on tv in the UK because it`ll still never lose its niche audience. Friday fight night is one of the highest rating shows on sky and setanta rightfully took advantage of britains lust for boxing by showing endless american cards.

This time next year there will be the same amount of boxing on tv regardless of the fact setanta go out of business!!

---

Have you got some figures?

I'm surprised if Friday Fight Night does great numbers, considering most of the shows are pretty crap. Think darts pisses all over it.

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theres no substanance to darts though is there?

Snooker in the 80s got 3 times the audience a boxing contest on itv got. Doesnt make it the more popular sport just the greater fad at the time.

Darts wont be pulling in 20000+ to an arena in 20 years time, boxing will still be here when we are all long dead!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

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Originally Posted by Fenster

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

Ever since ITV decided to bring back boxing its been nothing short of a farce.

They had a few special nights early on with calzaghe and khan then ever since have gone into complete oblivion screening only domestic fights.

Boxing will ALWAYS be on tv in the UK because it`ll still never lose its niche audience. Friday fight night is one of the highest rating shows on sky and setanta rightfully took advantage of britains lust for boxing by showing endless american cards.

This time next year there will be the same amount of boxing on tv regardless of the fact setanta go out of business!!

---

Have you got some figures?

I'm surprised if Friday Fight Night does great numbers, considering most of the shows are pretty crap. Think darts pisses all over it.

---

theres no substanance to darts though is there?

Snooker in the 80s got 3 times the audience a boxing contest on itv got. Doesnt make it the more popular sport just the greater fad at the time.

Darts wont be pulling in 20000+ to an arena in 20 years time, boxing will still be here when we are all long dead!

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Snooker still does great numbers. Think it's only second to football.

Have you got the FFN figures? I'd be interested to see just how many people are tuning in. I remember once seeing the figure average below the 100,000 mark. Can't be sure though.

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Originally Posted by Fenster

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

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Originally Posted by Fenster

Have you got some figures?

I'm surprised if Friday Fight Night does great numbers, considering most of the shows are pretty crap. Think darts pisses all over it.

---

theres no substanance to darts though is there?

Snooker in the 80s got 3 times the audience a boxing contest on itv got. Doesnt make it the more popular sport just the greater fad at the time.

Darts wont be pulling in 20000+ to an arena in 20 years time, boxing will still be here when we are all long dead!

---

Snooker still does great numbers. Think it's only second to football.

Have you got the FFN figures? I'd be interested to see just how many people are tuning in. I remember once seeing the figure average below the 100,000 mark. Can't be sure though.

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read an article several months back about how jon thaxtons european title defence had been the most watched show on sky sports that day exceeding even the weekly rugby league contest which is watched like a religion in yorkshire and lancashire.

As for the snooker being only second to footie?? you serious fenst? the sport is virtually bankrupt because of the fact it cant pull in the fans/viewers anymore and is even considering switching 15 reds to 5 reds just to bring back the audience.

That was on ITV 4 i thought:confused:
From that shitty showground venue?

Could be wrong

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Originally Posted by smashup

That was on ITV 4 i thought:confused:
From that shitty showground venue?

Could be wrong

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its on sky as well

for some reason right now people enjoy watching 20 stone, tattoo-clad, lager louts throwing arrows at a board!

I dont mind it being the current catch of the day...but please lets not refer to it as a "sport"

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

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Originally Posted by Fenster

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

theres no substanance to darts though is there?

Snooker in the 80s got 3 times the audience a boxing contest on itv got. Doesnt make it the more popular sport just the greater fad at the time.

Darts wont be pulling in 20000+ to an arena in 20 years time, boxing will still be here when we are all long dead!

---

Snooker still does great numbers. Think it's only second to football.

Have you got the FFN figures? I'd be interested to see just how many people are tuning in. I remember once seeing the figure average below the 100,000 mark. Can't be sure though.

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read an article several months back about how jon thaxtons european title defence had been the most watched show on sky sports that day exceeding even the weekly rugby league contest which is watched like a religion in yorkshire and lancashire.

As for the snooker being only second to footie?? you serious fenst? the sport is virtually bankrupt because of the fact it cant pull in the fans/viewers anymore and is even considering switching 15 reds to 5 reds just to bring back the audience.

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Snooker still draws in regular 2-3m viewers on the BBC. Their problem is they are way down on their heyday (10m) so the sport looks bad in comparison. But it still pisses over most other sports. The 6 reds thing was just an idea - like the cricket stuff and prizefighter.


Smashup means Thaxton is on ITV4. Be best if someone found some proper figures ;)

The silver lining in the demise of Setanta is that ESPN might grab some of the Premiership rights and start building a proper sports channel round it. They've got a nice boxing library to show us and they could well do what Setanta did re. British boxing. Terrestrial TV looks over for boxing for the forseeable future. No silver lining there at all. It looks like Sky will have a contract with Warren and pick and choose British title fights in the future and maybe get behind anybody that threatens to go past that to world level, like Jamie Moore. But that's about it. Keep your fingers crossed for ESPN.

Things are so bad I may have to go back to sky which I loathe to do because it is so expensive.

ESPN has bought the rights to show 46 games in next season's English Premier League that were to have been shown by struggling broadcaster Setanta.
Disney-owned ESPN has won the two packages of games shown on Saturday teatimes and Monday evenings. Both will be sold to customers through BSkyB.



BBC NEWS | UK | ESPN buys rights to Setanta games

Let's see what they put on with the football to get subscriptions.

Setanta has gone off the air and no Arthur Abraham fight this weekend. :eek:

boxing dies if not on terestrial tv in my book, not one of my friends even knew the cotto clottey fight was on or cared abt it but any fights on itv they were going on & on abt:rolleyes: just shows its not thew quality of the fights it how many people watch

There is tons of money to do with football diffusion, friends from England, no worries, somebody will step in and make sure some dineros will get out from that investment.

I extend my sympathies; there's always Lorry Racing;D Pretty sad that the country that pretty much created modern day boxing has such a sh#tty sense of value for it.

just not healthy one channel (skysports) having all the fights, plus any big fights on skysports are generally PPV (suppose i can still pay for them ones)

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Originally Posted by LEGION

I extend my sympathies; there's always Lorry Racing;D Pretty sad that the country that pretty much created modern day boxing has such a sh#tty sense of value for it.

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when i chatted to americans abt american fighters there is a good chance they heard of the fighter if i chatted to brits abt british fighters most dont have a clue who they are, its all a mess

surely we should have a say it what the BBC shows I mean we fkin pay for it without a choice so BBC do the right thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyone know abt petitions:confused:

SOUTH LONDON PRESS TODAY | SPORT | Sky the limit for David Haye?

<Cut> With both the BBC and ITV cutting back their boxing expenditure - Sky seems the only viable option for Haye.

What!? Tell me they haven't quit showing the Olympic boxing on the red button :lickish:

Obvious Haye was going to Sky. They never shut up about him on the KLit-Chag broadcast the other night. Boxing/boxers don't exist if they aren't on Sky. :beat:

Now we'll have Haye PPVs to go along with the Khan and Hatton ones. Great stuff. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Fenster

Obvious Haye was going to Sky. They never shut up about him on the KLit-Chag broadcast the other night. Boxing/boxers don't exist if they aren't on Sky. :beat:

Now we'll have Haye PPVs to go along with the Khan and Hatton ones. Great stuff. :rolleyes:

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Don't forget any big fight from the US that might get shown over here, seriously Sky should just give a yearly PPV subscription of like £90 rather than putting out £15 every time

The problem the BBC has, along with most fights clashing with MOTD, is that, with the possible exception of big fights, it has nowhere to show them.

They could clear BBC1 (when MOTD isn't on) for a biggish fight like Haye or Froch but for smaller cards, the cards that are currently on ITV4 they're stuck -unless they use the red button facility.

BBC3 is a youth channel (And I know they show the odd football match) and BBC4 is an arts channel; and they won't use either of the main two to show the Smith v Jones fight.

ESPN to set up new channel for ex-Setanta matches | Football | guardian.co.uk

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Originally Posted by GuyIncognito76

ESPN to set up new channel for ex-Setanta matches | Football | guardian.co.uk

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Fingers crossed they have a boxing budget for the new channel or Sky will dictate boxing in britain and from a armchair TV-watching point of view it'll be like Australia where boxing fans get milked via PPV for every fight.

I am going to get a chipped box.:mad:

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Originally Posted by Master

I am going to get a chipped box.:mad:

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I got one with a huge crack accross the face, will that do?

I have a feeling that boxing in the UK is really going to suffer from a serious kick in the nuts if both these guys completely stops showin boxing and its purely down to sky. Sky won't put out enough money to boxing on its own surely. God damn. I'm not signin for it. No way.