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news
Smashed television (copyright Simon MacMichael).PNGYou may not be able to watch Team Sky on Sky TV this year with Eurosport set to disappear from TV platform's line-up
If you watch cycling on Eurosport through a Sky subscription, you may have to find a different way of viewing it to avoid missing some of the biggest races in the sport, including the Giro d’Italia, due to a dispute between the satellite TV provider and Discovery. The news, which could result in Sky subscribers being unable to watch Team Sky through the business that sponsors it, comes as Eurosport reveals that it will be screening the Italian race exclusively live in the UK for the next four years.
Eurosport is one of 13 channels Discovery provides to Sky that could disappear from the platform by Wednesday 1 February as a result of an ongoing dispute between the two parties, reports marketing and media news outlet The Drum.
With Eurosport planning to show 200 days of live cycling during 2017, that could be bad news for Sky subscribers who watch races through it – but Discovery claims that while in the past decade, the satellite TV giant’s has been charging its customers more, the money it gets from Sky has gone down.
Managing director of Discovery Networks, Susanna Dinnage, said: “We believe Sky is using what we consider to be its dominant market position to further its own commercial interest over those of viewers and independent broadcasters.”
A spokesman for Sky, however, maintained that Discovery’s demands were “unrealistic.”
He said: “Despite our best efforts to reach a sensible agreement, we, like many other platforms and broadcasters across Europe, have found the price expectations for the Discovery portfolio to be completely unrealistic.
“Discovery’s portfolio of channels includes many which are linear-only where viewing is falling."
A social media campaign with the hashtage #KeepDiscovery has been launched by the business that is in dispute with Sky - with one image shared by Eurosport on Facebook showing John Degekolb at the moment he won Paris-Roubaix in 2015.
Last week, Eurosport announced that it had extended its existing deal with Giro d’Italia owner RCS Sport by four years through to the 2020 season.
Under the terms of the contract extension, Eurosport will have exclusive rights in the UK to RCS Sport’s races, which also include the Monuments Milan-San Remo and il Lombardia, and the week-long stage race, Tirreno-Adriatico.
Eurosport CEO, Peter Hutton, commented: “If you’re passionate about cycling, Eurosport remains the only place to be. Eurosport’s community of cycling fans is among the most loyal and committed you can find and they appreciate that Eurosport really is the Home of Cycling.
“We are proud to serve these fans and excited to offer them even more of the live action they love.
“While we’re proud of Eurosport’s great heritage in cycling, the exclusive and extended coverage of the Giro d’Italia, and additional races added to our calendar, demonstrates there is much more to come.”
He added: “In 2017, for the first time, Eurosport will show over 200 days of live cycling in a calendar year.”
While that may not be available through Sky, it should still be broadcast via Virgin Media, as well as on Eurosport Player – available on iOS and Android devices and online.
Discovery Networks boss Dinnage criticised Sky for prioritising investment in specific areas rather than the factual programming that Discovery – which also provides Sky with programming from channels such as Discovery History and Animal Planet – focuses on, saying that “pay television needs to be about more than just films and football.”
Coverage of the latter, and particularly the FA Premier League, has been used by Sky to as a major selling point to build its subscriber base ever since the earliest days of pay-TV in the UK in the 1990s.
Many believe though that its latest deal came at an inflated price and that it did not take into account people’s changing media consumption habits.
In February 2015, Sky and BT bid a record £5.1 billion to secure FA Premier League live TV rights for three years commencing with the 2016/17 season currently in progress.
But viewing figures released in October showed that the number of people watching live games through Sky had fallen 20 per cent, with this article from the Guardian highlighting that for many, streaming matches or watching them in the pub is now seen as preferable to a costly Sky subscription.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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39 comments
Seems Sky and Discovery kissed and made up.
Simon, did you smash your own television set for this article? You're a martyr to the cause.
Great news it's been sorted.
Sounds like they've just agreed a new deal so that's a relief
Bit of brinkmanship I think from both parties
Well I fell for it and spent £20 on the Eurosport player. Getting close to cancelling Sky tbh and just spending what I save on faster broadband. Oh well at least I can watch cycling live whilst the mrs watches Belgian tiddlywinks or whatever obscure eurostuff is also on.
As much as I'd like to subscribe to the Eurosport Player it just isn't a patch on the "full" service offered by Sky/BT although I guess something is better than nothing which is what I'm potentially looking at.
nothing wrong with eurosport quality.
Mostly in HD - yes highlights sometimes take a while to appear and occasionally their scheduling sucks, but I watched all the TdF on it last year on a 55 inch tv with no problems
My Eurosport player has a max definition of 720p, this is not HD quality though OK for a computer monitor.
Something else that should be pointed out about the streaming Eurosport is that if you view it abroad (as I did the vuelta when on holiday in portugal) you get the foreign commentary! Theres no way of switching it either. I'm presuming it's to do with local rights as obviously they all share the same picture broadcast.
RE the Eurosport Player - It looks pretty slick and comprehensive and I think the videos section covers 'catch up' TV though nothing on cycling at the moment (unsurprising given the time of year).
Can anyone advise how good the catch up / highlights are for cycling? (ie. do they cover all races that are shown on Eurosport and is it reliable/ quality? HD etc). I have a chromecast so presume this is compatible to cast to TV?
Would like to pull the trigger on the £20 subscription as it seems good value and would mean I'd ditch Sky.
Cheers
I would also like to know this - sure I've read on here or elsewhere that the quality is pretty poor.
Good move by Eurosport with the bigly
reduced subscription to their streaming service. It will be interesting to see what the impact for Eurosport & Sky is of this one. I've never had Sky (and never will) but I've just signed up to Eurosport on the back of this - much broader coverage than ITV4 which is the only other option in Cumbria, where we only get half a TV service (yet still have to pay the full license fee, subsidising bloody southerners 
)
I rang Sky this morning to cancel Sports and they offered me £10 per month reduction for the next 8 months.
I accepted but pointed out that we'd be having the same conversation in September.
Anyway, £80 covers my new subscription to Eurosport with £60 change and gives me another summer of cricket!
I live 1/2 a mile from Virgin Media HQ in a town of over 2000 people, and Virgin Media haven't installed cable....what the hell.
I feel your pain - Virgin have a shop in Brighton yet can't give a TV or broadband service to half the town!
I live in a new build house on a street with virgin cable. They have refused to connect me. The cable runs right past my front door!
Maldin, if you type in the race on a Kodi search you will normally be able to find streamed highlights - for quite a good while after the event too!
Just taken my subscription out for £19.99 via http://uk.eurosportplayer.com/gift/pass.shtml
Think I'll dump Sky now, no point in keeping it.
Ditto - £19.99 for 200 days cycling is a good deal
@LarryDavidJr - Thanks, Larry.
Yep, me too. No Eurosport, no point having sky in my house. Sky happy to bump up the price of football by paying stupid money for rights, someone else does it to them and they don't like it.
News to me.... looks decent - "Catch up on any missed programmes and access all of our Eurosport videos for your favourite sports"
The Eurosport live player service does include the ability to watch races on a 'catch up' basis, although they can take a little while to become avalible.
Plus the livestream can be paused or rewound for up to three hours, so if you only just missed the end of a race just log in and go back a couple of hours.
I'm really disappointed to hear this.
Previously we used Virgin Media. We've just moved a few weeks ago to an area where Virgin is not an option. Cycling is my thing and not being being much interested in football I don't subscribe to Sky Sports. When we moved here I conatacted Sky and asked how I could get Eurosport without subscribing to Sky Sports.
The told me if I paid extra to get Sky Box Sets, Eurosport came with it. I've signed up for 12 months. They didn't tell me Eurosport may no longer be available. Apart from the cycling on Eurosport I'm not really much of a TV watcher. I'm feeling a bit cheated now.
However. I've just checked Eurosport and if you take a 12 month subscription out by tomorrow (31 January) for £19.99 you can save £40. http://uk.eurosportplayer.com/cycling/cycling-season_sto5975425/event.shtml
If they do dump it, you're within your rights to cancel the contract early penalty free as they aren't providing you with what was agreed.
SKY themselves were apparently touting this information (though I can't find a source atm).
I took the £20 a year deal as soon as it cropped up. I switched to BT from SKY last year (because I hate Murdoch and decent enough broadband became available in my area to make it work) but was disappointed to learn that you can't get Eurosport on their streaming player, unlike SKY.
As for everyone else, BT tv is another option if you can't get Virgin. Need a half decent broadband connection though (and a decent seperate wireless access point, the Home Hub is a p.o.s.).
You can use the Android app Mobdro to watch lots of the various international versions of Eurosport and a Chromecast to put it on the big screen. Probably about as legal as Kodi, make you own judgements.
All hail the power of Kodi and get your skull and crossbones out.
Bit pissed off about this as we've got an older sky contract with stuff like the F1 still free so it's not worth chucking sky entirely as our overall deal isn't bad.
Who gets the advertising revenue, sky or the channel?
road.cc you seem to making out that Sky are the bad boys here, and it's a very one-sided, biased article. Discovery are rumoured to want a very unrealistic and obscene £1bn (yes £1 billion) a year for the next five years from Sky! Most of what is shown on Discovery is fake, scripted reallity shows not "factual" content as claim by Discovery.
Yes, the loss of Eurosport will be very frustrating, especially as the only alternatives (without subcribing to Sky Sports) are Bike and ITV4. I love ITV4's coverage, but the Bike's channel commentary can be a bit dire, especially for the cyclo-cross! I'm now trying to find alternative ways of getting Eurosport. It looks like it will either be via a Kindle Fire Stick or Kodi, as the Eurosport Player app is no longer available for Smart TV's.
http://www.sky.com/discoveringmore
Sky havent stated how long the deal was or the amount per year in that statement, but are happy to combine Discoverys corporate value in dollars (which is less than the circa 15 billion dollars Fox are willing to pay for Sky for reference), and the amount they wanted to pay for the deal in pounds...
and thats 12 channels worth of content, even if most of its nonsense, Sky pay 10million pounds just to show 90minutes of one sport.
Eurosport player is £20 for a year if you sign up quick, and you can watch videos if you missed it live, I cast it to the big telly, saves me a fortune going into Murdochs pockets.
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