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FOX Sports adding two more channels

FOX Sports will add FOX Sports 4 & FOX Sports 5, both in High Definition, from November.

New Channel Line-upFOX Sports has announced two new channels, FOX Sports 4 and FOX Sports 5 -both in High Definition- to launch from Monday, November 3.

This will take the number of HD channels to 7 for the sports broadcaster.

“2015 will be the best year ever on FOX Sports, with more hours of Live, premium sport than we’ve ever had,” FOX Sports CEO, Patrick Delany said.

“To celebrate this new era and deliver fans sport the way it should be – Live and in High Definition – we are updating our channel line-up to include two new High Definition FOX Sports channels. The inclusion of FOX Sports 4 and FOX Sports 5 in our channel offering means fans can enjoy more of their favourite sports Live and in High Definition.

“All our premium sport will be consecutively listed in the Foxtel guide and all will be recordable in HD. An added benefit will be new capacity to add even more enhancements using our innovative RED button feature,” he concluded.

With over 10,500 hours of the best Live sport from at home and around the world in 2015 – including the AFC Asian Cup, the ICC Cricket World Cup, the IRB Rugby World Cup, and more than 1,300 hours of Live motorsport action on the calendar including every Championship Race of the V8 Supercars – FOX Sports is set to break records for the number of hours of Live sports content.

AFC Asian Cup: every match Live – 32 games
ICC Cricket World Cup: every match Live – 49 games
V8 Supercars – every practice, qualifying, Championship race Live
NRL Telstra Premiership: every game of every round of the Premiership Season (5 Live)
Toyota AFL Premiership Season: every game of the Premiership Season Live
Hyundai A-League: every match Live – 140 games
Barclays Premier League: the only place to see every match – 380 games
Asteron Life Super Rugby: every match Live– 125 games
The Castrol Edge Rugby Championship: every match Live
IRB Rugby World Cup: every match Live – 48 games

FOX Sports has been a world leader in enhancing broadcasts with extra vision and statistics using the Red button feature for the past 10 years. The changes to the channel line-up will free Red button capacity, enabling FOX Sports to take enhancement of events to another level next year – right across its wide-ranging, premium Sports offering. Feature holes and features groups across all PGA Tour events and golf majors, an option to choose your own commentary team and simultaneous Live feeds of V8 Supercars are just some of the innovative enhancements on offer on FOX Sports in 2015.

The amped-up Red button feature will be further liberated by broadband with Foxtel’s revolutionary iQ3, which will customise the TV experience seamlessly merging satellite with broadband.

With no such thing as an off-season on FOX Sports, fans will have the choice of 24 entertainment shows between play each week, hosted by the most loved personalities in sport.

The two new FOX Sports channels, FOX Sports 4 and FOX Sports 5, will also be available across Foxtel Play and Foxtel on Telstra T-Box, as well as on the go via Foxtel Go alongside the other FOX Sports channels.

From Monday, November 3, 2014, FOX Sports’ new channel line-up will include six FOX Sports branded channels (FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, FOX Sports 3, FOX Sports 4, FOX Sports 5 and FOX Sports News) plus FOX Footy.

As well as all seven channels being available in High Definition, the new FOX Sports channel line-up will be easier for fans to find in the EPG and all Live sport on the channels will be recordable.

32 Responses

  1. In response to Junkyard – there’s a new satellite going up next week, so Foxtel have no more excuses. There will be plenty of room for new channels, HD channels and others without compromising on picture quality.

  2. @William – Mark Howard might be the next pit lane commentator for V8s. He has done very well in Channel Ten’s Australian F1 GP and the Phillip Island Moto GP. If Ten poaches Mark Howard for V8s, then he will be good at being a presenter at the pit lanes.

  3. If Greg is going to FS, then that’s a win for him and FS I think. I wonder if he will have a split clause like Eddie and Sterlo does so he can keep going with the F1s (FS already has the MotoGP) or if it might be part of positioning to take up NBC’s feed post 2016 and partner back up with Leigh Diffey or partner the Sky broadcasts since FS have existing relationship. So, it’s vale to FS Plus (505) Speed and Fuel. Reckon a missed opportunity to not pick up the Golf Channel. How does this impact the Setanta/BeIn situation? Having the extra capacity might help with AFL rights bidding, where I reckon the AFL will bring it Inhouse and auction time slots as opposed to A and B standard games.

  4. @William @glennc

    Just to clarify what you two gentlemen have been saying about the V8 Supercars, as there seems to be some confusion!

    Speedcafe published an article today, on the topic above, that stated that the Fox Sports line-up of on-air talent hadn’t yet been confirmed, but it’s expected to be spearheaded by current commentator Neil Crompton and Network TEN’s Greg Rust.

    Meanwhile, at Network TEN, Matthew White will anchor their coverage, which is set to use the Fox Sports commentary feed.

    So, at this stage, there won’t be separate commentary teams, and if rumours are true, that Rust is heading for Fox Sports, expect Matt White to also front TEN’s MotoGP & F1 coverage!

  5. After reading through all the waffle from Fox Sports, this actually is a good outcome. 5 generic Fox Sports channels plus Fox Footy for contractual reasons gives them great flexibility in what they show. It should mean that they can show live sport across all channels if they need to and more importantly all in HD without having to press red and see worse than SD. Plus the news is now in HD. Also good that they are showing all matches of the cricket world cup live – no Nine. Gotta be happy with that.

  6. Have foxtel rented another transponder on the satellite ? Probably not.

    If not the overall picture quality of all the HD channels will be reduced yet again. Fox Footy HD for instance since its debut has had its bitrate reduced by 20%.

  7. @ThrillHo I’m not 100% on this because I’m not 12-years-old but I’m pretty sure I read months ago that the American broadcaster of that other wrestling thing has cancelled it and and the company will probably be dead by the end of this year. So it won’t be on Foxtel no matter what they do with Fox Sports.

    I’m sure having Speed and Fuel TV turned into Fox Sports channels still won’t mean there’ll be any NFL/NBA/MLB back on Fox Sports. The eight people who watch ice hockey must be happy it’s replaced them all.

  8. @glennc – it has occurred to me that Ten won’t be taking Fox Sports commentary team, as Ten will put their own commentary team headed by Greg Rust and some others with unknown people for support and pit lane

  9. @Shoudy They will be HD from the outset.
    @William what is there that’s so confusing about the V8 coverage? Network Ten will have RPM, hosted by Matt White, and all race coverage will be a simulcast of Fox’s coverage hosted in the studio by Matt White.

  10. A bit disappointing that when they finally acquire more motorsport content (V8s), the motorsport channel disappears, but I imagine most of the existing content will pop up on the various channels anyway.

  11. Foxtel’s coverage of the US Open tennis has been shocking, constantly cutting off matches to show replays of other matches. No option to show additional courts, horrible commentators and just generally not caring.

    Given how little live sport is shown during the week on Fox Sports (dumping their MLB coverage) just going to mean more replays and crap.

    They should be looking at upping their sporting content not their stripping it if they are increasing their channels. And using some content from the new Fox Sports channel in the States.

  12. David you missed a key point to the story – FOX Sports 4 and FOX Sports 5 will be replacing existing FOX Sport’s channels SPEED and Fuel TV. That means that the only physical change will be the addition of 1 extra HD channel (with Fuel TV being the only FOX Sports channel not to have an existing HD feed). Very disappointing to see that by then a new satellite would have launched yet the only change to the sporting section is basically a face lift. Foxtel better have something better planned for the other genres.

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