Sky Sports News

Sky Sports News (SSN) is a 24-hour sports news channel in the United Kingdom. It is run by BSkyB whose sports channels include Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, and Xtra, as well as Sky Sports HD1, HD2 and HD3.

Two hours of live feed (daily at 7am BST, weekdays at 5pm BST) and one hour of delayed feed (daily at 11pm BST) are picked up Fox Soccer Channel in the United States and Fox Sports World Canada; both FSC and Sky are News Corporation companies, and the company has a minority stake in FSW Canada.

Overview

Sky Sports News launched on 1 October 1998, the launch date of BSkyB's Digital Satellite service, and was BSkyB's first digital only channel. On 10 April 2000 SSN relaunched as Sky Sports.com TV, a move to bring it tie in to the launch of the skysports.com website. Despite criticism of the channel's style and content Sky Sports News was a success.

Due to the main success of Sky Sports News, the Channel had soon scrapped its ".com TV" look, and on the 1st July 2001, Sky Sports News launched another graphics change. A major part of this was the standardisation, i.e. a more corporate look across the Sky channels. The Channel also scrapped its slogan and just paid attention to the fact of the news. This was clearly a success for Sky Sports News, and the channel continued its services to its viewers.

From April 2002, Sky Sports News launched yet another face-lift to its channel, and it was the biggest yet. The channel stayed in the same studio, but with a silver look replacing the old wooden bench, and there was a promise of being first for breaking news, along with much more useful information.

In 2004 Sky Sports News changed its image, with a more open blue look to the channel. The titles features players such as Frank Lampard, Tim Cahill, Thierry Henry and Ryan Giggs pass the football to each other and unveil the Sky Sports News Logo. Programmes such as "Ford Sports Centre" were dropped, and replaced with shows such as Afternoon Report, Evening Update, Good Morning Sports Fans, Through the Night, and Sky Sports News at Ten.

The Channel also has a different piece of Music for each news programme, rather than keeping just one music piece, the most well-known of these being Republica's "Ready to Go" and "Shooting Star" by Deepest Blue.

The channel focuses predominantly on football (especially during the August-May season) but reports on a wide range of sports; even sports to which Sky do not possess broadcasting rights (such as Formula 1 and Baseball) receive limited coverage.

On 20 May 2007, SSN broadcast the Conference Play Off Final between Exeter and Morecambe. This was the first live match to be shown on the channel since certain European games involving British teams where shown to provide exclusivity when competing with the then operational OnSports (owned by ITV) as Sky Sports News was not available at that time via digital terrestrial platforms. This was due to all other Sky Sports channels being occupied by live sport. This enabled Freeview viewers to watch a live match on Sky Sports. The second live game broadcast on SSN was Wales v New Zealand on 26 May 2007, it also screened the La Liga tie between Espanyol and Barcelona live in December 2007

Sky Sports News is famous for its coverage of speculation over manager appointments in the English Premier League. Such speculation enables employees to take advantage of fluctuation in betting markets for such appointments. Such coups include Harry Redknapp and the Newcastle managers position subsequently taken by Kevin Keegan, plus numerous Tottenham Hotspur managers. The Football Association instigated investigations into alleged 'insider trading' but to date no action has been taken.