Sky’s On The Interactive Ball

Sport continues to be the battleground of choice for TV broadcasters this week. Following the launch of ITV’s new football Premiership highlights programme at the weekend (see ITV’s The Premiership Fails To Score) and its announcement of Littlewoods-sponsored interactive football coverage (see ITV Signs Interactive Sponsor), Sky launched a streamed highlights service on four football clubs’ websites yesterday.

Matches played by Southampton, Leeds, Chelsea and West Ham were available on each club’s official website last night for the first time. Users were able to either download or directly stream edited video clip packages of the match. In future previews and footage of the two previous matches will also be available free, with an extended service to be made available by subscription.

Sky has also announced that it has won the rights to the US Open tennis tournament, which it has broadcast since 1991, for another four years. Sky will be hoping to emulate its own success last year, and the success of the BBC this year, with interactive coverage. Up to five different matches at a time from Flushing Meadows will be available to interactive viewers.

Managing director of Sky Sports, Vic Wakeling, commented: “We broke new ground last year, for television and for tennis, when we used our interactive option to offer a choice of three live matches at the same time over the first ten days [of the US Open]. Our subscribers loved the choice and audiences were up 25% on the previous year.”

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