Listener Survey: How to you get our Sport on TV?
We polled our listeners to get some opinions on how they watch sport on telly. Here are our the results so far
With BT Vision and Top Up TV undercutting Sky in Premier League football, and Virgin looking to offer Sky Sports in HD, is Sky's dominance in sport under threat?
We asked our listeners to take part in our TV Sports survey, which we covered in Show 54. Here are the results, and the opportunity for you to have your say.
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Sports Survey: Results So Far
Here's a summary of our listener's TV sporting habits, based on the completed survey forms:
Who provides your sports TV?
Freeview and Sky come out as the top sporting TV services. Here's a summary of the sporting services used by our listeners:
| Freeview (TV aerial) | 35.93% |
| Sky Digital (Satellite) | 20.35% |
| Virgin Media (Cable) | 6.93% |
| BT Vision (TV aerial) | 4.33% |
| Top Up TV (TV aerial) | 5.63% |
| Internet TV service | 1.30% |
| TalkTalk TV (phone line) | 0.43% |
| Other (Mostly Freesat) | 7.79% |
Planning to change providers in the next 12 months?
Blimey. Most of you are not planning to get your sports from another TV service.
| Yes / Probably | 11.26% |
| No | 55.41% |
| I may change | 17.32% |
Why are you planning to change?
Most of you don't want to change, but those looking to change cite price as the main reason, unsurprisingly
| Cost - provider too expensive | 11.26% |
| Looking for extra channels | 8.23% |
| Unhappy with existing service | 2.16% |
| Looking to upgrade to HD | 1.73% |
| Technical reason (e.g no service at new house) | 0.87% |
| Want better picture quality | 0.43% |
| Other | 1.73% |
What's your sport?
Sports-wise, 67% of you are footy followers, with motor sports being the second most popular with our listeners. Here's a graph and table showing the favourites.
| Football | 67.10% |
| Cricket | 34.20% |
| Motor racing | 35.93% |
| Rugby | 29.00% |
| Golf | 23.81% |
| Tennis | 22.51% |
| Other | 16.45% |
| Boxing | 16.02% |
| Horseracing | 5.63% |
| Hockey | 2.60% |
Your comments on Sport on UK TV:
In our survey, we left a space for comments. Here is a small selection of your comments:
- Sky Sports News should remain on Freeview
- I don't tend to watch a lot of sport at home. If it's a big event I'll watch it down the pub.
- There needs to be more sport on terrestrial telly, we already pay for the licence fee so stop paying large wages to over-rated presenters and invest in other things like sport
- Sky sports should be available FOC to all media channels. Savings could be made by closing down certain channels at say midnight. There is no reason to broadcast 24hrs!
- football pundits spoil a game with the endless drivel they spout
- international events should be free.
- too much football. cricket etc,, there is more to sport than these,, i like motor cycle racing and it gets little coverage on mainstream channels..
- 34 Rupert Murdoch wants to create a monopoly (he is trying to buy the remaining shares in Sky not already owned by him and his family). He can then try to make the cost even higher in spite of attempts by Ofcom to prevent this. It will also turn popular sports into minority ones by limiting the audience.
- too many only available on pay to view especially cricket
- one word BBC world cup superb f1 superb to
- I am looking forward to getting ESPN on xbox live. In general I am not prepared to pay for TV sport.
- Should be made available on Freesat.
- There's a lot of good things, but I think the UK public pay too much for sport on TV still.
- it would be nice to have the option on Freeview to pay to view the sports channels
- Sky has too much power
- ought to be more sport on BBC/itv and other free channels.
- sky is far to expensive
- it would be nice to see premier foot ball on terrestrial TV and i would like to see virgin have there own sports channel then they would not need sky
- Why do I have to buy sky to watch sports on TV surely the technology is available for Freeview to purchase a single sports programme rather than a whole months worth of Tat.
- We cannot get sky because of trees so it is fair that we now have options via Freeview to watch sky sports 1 and 2.
- sky charges far too much and you have to get channels you will never watch in your package since the football season ended i have watched about three things that are exclusive to sky at £37 pound a month that is too much
- HD is a must for football, so I'll be staying with Sky, until I guess BT make a move to HD. Sky is expensive but foot ball paid for by SKY is. If Sky doesn't pay it may be possible our Premier League will collapse!
- All the UK and International Sports should be covered live on terrestrial TV whether it is 10 games or all
- Freeview or Freesat should have a sports channel of its own without subscription. Why can't we have Eurosport like we did on the old analogue system.
- Why does the BBC waste licence payers' money bidding against commercial companies for the right to show sporting events?
- Very confusing. Am not happy with SKY's lack of clarity. They mix sports across their channels, which is unfair. For example - all Rugby should be on one channel
- Not happy with spread between TV channels or fact you have to pay for a lot of dead time (sports don't enjoy) on Sky, particularly rugby, Aussie rules stuff and cricket.
- with topuptv do u not think they need also a sports download channel so if you miss a match its already on your box
- Why aren't the National Team sports (Football, Cricket Rugby etc) broadcast on free-to-view, they should be taken away from Sky and made part of the "crown jewels" - leave the club stuff to Sky but please let the nations watch their national teams free.
- Sadly, access to sporting events on TV has never been more restrictive than it is now. If you are not able/prepared to part with large sums of money for equipment and contracts to gain access there is little live sporting action to enjoy on terrestrial TV. The sooner Sky's stranglehold on the provision of sports to UK homes is ended and replaced with a fairer system (with more choice) the better. I can't even watch all the ECL footy on the TV anymore! BT Vision's recent moves may help, but this new service is still pay per view, and to gain access to it requires a fast internet connection plus a contract with BT that includes tying the customer into a phone and internet deal. Hardly competitive. I can access Virgin TV from my home, but their service, although attractive, is also costly and requires the customer to sign up to TV, internet and phone to access the best prices (which are still high).
- would have like to have seen sky sports 3 and 4 included in the Ofcom pay review decision. all internationals involving home nations be on free to air TV
- I think Sky has too much,their should be more choice on BBC/ITV. I have recently left Sky and have to do with Freeview and Freesat,and sportwise there is not a lot
- More of the main sporting events should be free to air. BT Vision is pushing Sky Sports but it fails to make it clear that most people in the UK like me cannot get it because you need Broadband speeds of 2meg and above to get BT Vision I live in a village only 7 miles from the centre of Nottingham and am lucky if i can get 1.7meg and I am with BT, enough said.
- BBC's sports coverage is pathetic - bring back Grandstand
- Freeview needs to keep up else it will end up like BSB. I have changed to Freeview to get HD and will see what the prices are for spy sports before deciding which to stay with.
- There should be more choice of all sport on Freeview channels instead of sky they should all get together and bid against them
- All England games should be free to air. I will only watch MOTD and maybe some content from the net. I will not pay to football on TV when I go to live games. I have had Sky in the past and it is very much over rated. That's why I cancelled my subscription only after a few months
- The Monopoly that Sky has is killing sport in this country, pensioners can not afford the costs.
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