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A satisfied customer & football fans on a tight budget - Join Freesat!
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[Deleted User]
Posts: 385 Forum Member
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Hi, I'm in the situation of many football & sports fanatics in the UK, who cannot afford the luxury of a monthly charge for sky sports, ESPN or Europsort, etc. I just thought I'd take time to recommend freesat, the free tv service via satellite dish. I use this service now & find it to be the best free tv service for sports fans on a budget. In addition, their record boxes allow you to record for free, unlike sky's Freesat option which demands a £10 fee to record on the so called free service.
Freesat from BBC & ITV has over 150 channels from TV & radio, and as a sports fan in particular I have found great reliability & service from freesat, unlike freeview where signal is completely unpredictable at times & unavailable as a full service in many areas. This means people with the 'freeview light' service miss out on the best free to air sports coverage from channels such ITV4. Another advantage I have found with freesat is the number of +1 channels, this is an option not offered on freeview to due limited space & is incredibly useful when european games kick of at 6pm or go to extra time when another game directly follows on another channel. The list showing almost all freesat channels can be found on the channels page of their official website.
To the football coverage, freesat is pretty well equipped in general. There are usually 4 or 5 live games a week, at least 3 of which are top level football matches.
The ITV channels have many matches & highlight shows from the FA Cup & FA Youth Cup, Champions league & Europa league, all England Internationals, some Brazil games, African Nations Cup & a weekly Bundesliga highlights show among others.
BBC have weekly highlight shows such as Match of the day & the Football League show, as well as highlights from the League cup. They also cover major international football tournaments from most continents alongside ITV.
Another key advantage to me is the offering of many regional variants of the terrestrial channels. This leads to even more good sport on freesat. BBC Scotland, for example, show many scottish cup & league cup games (including the finals) & Scotland's away internationals. S4C shows cup games featuring Welsh sides, as well as a weekly offering from the Welsh Premier League. There are also highlights of Welsh & N.I. internationals on their respective BBC channels.
I have just started posting a list of all live football matches available on freesat channels, which is updated every 7 days to keep viewers up to date. This weekly list can be found on the freesat community, in the TV lounge section, under the title of "all live football matches on freesat updated weekly".
BBC one, BBC two and ITV1 are all in HD on freesat, so only ITV4 games would be in SD (this is the same on Virgin media & freeview customers anyway).
The Confederations Cup looks likely to be on Freesat channels this summer and there are rumours of Channel 5 moving back in the market for football coverage next season, as well as Liverpool FC TV potentially joining freesat in the next year.
I am a very satisfied customer of freesat & it appears that there will certainly be a lot more exciting football on freesat next season!
Freesat from BBC & ITV has over 150 channels from TV & radio, and as a sports fan in particular I have found great reliability & service from freesat, unlike freeview where signal is completely unpredictable at times & unavailable as a full service in many areas. This means people with the 'freeview light' service miss out on the best free to air sports coverage from channels such ITV4. Another advantage I have found with freesat is the number of +1 channels, this is an option not offered on freeview to due limited space & is incredibly useful when european games kick of at 6pm or go to extra time when another game directly follows on another channel. The list showing almost all freesat channels can be found on the channels page of their official website.
To the football coverage, freesat is pretty well equipped in general. There are usually 4 or 5 live games a week, at least 3 of which are top level football matches.
The ITV channels have many matches & highlight shows from the FA Cup & FA Youth Cup, Champions league & Europa league, all England Internationals, some Brazil games, African Nations Cup & a weekly Bundesliga highlights show among others.
BBC have weekly highlight shows such as Match of the day & the Football League show, as well as highlights from the League cup. They also cover major international football tournaments from most continents alongside ITV.
Another key advantage to me is the offering of many regional variants of the terrestrial channels. This leads to even more good sport on freesat. BBC Scotland, for example, show many scottish cup & league cup games (including the finals) & Scotland's away internationals. S4C shows cup games featuring Welsh sides, as well as a weekly offering from the Welsh Premier League. There are also highlights of Welsh & N.I. internationals on their respective BBC channels.
I have just started posting a list of all live football matches available on freesat channels, which is updated every 7 days to keep viewers up to date. This weekly list can be found on the freesat community, in the TV lounge section, under the title of "all live football matches on freesat updated weekly".
BBC one, BBC two and ITV1 are all in HD on freesat, so only ITV4 games would be in SD (this is the same on Virgin media & freeview customers anyway).
The Confederations Cup looks likely to be on Freesat channels this summer and there are rumours of Channel 5 moving back in the market for football coverage next season, as well as Liverpool FC TV potentially joining freesat in the next year.
I am a very satisfied customer of freesat & it appears that there will certainly be a lot more exciting football on freesat next season!
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Comments
The Sgorgio(?) show is interesting, sometimes Wrexham or Newport but more often than not something from the Dog & Duck league!
On Active they show kickboxing matches and I'm sure someone could compile a list of other sports stuff tucked away in the news channels.
Virgin Media now have ITV2/3/4 HD.
Which you have to pay a sub for, which is the total opposite of what coadyltfc is making a point of with this particular thread being about Freesat and not paying a monthly charge.
It's not just football fans as well, in the next 2 months alone there are a mass of top sports events on freesat channels (many of which in HD).
BBC has coverage of the last 2 rounds from the Masters Golf Major in mid April, the same weekend as it's first of 9 live F1 races this season. They also have coverage of the world championship snooker in late April/early May. All of this will also be on the HD channels. The national variants of the BBC channels also show many Rubgy Pro 12 games featuring teams from their own country. Queens & Wimbledon also follows in June of course!
ITV4 has live coverage of the IPL cricket starting April 4th for almost 2 months, with 2 live games shown back to back most afternoons. They show the BTCC for motorsport fans, with all races live on the same channel this year. They have live coverage of the French Open Tennis major in late May on ITV4 (except for final/semi finals) on ITV/ITV HD. Not to mention the final of the FA Cup, Champions League, Europa League on ITV HD during May, then the England v Ireland International game on the same channel at the end of May.
Channel 5 have much live boxing this year. Tyson Fury has a big fight in April, with other live fights from boxers such as James DeGale & Chris Eubank Jr shown live on the channel.
Finally on the big events, Channel 4 has the live coverage of the Grand National again this year, which is also available in HD on freesat.
With regards to the hidden stuff mentioned above, S4C does show some good stuff featuring Welsh sides in Football & Rugby. Wrexham's FA Trophy Final win was live on the channel last Sunday. Another hidden one is live Greyhound Racing, which is often shown between 7.15-11pm most Thursday evenings, on Information TV (Channel 401).
The ITV4 coverage of the event is absolutely spellbinding; they cover several hours of racing every day for three weeks and make every minute interesting. The commentary and analysis is superb, and the pictures from the host broadcaster as stunning, even in SD.
Even if you're not a sports fan, just to watch the event as a travelogue is an absolute pleasure. The scenery is almost always gorgeous, particularly from the helicopter shots, but is also engrosing from the back of the motorbikes too. Fabulous.
That said, the sport is also brilliant. To the outsider it doesn't seem like a team sport, but it doesn't take long with the commentary team to work out the tactics that are needed to succeed.
On top of all that, with Wiggins, Froome and Cavendish et al, there is a very significant British interest in the race these days.
It's going to be great again this year, I can't wait! It'll be even better in 2014 when it starts in Yorkshire and spends the first 3 days in the UK!
Of course, if you can't spare 50-60 hours to watch the whole event (!) then Freesat+ is the perfect way to watch events unfold. I must admit to recording several days and fast forwarding through the least interesting parts, even through there aren't many.
http://www.itv.com/tourdefrance/
...plus we must not forget the football matches that are also shown on S4C and the Sgorio programme.
On another note about BBC ALBA, they really need to get an English Commentary Option!
Well, coadyltfc, let them know what you think and don't forget to ask for a response: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complain-online/
Actually, have an English commentary option would probably help draw more people to BBC Alba anyway.
I agree, when showing games from Celtic & their 3 live games in particular, I would be amazed if an English commentary option didn't add about 50,000-100,000 viewers. On a scottish forum about 6 months ago I saw someone say this & it had hundreds of agreements, mostly from Celtic fans!
Their SPL coverage is always one of their biggest viewed shows, but it's only because it's the football, not because it's in the alternate language!
I agree on the FA Trophy Final, it was really good coverage of the game. I thought it was better than many much bigger channels have provided in the past.
:eek:! In which case I'd give them a month before going to the BBC Trust to see if they can help. Good luck with this one!
Oh please please me!
Yeah great if your a fan of Liverpool FC, but I'm sure there's probably more people that couldn't care a less about that channel than those that do.
Perhaps someone should organise a poll to get a rough idea of interest.
To mike65 & any others interested in seeing LFC TV on freesat, emailing them will help. If you contact them under the LFC TV online support category at this address http://help.liverpoolfc.tv/app/ask you will be increasing interest in seeing the channel on freesat. They usually send an automated response saying something like 'currently we have no plans to launch on freesat. However, your views & interest of seeing our channel on freesat will be logged & passed on to the relevant people'. Lots of people are doing this at the moment and the more the better!
It will be beneficial to more than you think, every Liverpool under 21 game is live on their channel, these games are usually against other popular teams. In addition, they show full delayed coverage of all their premier league games. Although this isn't as good as live games, it's the next best thing & would be the only full premier league coverage on free to air TV. This means fans of every premier league team can watch full delayed coverage of their games against Liverpool on free TV services.
For many others, who are neutral football fans or fans of a lower league team like me, I'm sure this channel will also be interesting. It's not just about Liverpool fans at all (as I am a Luton Town fan asking for this!)
Any additional market is good for Freesat, its not like Man Utd supporters will burn their boxes in protest (probably!).
And I also agree that the more the merrier which is definitely good for Freesat overall.