Where are all the City fans?

Not a good advert for BT Sport and the early kick-off if the spectators aren't there.

Nice placement of the in play camera box there showing the referee doing absolutely nothing blocking off the replay of the penalty incident...not once, not twice but three times.

Big hand to the director!

Can't test with BT as the app hasn't updated yet, but I tested the Chromecast with Revision3 and YouTube - where the videos would be letterboxed on iPad due to the aspect ratio, they played in full screen on my HDTV, great quality too.

Excellent game of football in the first half.
Reasonably competitive in the second until the fourth goal.
Overall, a decent first pick for BT with the options they had.
They should be happy with figures in the late 400,000's into the 500,000's.

Glad i wasn't alone in thinking that.
And we also had another moron masterclass from Michael Owen missing the HUGE offside! How he has a job is beyond me, truly!

Point is Popeye it is not going to change quickly, BT clearly think a lot of him and he will be in that position next season.

I don't think he helps his main commentators either, incase Darke or Fletcher miss something in commentary he should be their extra pair of eyes and be quick to offer an opinion, to often today he said to Ian Darke......I agree with what you said before Ian...and ive heard him say that to Darren Fletcher as well.

I always thought Owen would be and is a better pundit in the studio and this was proved last week when he appeared on MOTD2.

For the sake of BT's Champion League coverage, when it begins, and possible extra packages in the Prem League they really MUST get a decent co-commentator.
Get Ray Wilkins whilst he is available, could do a lot worse.

Agreed. he is a better studio pundit than commentator. He is shocking....

BT do seem to be very much a fan of the stick-head-in-sand solution

As we all think, 2015 will be when BT really become competitive with 38 PL games, all Champions League & Europa League games, 25 FA Cup games, SPL and SPFL games and at least three foreign football leagues.

Here's how their football line up should look:
Premier League:
Presenter: Jake Humphrey
Commentators: Ian Darke/Darren Fletcher alongside Steve McMannaman
Pundits: David James, Owen Hargreaves, David Ginola, Neil Warnock, Rio Ferdinand

Champions League:
Presenter:
James Richardson (preview show and after game round up of all the games)
Jake Humphrey (on the ground coverage of 1st pick)
*Dan Walker* (comes in a similar mould to Humphrey, a young, well liked presenter who would love this opportunity, to cover 2nd pick CL game from the ground)
Daryl Currie (Celtic CL games on the ground coverage)

Pundits:
Rafa Honigstein, Julien Laurens, James Hornecastle and a special studio guest (preview show and round up of all games after match)
BTS1 (1st Pick): Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves
BTS2 (2nd Pick): David Ginola and Michael Owen
BTS3 (Celtic): Stephen Craigan and Gary McCalister

Commentators:
BTS1/BTS2
Darren Fletcher/Ian Darke
Andy Gray/Steve McMannaman
BTS3
Derek Rae and Gary McCalister

Europa League
Presenter:
Paul Dempsey

Pundits:
David James (bigger pundit name to promote smaller European competition)
Neil Warnock
Julien Laurens

Commentators:
Peter Drury/ Kevin Gallagher
Simon Brotherton/ Adam Virgo


Owen should be utilised as a pundit rather than a commentator. McMannaman should be used as co-commentator, with Andy Gray also placed there if an agreement is reached between BT and BeIN, especially for those huge CL games.

Is Graeme Le Saux an option as a pundit or commentator on BTS? He seems a knowledgeable and intelligent guy, is comfortable on camera and able to communicate well with the audience.

He has been appearing on BT's VSPO for the last month or so, and when talking about his experiences in the game to the two Dans, he came across really well.

He's no Michael Owen that's for sure!

I believe he is working for NBC on their PL coverage currently...

Has Tim Lovejoy left BTSP permanently? The last few times I've watched it's been Helen Skelton presenting alongside Graeme Swann.

He's a regular on NBC Sports Network's' coverage, so no.

He was missing today as he had Weekend Brunch on C4 for the Grand National, away last week too not sure why. I don't think he's left permanently, probably back next week.

Dontcha know they have the best supporters ever?

Others are now buying into this hype

It was so funny, one of their interviewers asked a city player in the build-up about world-renowned city supporters. Not long after they show a full arena shot just as the game is about to start and only about 2/3 of the stadium was full.

What I found strange was during that slightly corny advert promoting BT Sport chat shows, Helen Skelton was promoting BTSP. Does this mean she has become he preferred choice?

The crowd was as usual close to capacity. The away support was not full. If the crowd are not in seats prior to KO bear in mind that there are a number of things at this modern ground to keep them from sitting down until they have to.

If they were not selling out practically every game then why would they be starting shortly on a plan to expand the ground to second only in attendance to Old Trafford?

Would not really be a wise thing to do if nobody was turning up, would it?

Average attendance is 47,100 - pretty much exactly what they had yesterday (47,009) .

Again I think that would just be down to availability on the day. She presented last weeks show, she was there to record a quick promo. I like her on this though, forming a good partnership with Graeme Swann who is perfect for this type of show.

So about three quarters full then.

3/4 full? 47,000 is nigh on a sell out give a dozen or so

I don't quite know if this is the right place to ask this question, but i will try anyway, I was just watching the boat race (not BT Sport related I know, but hang on in there with me), and I see that Helen Skelton, was a river side reporter, now ehen she is on BT Sport, she uses her married name (with the hyphen and Myler), yet here she only uses the Skelton part of her name, I was just wondering why this is?

Will she decide to use only one version of her name, or will she continue to use the different versions?

Summer retention rate offered by BT Sport

I thought there was a BT Sport thread in the Sky/Satelite thread but couldn't find it as perhaps this post would be better fitted there. Anyhow some info on on the thread linked to below mentions how BT are offering retention rates for those who subscribe to the BT Sport channels via the pay tv method through Sky (£12/£15 per month plus £15 connection fee) when subscribers phone to cancel over the summer in line with when the Premier League ends.

If this is the case, and it seems genuine at a glance, does this not negate a lot of the margins which were extremely negligible anyway in terms of people who were balancing whether it was cheaper in any meaningful way to switch from Sky/other over to BT over the course of the year or longer?

They offered him "£6 a month for the next 3 months then £12 for the next 3 months, keeping my HD package" - It would seem this would still be with only the 1 month min term as there is no mention of that changing so no real ties either.

around 4th post down here:
https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Sport...T/td-p/1224467

Capacity is 60,000 according to Google...

Well Google is wrong then.

Capacity is 47,726.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cit...hester_Stadium

That doesn't mean that 47009 were at the stadium. If you buy a season ticket you are included in the attendance figure regardless of whether you turn up or not. Take Arsenal as an example. They announce a crowd that is almost identical for every home league game, yet sometimes the place is rammed and other times you can see hundreds of empty seats. It's mostly season ticket holders not turning up but they are still included.

Arsenal have quite a lot of fans who have enough cash to buy ST's but then pick and choose their games, and City must have recently acquired fans who feel they can also do the same.

Another thing you mention is the capacity improvement plan at the Etihad. Sure, City will be able to fill the place at the bigger capacity for big games, but I reckon the owners of the club are also looking at the Etihad being big enough to host Champions League Finals and to have much improved corporate facilities.

Mlt beat me to it but CoM stadium has differing capacity for different events

I see there's a World Series by Renault Highlights show on the same day(s) as the races, starting with Monza next weekend.

Will they use their own commentary, since Eurosport have the live rights in the UK?