Originally Posted by mlt11:
“If it makes sense for Sky to offer its customers an alternative to BBC Final Score, why wouldn't it make sense for BT to do the same?”
Sky have been doing a Saturday afternoon live results programme for twelve years before the BBC relaunched Final Score to do the same. It is not simply an "alternative", they originated the format and have a well established brand and loyal audience. That is a fundamentally different to just doing something for the sake of a brand.
But for non-Sky Sports News households — which must be around half of them as it is a basic channel on both Sky and Virgin — the BBC has now after twelve years also got its own established brand and audience.
Maybe BT can do something original to make the format their own. But with their smaller market share trying to oust one, if not two as I expect many to also have SSN as they receive BT Sport via Sky or Virgin, established programmes it is not unreasonable to question the viability.
And BT Sport will, for English domestic soccer, always look like an add-on whilst it has a minority of Premier League matches and no Football League ones. That said, it has pretty well established its brand anyway. And unless it can do something truly original then airing a lower rated copy of a Sky format, which the BBC has been successfully copying for over a decade, is not going to present their brand positively.