SSmix will be watched in my house:

Non 2018 world cup qualifers games involving non British/Irish sides as there are many games
Itv4 has the first choice games of these games types

Up to the end of 2018, it might show F1 live races which they share with channel 4 to give a taster of their exclusive live coverage from 2019

It will show some live rugby union games from the pro-12, top 14 and some European club competitions

I think it all comes down to what they show. If you are running one of the sports (or leagues) not called the Premier League then you may well ask politely whether a few of your games can be shown on SSMix in order to maximise potential audience. For example, what odds the Super League Grand Final being on SSMix. Not high maybe, but wouldn't the RFL be sensible to ask the question and try to increase their profile? They already have the Sky money after all.

If you are at the ECB wouldn't you love one Test match per Summer to be on SSMix? Wouldn't you love to see a few really big 6pm or 9:30pm NFL Sunday night games on SSMix if you are running NFL UK? What about the Football League having 10-12 live games on there on Saturday evenings going against BT Premier League games.

Sticking the aforementioned events on SSMix will not harm Sky's subscription rates for their Sports channels in any way, but it would do wonders for those sports in terms of viewers, and maybe encourage them to stick with Sky in future when contract renewals come around.

I think they'll do very much as you say - I can't see any reason why the vast majority, if not all, of the events you suggest would not be on SSMix.

I would have thought they would want to make the schedule as strong as possible, but without impacting on Sky Sports subs.

The question then is how do they do that?

I think the answer is in the title - ie the word Mix. They can put pretty strong content on - but the viewer must never regard it as reliable - ie the viewer must never be confident that what they want to watch will be on.

That means not settling into anything regular - ie generally not showing two games in a row from any particular sport, or mixing up kick-off times - eg showing a Fri EFL game one week and then a Sat EFL game the next week etc (those aren't specific predictions - just illustrations of the principles I would expect them to follow).

The only content they might show more regularly would be very unimportant content - like say European Tour golf during the day on Thurs and Fri - when they also have little else to choose from.

Finally - re your point about rights holders - I think exactly what you said has already happened - ie Sky committed to showing two prime-time Grand Prix per year live on SSMix (in addition to the British GP FTA) as part of their exclusive F1 deal for 2019 to 2024.

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/10215419/sky

I totally agree.

I do wonder how much the likes of BT with their BTTV "free" sport has pushed Sky into launching Mix, if the amount of live sport isn't just a couple of hours here or there in the month, they could be onto a winner.

Sky can market the channel as "free" to subscribers, so almost like a bonus channel, of course in the "war" with BT its another marketing trick, get sport as part of a package at no extra cost, but with loads more entertainment channels than BT, such as Sky 1, Sky Atlantic etc etc

With more and more sport disappearing from FTA TV, when bidding for sports, Sky can increase their chances of acquiring rights, with having Mix as they can claim 10 million of so subscribers will still have access and not just Sky Sports subscribers.

Then there is contract renewals, with competition for who wins what, having Sky Sports Mix can perhaps help swing a sport either staying with Sky or leaving a rival.

Of course they have to find the thin line between what is enough to make the channel popular with non Sport subscribers, but not that laden with live events that makes people either cancel Sky Sports, or not take out a Sports subscription.

I also wonder if Mix will be used as bait, when the next Champions League tendering comes up, Sky can use this to say they will put games on Mix every week as well as Sky Sports Premium, perhaps even using Pick to show a game FTA (thinking Freeview), so they can say they can do a complete package of show all games, they have a FTA channel on Freeview high up the EPG that can be cross promoted with other Sky channels and Mix on Satellite is available to every Sky subscriber, on paper it does sound a much better proposition to UEFA than the current deal with a TV Service with less subscribers, a freeview channel much higher up the EPG and poor picture quality that doesn't show much sport at all, with the amount of promos, it is quite hard to know when the channel actually shows anything live.

Personally, i have a partner who isn't interested in sport, so unless there is a football match on at 12.30 on a Saturday, it is hard to justify having Sky Sports, for the amount of time i would watch a live game, especially when competing with the amount of stuff in the winter that is already on the planner from the entertainment channels, but i do watch the likes of Soccer AM on Sky 1 and MOTD on BBC1, so i am interested if Mix will show the likes of Goals on Sunday or Sunday Supplement, so although i can say i don't have the time for full fat Sky Sports i am interested in what Sky Sports Mix will bring to the table and personally if it is the likes of 10 games from EFL or the premiership with some golf, tennis and the likes then it will be more than enough for me.

I think when the next UEFA CL and EL rights come up UEFA should say the free to air games need to be on a HD channel on freeview or only a PSB channel can bid for them

The launch date of Sky Sports Mix is the 24th Aug at 12pm. Will show live European Golf, EFL and Cricket in the first week.

What's your source for this?

a now tv.com live chat told me last week

Any idea on a channel number? They don't appear to have left a slot when they shuffled the Sports recently

It will be after 415, before 501.

My guess is 419.

Looking at the Virgin line-up, it appears they have conveniently left 507 and 517 blank between News and F1 so would make sense to have:

506 Sky Sports News HQ HD
507 Sky Sports Mix HD
508 Sky Sports F1 HD
516 Sky Sports News HQ
517 Sky Sports Mix
518 Sky Sports F1

Yeah Virgin left the gap on purpose for when Mix launched and the order gave away where it was going to end up on Sky too, with Mix on 407 and F1 moving up to 408.

Any update as to what they are showing for the days following this? Any Premier League or La Liga? Thanks

Yes – we now have the following week. Live sport is as follows:

Sat 27 Aug:
8am – Live Rugby Union – New Zealand v Australia
12pm – Live F1 – Belgium GP Qualifying
7.15pm – Live La Liga – Real Madrid v Celta Vigo
12.30am – Live MLS – Toronto v Montreal

Sun 28 Aug:
11.30am – Live F1 – Belgium GP Race

Thur 1 Sept:
7.30pm – Live Super league – Wigan v Widnes

No live sport on Mon 29 Aug, Tue 30 Aug, Wed 31 Aug or Fri 2 Sep.

Looks like it'll be showing some decent bits and pieces then!

Are they showing major sport highlights, IE cricket highlights, football first etc.

Thanks

Yes - there is a wide range of highlights.

However I'm not going to post full schedules (as I don't want to breach any rules etc) but during the 7 days from 27/08/16 to 02/09/16 in addition to the live sport posted above there is:

- European Tour golf highlights
- F1 Show
- EFL Goals
- Goals on Sunday
- South Africa v New Zealand Test cricket highlights
- England v Pakistan ODI cricket highlights
- Netball Superleague Grand Final replay (ie not live)

However no PL Game of the Day, Match Choice or PL highlights programmes (other than what is shown within Goals on Sunday).

However we only have the first 10 days so far - and what we have suggests there is going to be a lot of variation - so we just don't know what will be on in subsequent weeks.

Looking at the first 5 days (ie Wed 24 Aug to Sun 28 Aug) it's possible they have started very strongly to make an impact and that the amount of live sport will then start to reduce. But we'll have to wait and see.

Does anyone know if SSM listings are in the new TV mags today?

Also, what's the betting that the F1 races SSM show are ones also live on C4?

In a word yes but potentially all of the qualifying live.

When Sky sent out the questionnaires a year/ 18 months ago (??) it included examples of the kind of coverage it might include it basically said the F1 races would be the ones that were FTA anyway but maybe all the qualifying.

I also remember reading somewhere that once F1 comes off FTA in 3 years time Sky Sports Mix will show at least 3 races live including the British GP.

It also said there could be 10 Premier League games and 10 Football League matches per season.

I'll see if I can find the link.

Found it

In September 2016, live 2018 World Cup Qualifiers games which are non British/Irish games and 2nd choice live games. As ITV4 has the first choice of these live games. These are niche live games

From the above, what about people on the original or variety bundles, will they get this channel or is the minimum subscription the family bundle (which I note from the Sky website appears to have been renamed 'box sets bundle')?

Every sky tv subscriber and now tv subscriber will get sky sport mix as a teaser tv channel

A Now TV agent confirmed to me in a live chat in July 2016

Sky Sports Mix is now testing

HD version can be manually tuned in 11.798 H DVB-S2 29.5 8/9 QPSK label 4090

SD 12.266 H 27.5 5/6 labels 4091 4093

Not showing anything exciting, right now its UK Box Office Top 10 on loop.