Not sure if this is of great interest generally, but those of you who have been following the fortunes of Dutch darts over the past couple of years might be interested to know that last night's PDC World Championship Final was the last ever darts match to be shown on Dutch channel SBS6.
SBS6 have been covering the PDC World Championship since 2007 and PDC events since Raymond Van Barneveld's switch in early 2006, having made their name as Holland's darts broadcaster in the 1990s by covering the BDO Lakeside World Championship (which I believe they broadcast from 1998 to 2010).
However, with darts sharply dipping in popularity in Holland over the past couple of years, with SBS6 channelling their sports budget into football (they currently hold rights to the Netherlands home international fixtures and the KNVB Cup, which is the Dutch equivalent to the FA Cup) and with them generally focusing on light entertainment programmes as a channel, they recently decided to discontinue their coverage of the sport of darts:
translated Dutch source.
This year, SBS6's coverage of the Alexandra Palace event has been very low key. They have only decided to broadcast nightly highlights programmes after 11pm, with them having handed the live rights to Dutch pay channel Sport 1, whose coverage they have been streaming live on their website.
Had Barney or another Dutch player reached the final, I guess they might have televised that match live on SBS6 but as that didn't happen we'll never know. Their final commentary team would have been their long-time pairing of Jacques Nieuwlaat and Leo Oldenburger, with them having worked across both Sport 1 and SBS6 this year.
However, despite the SBS6 contract coming to an end, it isn't the end of the road for darts on Dutch TV. Another Dutch channel in RTL7 have signed a two year contract with the PDC to televise nine tournaments a year, starting with the Premier League in February and concluding with the PDC World Darts Championship in 2013:
translated Dutch source.