Fox Sports (Australia)

Fox Sports
Launched 26 January 1995[1]
Owned by Fox Sports Pty Limited
Picture format 576i (SDTV) 16:9
1080i (HDTV) 16:9
Audience share Fox Sports 1: 0.2%
Fox Sports 2: 0.1%
Fox Sports 3: 0.1%
Fox Sports 4: 0.6%
Fox Sports 5: 0.1% (November 2015, [2])
Slogan We're a FOX Sporting Nation
Country Australia
Language English
Headquarters Artarmon, New South Wales
Formerly called Premier Sports (prior to 19 February 1996)
Sister channel(s) Fox Cricket
Fox Footy
Fox League
Fox Sports News
Website www.foxsports.com.au
Availability
Satellite
Foxtel Fox Sports 503:
Channel 257 (HD)
Channel 503 (SD)
Fox Sports 505:
Channel 259 (HD)
Channel 505 (SD)
Fox Sports 506:
Channel 260 (HD)
Channel 506 (SD)
Fox Sports More:
Channel 264 (HD)
Channel 507 (SD)
Cable
Foxtel Fox Sports 503:
Channel 257 (HD)
Channel 503 (SD)
Fox Sports 505:
Channel 259 (HD)
Channel 505 (SD)
Fox Sports 506:
Channel 260 (HD)
Channel 506 (SD)
Fox Sports More:
Channel 264 (HD)
Channel 507 (SD)
*Same channel numbers for Optus TV Featuring Foxtel
IPTV
Foxtel Now Fox Sports 503:
Channel 503
Fox Sports 505:
Channel 505
Fox Sports 506:
Channel 506
Streaming media
Foxtel app Channel 501

Fox Sports is an Australian group of sports channels, owned by Fox Sports Pty Limited (known as Premier Media Group until February 2012),[3][4] which is owned by News Corp Australia. Its main competitors are ESPN and beIN Sports.

Fox Sports in Australia differs from other Fox Sports-branded channels in the United States and elsewhere around the world in that it is not owned by 21st Century Fox, but by News Corp—the publishing company that was spun out from the larger News Corporation in 2013. Although 21st Century Fox maintains ownership of the remainder of News Corporation's broadcasting assets, its Australian television assets were spun out with the new company as well. Both companies nonetheless remain under the control of the Murdoch family.

History

Fox Sports started life as the Premier Sports Network (later just 'Premier Sports') as the only fully operational local channel at the launch of Australia's first pay-television service, Galaxy.[1] Premier Sports' backers included American company Prime International, which later became part of Liberty Media.

The service was launched at 16:00 on 26 January 1995 in Sydney, and made a name for itself, securing the rights to Australia's cricket tour of the West Indies. Previously Australian cricket tours had been covered on the Nine Network on free-to-air, and Nine tried to stop the broadcast under Australia's 'anti-siphoning' rules, which state that certain popular sporting events cannot be screened exclusively on pay television. PSN signed a deal with Network Ten to share the broadcast rights.

When Foxtel launched its cable service later that year, PSN was included as part of the package. Between 1995 and 2010, Fox Sports aired National Basketball League (NBL) games. On 1 March 1996, PSN was relaunched as Fox Sports Australia, to coincide with the new Super 12 rugby union competition and the proposed launch of the Super League.

In 1997 a secondary channel was launched on Foxtel to carry broadcasts of the new Super League competition. Fox Sports and its chief competitor, Sports Australia shared the rights to NRL broadcasts as a result of the legal settlement in the Super League war. The channel on Foxtel was later relaunched as Fox Sports Two, at first broadcasting from Friday through Monday each week, and later expanding to a full 24-hour, 7-day service in 2002.

When Optus Vision dropped the C7 Sport service in March 2002, they started carrying the Fox Sports channels. These were referred to by Optus as "Optus Sports 1" and "Optus Sports 2" in Optus promotional material; on-air programming referred to the channels as simply "Sports One" and "Sports Two", although programming such as the nightly Fox Sports News bulletins retained the Fox name. Optus dropped the "Optus Sports" name in October 2002.

Fox Sports Two is generally used to cover bigger events that require large amounts of air time, such as the 1998 Winter Olympics, Grand Slam tennis tournaments, and the 2004 European Football Championship.

During the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Fox Sports carried an additional eight channels dedicated to Games events. These were available to customers at an additional charge.

Fox Sports has been the exclusive broadcaster of the Hyundai A-League since its first season in 2005. In 2006, an A$120 million deal between the FFA and Fox Sports was reached after the end of the first season. Under the deal, Fox Sports will have exclusive rights from 2007 to all Socceroos home internationals, all A-League and Asian Cup fixtures, World Cup qualifiers through the AFC, and all AFC Champions League matches.

The deal to cover the A-league live and exclusive has reaped big rewards for Fox Sports, its ratings were very strong in the 2006-07 season and the 2007 A-league grand final became at the time, Fox Sports' highest ever rating event.[5]

Ratings for football have generally been very good. The Socceroos first game of the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, attracted 345,000 viewers,[6] while their Quarter final drew an average of 419,000[7] - at the time, an all-time record for Australian Pay TV. This record was broken on 1 April 2009, when the Socceroos defeated Uzbekistan to put them very close to qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This match was watched by an average of 431,000 people.[8]

In 2007, Fox Sports reached a deal to broadcast 4 games live and exclusive from the AFL each week. This includes the exclusive only Sunday twilight match. In addition they will broadcast Friday night games live into New South Wales and Queensland via channel 518 at no extra charge - normally used for pay-per-view service Main Event. When channel 518 a is used in this way it is promoted as Fox Sports Plus on-air.

The channel is being used increasingly to show live events when Fox Sports has a clash involving its main 3 channels. On Saturday 17 March 2007, for example, Fox Sports broadcast a match from the 2007 Cricket World Cup (Ireland v Pakistan) live on 518, as it was committed to football, rugby union and another cricket match on its main 3 channels.

In 2010 Fox Sports coverage of National Rugby League games held 73 out of the top 100 programs of any type aired Foxtel.

On 5 March 2013, Fox Sports unveiled its new headquarters at Artarmon, New South Wales. It was announced that the main studio would be named the Clive Churchill Studio after the NRL immortal Clive Churchill, as the studio will house NRL coverage. Technical innovations were the main highlight, with CEO Patrick Delany unveiling the FoxKopter, the FoxMobile Segway, Ref Cam and Cornerpost Cam. Fox Sports also launched a new corporate logo in line with its global affiliate broadcasters.[9][10]

On 3 September 2014, Fox Sports announced that SPEED and Fuel TV would be rebranded as FOX Sports 4 and FOX Sports 5 on 3 November 2014, of which both will be available in HD. In addition, it was announced that FOX Sports News would launch a HD feed on the same day, taking FOX Sports' suite to 7 channels, all available in HD.[11][12]

On 23 February 2017, Fox Sports More, a new channel for live, pop-up events was launched.

Fox Sports logo used from 2008 until 2013.

Fox Sports News

Channels

  • Fox Sports News: Channel 500. Also available in HD.
  • Fox Cricket: Channel 501. Also available in HD. Branded as Fox Sports 1 prior to 17 September 2018.
  • Fox League: Channel 502. Also available in HD. Branded as Fox Sports 2 prior to 27 February 2017.[13]
  • Fox Sports 503: Channel 503. Also available in HD. Branded as Fox Sports 3 prior to 23 February 2017.[13]
  • Fox Footy: Channel 504. Also available in HD.
  • Fox Sports 505: Channel 505. Also available in HD. Branded as Fox Sports 4 prior to 23 February 2017.[13]
  • Fox Sports 506: Channel 506. Also available in HD. Branded as Fox Sports 5 prior to 23 February 2017.[13]
  • Footy Play powered by Fox Sports (AFL channel available on Foxtel Now (Not on PC/Mac) and formerly on Xbox 360, Telstra T-Box and Foxtel on Internet TV[3][14]
  • Fox Sports More: Channel 507. Also available in HD. Although broadcast 24/7, the channel only acts as a pop-up channel with only occasional programming.[13]

Past Channels

  • Fox Sports 501: Channel 501. Also available in HD. Replaced by Fox Cricket.
  • Fox Sports +: The Main Event channel was used as an "overflow" channel when multiple live sporting events needed to be broadcast. This included Friday Night AFL in New South Wales, Queensland and Australian Capital Territory and Saturday Nights in New South Wales (excluding the Wagga Wagga market) and Canberra. It was also used nationwide for a Socceroos game in June 2007. On many occasions the Main Event channel was used when the Premier League had multiple games on the one night, although usage in this capacity is rare now that the "Viewer's Choice" system of showing multiple matches on one channel through multi-casting (pressing the "Red Button" on a Foxtel/Austar remote control). Unlike the AFL, the NRL was never broadcast into Southern Australia through Fox Sports Plus on Friday nights, leaving its Southern Australian fans having to wait until at least after midnight for a replay of the match on local free-to-air channels up until 2012.
  • Fuel TV (replaced by Fox Sports 505)[11][12]
  • Speed (replaced by Fox Sports 506)[11][12]
  • Fox Sports Plus: Launched on 6 September 2012, the channel showed what live and upcoming sports were available via Viewer's Choice on Fox Sports 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.[15] The channel ceased broadcasting on 9 February 2017, and was replaced on 23 February 2017 by Fox Sports More.[13]
  • Fox Sports 2: Channel 502. Also available in HD. Replaced by Fox League.[13]
  • Sports Play powered by Fox Sports (available on Xbox 360, Telstra T-Box, and Foxtel on Internet TV until 2013, when Fox Sports 1-3 launched on these services.)[3][14]
  • Footy Play+ powered by Fox Sports (available on Xbox 360, Telstra T-Box, and Foxtel on Internet TV).

Programming

Current programming

Former programming

Sports/competitions televised by Fox Sports (in 2018)

Australian rules football

  • Australian Football League Premiership Season (Broadcasts three matches live during most weekends of the regular season whenever sister channel Fox Footy, is screening another LIVE match at the same time. Fox Sports occasionally screens other programming such as magazine and panel shows that are produced and broadcast by Fox Footy.

Basketball

Combat sports

  • Cage Fighting Championship
  • Evolution
  • Fight Call Out (2017–present)[16]
  • Fox Sports Friday Night Fights
  • Hammer Time
  • Knees of Fury
  • Legend MMA
  • Maximus Academy
  • UFC Fight Week [17]
  • The Ultimate Fighter
  • WWE Raw - one-hour versions
  • WWE Smackdown - one-hour versions

Cricket

Darts

Field hockey

Golf

Ice hockey

Motorsport

Formula racing

Open wheel

Stock Cars

Touring Cars

Sportscars

Drag racing

Bikes

Rally

Speedway

Motocross

Rugby league

Rugby union

Soccer

Surfing

Ten-pin bowling

Tennis

Availability

Fox Sports is available nationally and is available on Foxtel's My Sport package and Optus featuring Foxtel's Total Sport package.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Bertolus, Phil (2 February 1995). "At home with Pay TV". The Age Green Guide. Melbourne, Australia: Fairfax Media. p. 1. Retrieved 27 January 2010.
  2. ↑ "Ratings Week 47 (15/11/2015 - 21/11/2015)" (PDF).
  3. 1 2 3 "About Fox Sports". Fox Sports. Retrieved 2013-07-01.
  4. ↑ Knox, David (2012-02-29). "Premier Media changes name to Fox Sports Australia". TV Tonight. Retrieved 2013-07-01.
  5. ↑ "Big Audience For A-league Final".
  6. ↑ "footballboots big league". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 July 2007.
  7. ↑ "Japan Game a TV Record". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007.
  8. ↑ "Crikey - On politics, media, business, the environment and life".
  9. ↑ Knox, David (March 6, 2013). "FOX Sports launches new HQ TV Tonight". TV Tonight. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
  10. ↑ "Fox Sports unveils fresh new look, leading technology ahead of exciting winter season The Cou". The Courier Mail. March 6, 2013. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
  11. 1 2 3 Knox, David (3 September 2014). "FOX Sports adding two more channels". TV Tonight. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  12. 1 2 3 Mark@ (3 September 2014). "BEST YEAR EVER IN 2015 DEMANDS SEVEN HIGH DEFINITION FOX SPORTS CHANNELS". KnowFirst. Archived from the original on 23 December 2015. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PaigeTurner (16 February 2017). "FOX SPORTS More launches 23 February on channel 507 in HD". Foxtel. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  14. 1 2 "Foxtel on Internet TV Channel Packages". Foxtel. Retrieved 2013-07-01.
  15. ↑ Knox, David (28 August 2012). "FOX Sports Plus channel to launch". TV Tonight. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  16. 1 2 http://www.epicentre.tv/events/fight-call-out-episode-1/
  17. 1 2 https://www.foxtel.com.au/got/whats-on/foxtel-insider/fox-sports/ufc-fight-week.html
  18. ↑ "Fox Sports to show Indian Super League". 15 September 2014.
  19. ↑ "World Surf League: FOX SPORTS to showcase world's best surfers". Foxtel. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  20. ↑ Hickman, Arvind (15 November 2017). "SBS continues to push the boundaries by tackling diversity, sexism, racism in 2018". AdNews. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  21. ↑ Knox, David (19 June 2017). "SBS secures US Open finals". TV Tonight. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
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