Sky Sports is one of the many channels broadcast by Sky Television for Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. British sports became a lot more popular since the launching of Sky Sports channels in 1990, given the fact that with the exclusivity rights for the Premier League and Football Leagues the channel touched on quality television making. Sky Sports include four distinct channels: 1,2,3 and an Xtra option that is part of a premium television package, additional to the basic options. Moreover, Sky Sports is part of most of the packages offered by Irish and British cable and satellite companies.
Initially a channel of the British Satellite Broadcasting family, Sky Sports was included in the Sky Television network only afterwards. It’s counterpart in the Sky TV family was Eurosport that the company produced as part of the four first Sky channels. With the merging decision between Sky and British Satellite Broadcasting in 1990 Sky Sports began a new phase of development, encryption for subscribers, re-branding and logo addition are only a few of the changes performed on Sky Sports. In the fight for transmission rights for football leagues with BBC and ITV, Sky Sports won by making a very convenient bid.
Thus, in 1993, Sky Sports increased its popularity for broadcasting the FA Premier League Football exclusively. Another event that marked the development of Sky Sports was the introduction of Soccer AM, a morning chat show that had all the international football events under discussion. The show had such a success that it is still aired today with Max Rushden as a presenter. Soccer AM is actually considered a media phenomenon bringing the reputation of the Sky Sports channel group to a fame level unsurpassed before in the history of the company.
From 1998, Sky Sports switched to the digital broadcasting mode, and this change was doubled by the launch of two other sports channels in the group: Sky Sports News and Sky Sports Xtra. The interactive features were the most appealing and newest at the time when the digital system was introduced, meaning that the viewers could choose the camera they viewed during matches. The concept became very popular afterwards for other sports too, being known as Sky Sports Active. Among the sports events added on the broadcasting list we can name horse racing and cricket. The monopole for the Premier Football League was broken in 2007 when Sentana Sports, an Irish network, also got the rights to broadcast it, together with Sky Sports.
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