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Sports Event Previews on Ch 861. For better or worse.....
As you know, we did a Cheltenham Preview on Channel 861 earlier in the week.
Not everyone thought it was a good idea, but most seemed to agree, & after the Show, we had good feedback.
So, the experiment, or trial/pilots will continue, & two more have been scheduled. I believe the plan is to have two guests in each case.
The first will be on Tuesday 2nd April, to preview the Grand National Meeting, which starts on the Thursday, with the big race on the Saturday. Jules Sowa will be the Presenter.
The second one will be the following Tuesday, to preview The US Masters Golf, which starts on the Thursday, & for this, Rich Orford gets the gig.
Enjoy, or look away now. Delete as appropriate.
As you know, next week, Sky Poker will be running some special Freerolls & Timed Tourneys to coincide with the Cheltenham Fessie, & I'm hopeful that they will do something similar for The Grand National, & maybe even the US Masters.
Comments
Regardless of whether I had a personal interest in Cheltenham (very well put together show btw, I thought Jules, Tikay and Shiners did a very good good), I think this is a very good idea provided it is used for big events. Poker players in general have some interest in either other sports or sports betting, at least the poker players central to SkyPoker's demographic (in other words not 20 table STT grinders who don't know what daylight looks like, people who enjoy a game of cards and a punt).
For things like The Gold Cup, National, Masters and other banner events such as Superbowl, FA Cup final, Wimbledon, The Derby it's great. Freshens up the programming and provided you get a guest key to either Sports Betting or the sport in question I think it really can work.
I do not want it to become a weekly (or even fortnightly) thing though and I think some lessons can be learnt from the old Chatbox programme. During big poker events or incidences like Black Friday or Epic Poker, Chatbox was great. The problem was during lulls in events there was no news other than 'Man wins Poker Tournament' which was really dry and could be dull through no fault of either presenters or production.
There are plenty of big Sporting events but not one every week, do it as specials and keep the fresh feel to it. Don't force it down to less popular events like Rugby League World Cup (sorry RL fans, I like it but the popular appeal isn't high) etc to maintain the unique and 'treat' feel of it. Also a relevant guest is a must IMO, as exceptional as James and Stapes were on the show last night (and they really were IMO) if they end up on the Rota for say a FA Cup special without a guest in, I think there'd be a tad too much bluffing about the subject.
I don't see much of a need to make a fuss over it but don't proceed on the false assumption that, because few people complained, it was an unqualified success.
The only thing I would say is that 100% of people tuning into Sky Poker want to watch a programme about poker. If the proportion of those people who continue to watch through the racing, golf, football, etc hour is anything less than 100%, then you are necessarily losing viewers. One thing is for sure: Nobody with an interest in horse racing is going to search for horse racing programming on a channel called Sky Poker. So this will certainly not add to the viewing figures.
I was under no illusions that this would be a one-off event anyway. I'll just watch or do something else for that hour... so it's a great chance for presenters and analysts to say what they really think about me.
Spot on Tommy, you must have been in the Meeting.
By sheer chance, three such opportunities have arisen close together, but even if the trial is deemed a success, I don't see Ch 861 doing more than 5 or 6 of these per annum. To give up a dozen or so hours of poker Programming per year does not seem too onerous to me, especially as no other UK & Ireland facing poker Site even has a TV Channel.
I would envisage things such as the Football World Cup, Olympics, Wimbledon, The Open, Superbowl, that sort of thing.
There will always be relevant guests.
There have been internal discussions about some sort of "Chatbox" Variant, too, & the point you make was noted.
We shall see.
The TV Channel MUST keep trying to appeal to a wider audience.
Don't forget that there are ways of measuring what financial impact it had on the Business.
And if it helps pay it's way, I'm all for it. You would have to ask yourself why other online poker sites do not bear the expense of a TV Channel. They cost a ton of money. Any way to dissipate that cost gets my vote, because it helps secure the future of the Channel.
Your view is respected, of course, but it is also acknowledged that Abraham Lincoln got it right.
I completely accept that business decisions will be driven by financial considerations and if there's something the channel can do to improve the finances of the business, that's what will be done.
However, the reality is that the channel is named "SkyPoker.com". It's not something that will attract a wider audience by targetting racing fans because racing fans aren't going to have heard of it if they aren't already poker fans. This is especially the case if, as planned, these shows only happen a few times a year, as non-poker fans simply won't know they're happening.
So it doesn't attract any new viewers and drives some existing viewers away (briefly). If the channel were to be renamed to something like "Sky Poker and Betting" that would be a reasonable step in the direction that the business seems to be taking; trying to draw in those non-poker viewers. Retaining the "Sky Poker" moniker would seem to defeat the purpose of introducing these new shows, regardless of whether the feeling is that the majority of poker players like sports betting.
If Sky Poker isn't maintaining its own channel on the back of poker alone, then clearly there's a good reason to expand into other things but how do you expand by retaining the Sky Poker name?
It seems a pretty half-hearted measure at the moment. It may encourage a small number of additional sports bets from those poker players already with an interest in such things but it's short of making a move to actually attract new viewers by broadening the appeal of the channel.
It's almost a certainty that a new poker player will, on April 2, turn onto a channel named "SkyPoker.com" for the first time and be confronted with a programme about 'orses. Regardless of anything else that can be said on the subject, that is indisputably silly. lol
I don't have any investment in this, so I don't particularly care if the channel is taken in that direction. The more sports shows on the channel, the less I will be watching the channel but I will still watch and play on Sky Poker. So from a business point of view I can't make an argument against the shows being added to the line-up if the channel were to target that wider audience by marketing itself as a betting channel. At the moment, that doesn't seem to be the plan.
That's the last I'll say on it, though.
That's even more weird, though. Football is something that's covered 24/7 on several channels. The idea that any football fan is going to choose At The Races' coverage is crackers. They'll only watch if they were going to watch the channel anyway.
The issue of new poker players tuning in at the wrong time was clearly a side point. Besides which, I don't view any of this as a major issue. These are just my opinions on it. I don't like the sports-betting shows and I don't think they make sense on a channel that is named specifically after poker. I don't really care, though.
if it is a sport i'm interested in,say for arguments sake 'Wimbledon' then i'll have a look.
if it's something like the'Superbowl' for example,i won't.
some will like the idea,some won't,it's that simple.
we all have a choice... take it or leave it,don't we.
if it attracts new viewers or possibly gives existing poker players a nudge in another direction for a gamble,then it's done it's job.
dev
And when Sporting Previews are on Ch 861, we can arrange for SkyBet & SkySports to cross tweet for us.
So, Sky Poker's Twitter Account has around 8,000 followers, the Sky Bet Twitter account has 74,000 Followers, & Sky Sports Twitter has aprox 1,250,000 Followers. And that is serious leverage - we can potentially reach 1,300,000 Folowers instead of 8,000. And this is just via Twitter, there is a bunch of other stuff which is along the same lines.
From that, it is very simple to see the business logic, & how it does attract additional & wider audience.
And SOME of those additional viewers will be attracted to the poker site. Others, generally poker specific, will be attracted to Sky Bet.
Everything is done for a reason, & whilst the Staff & Management here regularly get criticised for the decisions they make, it would be fair to say that they are probably better placed to make these judgements than most. Unless you know how much per annum a Bet/Vegas/Bingo or Poker Client is worth to the Business, (they are worth different sums to each leg of the business), then you cannot assess the potential benefit.
Anyway, we are talking about maybe 10 or 12 hours pa of non-poker Live Output out of a total of 750 hours pa of poker output, so around 1.5%, so I hardly think it is overly burdensome to "poker only" viewers.
Personally, I still think of it as a tremendous bonus that Sky Poker even has a TV channel. Not many sites do.