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As Setanta and BT join the Premier League party this season, fans of British football now have more ways than ever to watch football if they cannot travel to a game and it is not only on television, with action also available on websites and mobile phones.
But where and when you can you watch 'the beautiful game'? And how much does it all cost?
BBC
WHAT HAVE THEY GOT?
The BBC will continue to show Premier League highlights on Match of the Day on Saturday evenings (repeated on Sunday mornings) and MOTD2 on Sunday evenings.
In a new development this season, Match of the Day (on Saturday and Sunday) and MOTD2 will be broadcast simultaneously on the BBC Sport website (UK only).
The BBC also has first, third and fourth choice of live FA Cup ties from rounds three to six, first choice of the semi-finals and live coverage of the final.
England's home games will be shown live, including Euro 2008 qualifiers and the friendly against Germany on 22 August, and there will be highlights of all England's other games next season.
BBC Scotland will carry midweek highlights of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League, which will also be available on the BBC Sport website for up to seven days afterwards.
Viewers in Scotland can also catch the CIS Cup live, along with coverage of Scotland's Euro 2008 qualifiers, the Scottish Cup and selected European games.
HOW CAN I GET IT?
Via terrestrial or any freeview, cable or satellite package.
BT
WHAT HAVE THEY GOT?
BT Vision customers who sign up for the sport package will be able to watch 242 Premier League games on demand from 2200 on the evening of the game.
The package also includes 125 Football League and Carling Cup matches, available at midnight the day after the game.
HOW CAN I GET IT?
You must be a BT broadband customer to receive a BT Vision box, which combines Freeview and a digital recording facility. Then you need to sign up for the sport package (£4 a month) or you can buy games on a one-off basis (£1.99).
CLUB CHANNELS/WEBSITES
WHAT HAVE THEY GOT?
Chelsea TV, MUTV, Liverpool TV (which launches in September), Celtic TV and Rangers TV have coverage of a host of their league and cup matches in delay.
Most official club websites offer either full games in delay or highlights for a subscription fee.
HOW CAN I GET IT?
Chelsea TV and MUTV are available for a separate subscription to Sky Digital and Virgin Media customers. Liverpool TV, Celtic TV and Rangers TV are included in the Setanta sports package.
FIVE
WHAT HAVE THEY GOT?
Five plans to show live Uefa Cup matches involving British teams as well as Major League Soccer live coverage and highlights in David Beckham's first season in Los Angeles.
HOW CAN I GET IT?
Via terrestrial or any freeview, cable or satellite package.
ITV
WHAT HAVE THEY GOT?
ITV is set to continue its Champions League coverage and will show two live matches on Tuesdays, as well as highlights, and will also cover the Uefa Cup live from the quarter-finals onwards.
All that is also available online, with a fee payable for the Champions League live action.
Domestically, ITV will show highlights of the Championship and the Carling Cup.
HOW CAN I GET IT?
Via terrestrial or any freeview, cable or satellite package.
SETANTA SPORTS
WHAT HAVE THEY GOT?
This season's newcomers will screen 46 Premier League games, including all 1715 kick-offs on a Saturday and many of those on a Monday night.
The channel, which has signed up Des Lynam as part of its team, has just revealed its first 19 live games, which include Manchester United v Sunderland and Newcastle v Tottenham.
It also offers 60 Scottish Premier League games, including every Old Firm derby, and 79 matches from the Blue Square Premier.
HOW CAN I GET IT?
Setanta is available to customers of Sky Digital, BT Vision, Virgin Media and Top Up TV as well as some viewers with Freeview. It costs from £8 a month. It comes free with Virgin Media's biggest package. You can also subscribe via broadband for £7.99 a month.
SKY SPORTS
WHAT HAVE THEY GOT?
Sky Sports' live coverage of the Premier League will include kick-offs on Sundays at 1600 and Saturdays at 1245.
It will also broadcast the majority of 1330 kick-offs on Sundays and some midweek evening and Bank Holiday games.
Its domestic coverage also includes highlights of a further 242 Premier Leagues games in delay via the red button, 70 live matches from the Football League and others from the FA Cup, Carling Cup, Scottish Cup, Johnstone's Paint Trophy and the end of season play-offs.
Sky Sports is also the place for all Champions League matches on Wednesday night and up to six on Tuesday.
It has all England's competitive away games and some away friendlies, along with coverage of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in Euro 2008 qualifying.
From this season, Sky's live Premier League matches will also be broadcast on mobile phones via Sky Mobile TV.
The broadcaster has also launched the 24-7 Football service, which offers, among other things, Premier League goal clips as games are ongoing (except between 1445 and 1715 on Saturdays) and post-match highlights of Premier League and Champions League matches.
HOW CAN I GET IT?
Sky Sports television is available through Sky Digital, Virgin Media and Tiscali TV, costing from £26 a month.
Sky Mobile TV is available to Vodafone and Orange customers for £5 a month. And 24-7 Football is available on the T-Mobile, 3 and O2 networks at £5 a month or on a clip-by-clip basis.
VIRGIN MEDIA
In another new development for this season, Virgin Media's website will offer free highlights from the Premier League and Football League.
They will be available in five-minute packages, usually from midnight on the day after the games.
The Football League highlights will also be available on Virgin mobile.
I saw that too on the BBC site.
There is also another way of watching via a pc, but I don't want to say just yet in case you (Det) disapprove. I'm pretty sure it can't be illegal, but you never know, I don't want to get you into any trouble.
Basically it involves streaming foreign television channels which own the rights to show the games and distribute them.
I hope it is legal because the sheer greed of Sky is getting on my wick and I would love to be able to help screw them over with peep power.
Anyway, yay or nay?
There is also another way of watching via a pc, but I don't want to say just yet in case you (Det) disapprove. I'm pretty sure it can't be illegal, but you never know, I don't want to get you into any trouble.
Basically it involves streaming foreign television channels which own the rights to show the games and distribute them.
I hope it is legal because the sheer greed of Sky is getting on my wick and I would love to be able to help screw them over with peep power.
Anyway, yay or nay?
I'm sure there are a few of us who will know all about the watching it on the PC route already. I'm sure it must be illegal though, otherwise a heck of a lot less people would be paying for live football matches through Sky. So while I agree with your notion about hoping Sky getting poked in the eye due to their greed and power hunger, I'd prefer links and such to these free feed sites not to happen.
The unfortunate thing about those live feeds through those systems, whether legal or not, is that they are mainly really poor quality, especially if it is a big match and there are loads of people connected to it.
I've signed up to Setanta Online for pre-season, as all the Sunderland pre-season games were/are shown on there, so for £7.99 I've got 4 matches live or nearly live and with pretty good quality full screen 600kb/s quality, but at the same time, have been able to watch any/every other match they've shown over this month, so to me that has been a right bargain.
while I agree with your notion about hoping Sky getting poked in the eye due to their greed and power hunger, I'd prefer links and such to these free feed sites not to happen.
It looks like we're going to have to buy Setana over here. Fox Soccer Channel tends to show the Sky games. We don't get the rest of the BBC (just BBCA).
Do any of you watch SkyHD? We love our HD! There is one MLS game each week in HD - very nice. We're supposed to get more HD channels soon, but I doubt that FSC will be on the list.
Do any of you watch SkyHD? We love our HD! There is one MLS game each week in HD - very nice. We're supposed to get more HD channels soon, but I doubt that FSC will be on the list.
Yeah HD has just dropped in price here for Sky customers, so probably more people will buy the tellies. There are HD versions of quite a few channels like BBC, Sky Sports, Sky 1 and documentary stuff like Discovery and National Geographic.
The problem I find is response time with TFT screens where you can still notice motion-blur on a hard kicked football for example.
I'm not totally sold on the product even though I bought into it.
would love to subscribe to the setanta channel for the rest of the live games, for the last 2 seasons ive bought the prem plus package, but setanta seems to work out more expensive and im struggling to pay other bills as it is. looks like ill be listening to the united matches shown on setanta on the radio instead
wrt sky hd, i have the hd tv, a hd dvd player but have yet to get the hd sky box. its not just the cost of the sky box, its also the extra subscription for the hd channels which i will struggle with. until that comes in free, like they did with sky+ eventually i will wait.
would love to subscribe to the setanta channel for the rest of the live games, for the last 2 seasons ive bought the prem plus package, but setanta seems to work out more expensive and im struggling to pay other bills as it is. looks like ill be listening to the united matches shown on setanta on the radio instead
wrt sky hd, i have the hd tv, a hd dvd player but have yet to get the hd sky box. its not just the cost of the sky box, its also the extra subscription for the hd channels which i will struggle with. until that comes in free, like they did with sky+ eventually i will wait.
PM Teflon and ask him how he does the live feed thing...
There's absolutely no need to be limited to just radio...
Believe me, it's what i'm going to be doing, as I can't afford extra subscription fees either and until told otherwise by some legal body, I am not aware of it being illegal and thus will continue to view that way.
Fox Soccer Channel had 4 Sky games and Setanta had 3 more (free preview weekend!). On DirecTV, FSC is part of a 30 channel package for $10/mo, but Setanta is separate at $15/mo. This is going to be a tough call - at least until the Wife misses a ManU game because it's on Setanta.
Oh well, we pay a lot more than that for the HD NFL games...
How To Watch Football For 2007/2008 Season
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