Looks like Premier are re-running some of the NRL games from last season at 6am for at least a couple of days this week

Well you can watch Premier Sports on Virgin TV Anywhere on your PC so I assume that achieves the same thing?

USE THE ONLINE PLAYER, you can re-watch every game from every round plus the state of origin, city v country and the Aus v NZ games as well

I'm new to virgin and didn't know about the anywhere thing, so that clears that up, Thanks.

Nigel Wood had no say in the matter...the rights were sold to IMG, who in turn sold them on to broadcasters. Sky weren't prepared to pay what was asked......by the time IMG went back to Sky, Murdoch had spent his money elsewhere........Premier TV is a niche station with less than 10,000 subscribers......other than 3 games so far, the general British public are unaware the comp is happening.....at least on SKY they would have advertised it to sports fans.


First weeks BARB figures are up....BT Sport got as low as 12,000 for a show, but Premier still don't register on the BARB radar. Sky meanwhile apparently managed to get 571K for the Twickenham match......as opposed to 371k which is what they got for the 2011 4 nations Final.....how having these games on the UK version of access TV as opposed to a sports channel with millions of subscribers is a good thing I will never know.

I have to say, I am enjoying Premiers commentary for the games they have, but I would be stunned if they had the cash/intention to pick up SL.......they would need about 160,000 subscribers to be able to afford the current deal....and the last time they played with the big boys, it didn't end well!

GF dont put WireFanatic III down with fact he is here to provide the positive spin no matter what the facts are. 10k v 160k its nothing. Thats a sustainable model!

When do we need to cancel to avoid going over the 2 month subscription?

that isnt what happened. Sky has more than enough money to spend on the RL world cup.

Premier have no where near the cash to buy SL. BT Sport has done worse than 12k. They have had programmes so lowly rated as to not register.

The two issues you mentioned are linked. Sky wouldnt buy the RLWC because the big games were given to the BBC, they werent interested in buying the 2nd level games. Having it on the BBC gave us access to the 7 million people who have watched the games screened on the BBC, as well as the secondary work they have done promoting the game on one of the worlds biggest news-sites.

we traded the 2nd level games access to a few hundred thousand sky sports fans, for the biggest games getting access to millions on FTA, not only in this WC, but in the next one, as well as the next two autumn tournaments. The fact that 5 out of 6 years will see top level international Rugby League, on the biggest broadcaster in the country, free to everyone, is absolutely brilliant.

It used to be 30 days notice to cancel

As far as I'm aware BARB is an organisation funded by certain TV channel contributors (eg. BBC, ITV, Sky) to capture their TV ratings.

As Premier Sports isn't owned by Sky, and simply broadcasts through the Sky network (with direct subscription to Premier rather than through Sky), they may chose not to be represented on BARB, rather than the assumption that their figures are so low they don't register.

e.g. last time I looked MUTV didn't appear on BARB either (and before you say it, MUTV use to be part owned by Sky & ITV but isn't anymore). Virgin Media dedicated channels don't seem to appear on BARB either, albeit have ~6m subscribers.

premier sports has less than 10k subscribers?



agree with you about the 3 games that have been on so far...apart from these the public are unaware ... shame really as the ones that are have been spoilt!