While the Fox Soccer Channel HD saga has more twists and turns than a well crafted thriller, one storyline that we know the ending to is that you won’t see Fox Soccer Report in HD anytime soon.
Fox Soccer Report (FSR) is a nightly news program that airs on Fox Soccer Channel. Recorded and produced in Winnipeg, Canada, FSR is sold to Fox Soccer Channel through Fox Sports World Canada and Canwest Global Communications.
However, Canwest Global Communications is going through significant financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy protection this past October. So if and when Fox Soccer Report is transmitted in HD, it’ll be when Canwest says so and that doesn’t appear to be likely anytime soon a source close to Fox Soccer Report confirmed to EPL Talk on Saturday. Upgrading its channel from SD to HD is the least of Canwest’s worries.
The source revealed that the earliest date when the Canwest transmitters will be upgraded to digital will be the Fall of 2011.
The frustrating aspect of the story is that Fox Soccer Report has been broadcasting in HD since the Fall of 2000, but because the transmitter is analog and not digital, the signal is downgraded to SD as it leaves the building. The whole show is shot with HD cameras.
Sadly, for soccer fans who are drooling at the prospect of seeing Fox Soccer Report anchors Terri Leigh and Lara Baldesarra in HD anytime soon, you will need to be patient.
Gaffer, is this the scoop about Fox Football Channel that you were going to tell us this morning?
Yes, but there may be additional FSC-related news becoming available later today.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
Gaffer,
You’re the tops mate! But I don’t care about watching the girls in HD; I want to watch my BOYS running up and down the pitch in crystal-clear HD! Come on DirecTV, get your stuff together!
I will be on the site all day at work waiting for breaking news!
Any news on the additional FSC-related news yet?
Gaffer,
Is this a normal practice? Does Sky Sport News or ESPN Sports Center have to be produced by “third parties”? It seems a bit shambolic that FSC’s flagship news report has to be done in this manner. Is Murdoch really that cheap…Blimey, at this rate we’ll never see HD on Comcast.
man99utd, it’s relatively common. Arsenal TV was produced by Setanta Sports. Setanta Sports News was produced by, I believe, Sky Sports, and so on. For Fox, it’s much cheaper and efficient to buy the Fox Soccer Report from the crew in Canada than to build it in LA (hiring talent and production crew, etc).
Cheers,
The Gaffer
Setanta Sports News was produced by ITN (Independent Television News, or ITV News).
That’s right! Thanks Jeff.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
Great news! MY girlfriend is a hairstylist here in Los Angeles, her recent client works for Direct Tv, in the Sports programming Dept. & had just recently left a meeting (according to him, 1 of MANY concerning Setanta & FSC+) He says the channels will be up and running in a VERY short matter of time! He mentioned that non-stop calls regarding the channels prompted various meetings and quick response.
FSC HD on February 10th, FSC Plus HD in March.
ESPN keeps everything in house now with the exception of a few popular shows like Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption (which is why those shows aren’t in HD yet either). Very few big networks do this now but you’ll still see it done.
I think it’s time for FSC to invest in producing their own nightly highlight show or at the very least, more “live” programming. After a major American sports championship final, ESPN will have extensive post game coverage and reaction even if they don’t carry the game. After any cup final, FSC is showing a repeat of Dream Team. If they really wanna be the be all and end all of soccer coverage in this country, it’s about time they parade Terri Leigh in HD after a game.
Dont care to much about Fox Soccer Report being in HD. I dont care much for the show…way to much sarcasm and to anoying. But on the other hand at least you will be able to watch all the highlights of the day.
The sarcasm is what makes the show amazing.
It’s a terrible show.
I miss Mitch Peacock.
CanWest’s newspaper division is being auctioned off this month by some of its creditors. Also, Canada’s digital tv transition set the end of August 2011 as the cut-off time for analog transmission, so I think that source is basically saying that CanWest won’t upgrade that antenna used by FSR until they legally have to.
Who watches this terrible review show anyway? These two broadcasters are terrible, and I’m sure they are somehow much worse watching them in HD. FSC needs to pickup “Match of the Day” from the BBC to make any real competition for my viewership… else I’m just going to wait and watch the excellent MOTD program on the internet.
Now that’s an idea.
Either pickup Match Of The Day or create a weekly highlights show themselves.
We already have the Premier League Review Show. And even that, FSC messed that up by not airing it this week.
What FSR needs is better anchors.
I can confirm what Gaffer reports as I was just watching the FSC HD distro feed and FSR was upscaled from the 4:3 SD feed
i’m beginning to realise that fox is just a hot mess when it comes to operating their channel.
Seems par for the course with this launch…..
No saga for me … no HD. Carry on.
if Fox had any intelligence they would broadcast on their affliate stations in HD, since nothing’s shown in the wee morning hours. Weekends–at least on the West Coast–should have games broadcast on their main FoxHD channel, FSWHD, and FSW2HD. That would be at least 3 matches in HD. I really hope ESPN just buys all the rights.
The same people that b!tch and moan about FSR are the same idiots that would complain ‘why doesn’t FSC have a North American-based news show’ if the show didn’t even exist. STFU.
It’s not perfect and the production values are not overly slick – but they have a couple of fantastic talents (Jeremy, Bobby, Terri Leigh) who seem to have a passion for what they do – and they manage to get hilites that not even Sky Sports can pull in.
If you don’t like, don’t watch, don’t complain.
Simple.
I pay an extra 15 a month on DTV to have FSC. Dont tell me or anyone else that we shouldnt be able to complain. We pay our share to watch FSC and expect decent coverage.
I’d be satisfied with Lara, a professional speaker of words, pronouncing names correctly.
To see this subject beat to death and then some:
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1304522
If you’re trying to tell me you DON’T get decent coverage of the world’s game on FSR, you’re on frakkin’ glue dude.
As I said – they cover the game better than Sky does some nights. And at leastw e don’t have to put up with horse racing, dog raving and all that crap.
If FSC is so bad, go to GolTV – THEN we’ll see how much of a whiner you REALLY are.
I enjoy the horse racing and darts coverage…..
stop the name calling man…
FSR is what it is–not good news, but a great place to see highlights of all EPL games and most major European league games in one short segment.
Lara Baldesarra, on the other hand, is the biggest disaster in sports broadcasting. She can’t pronounce the players’ names and doesn’t know how to read cue cards. No, no, no.
Turned it off this morning (Wed. 17th) 1 uninformed little girl presenting is bad enough but 2 chirping away is more than I can stand. Add in some guy who doesnt have any knowledge of the game trying to deliberate with somebody that obviously does ( McMahon) is just painful. Bobby is visibly embarrassed by him.
Poor quality show and getting worse obviouly !
So … are we ever going to write about the Lara Baldaserra debacle? She’s fast becoming the Emmitt Smith or Tim Hardaway of the channel – and that’s hard considering Nabil Karim is there but even he is getting better.
So, I was just watching FSR and remembered this article. I was going to ask two of the FSR anchors, Jeremy St Louis and Terri Leigh, about if they have any updates regarding FSR in HD but surprisingly, both their Twitter accounts appear to have been deleted.
Odd…? Only active FSR anchor left on there seems to be Lara Baldesarra. I wonder what happened, both accounts were still there a week ago.
I followed Leigh starting about 3 weeks ago but she didn’t really post too much soccer news, whereas Lara does. She’s awesome with it-she’ll find the links of someone trying to put a hat on the cup before its taken down from youtube. I’m not sure about JSL since I never followed him. OH, and you forgot DerekTaylorFSR!
My guess, if they are truly deleted and it’s not some twitter hijacking thing yet to be resolved, is that perhaps it was a trial at FSR and some didn’t like it and others did. If so, it is better (from the FSR perspective) to delete than to leave up dead accounts.
referring to this tweet from Derek:
http://twitter.com/DerekTaylorFSR/status/18153848396
@jrstlouis @EOCallaghanFSR accounts have either been renamed or are no longer there
@terrileighfsr has been suspensed ???
and of course @DerekTaylorFSR and @larabaldesarra (as well as @k_kosie) are still active. Derek recently got back from vacation in Vegas according to his tweet stream.
Just double checked and @EOCallaghanFSR should be @EoinOCallaghan