Good viewing figures for Khan

Old bones Ian · Post by **Old bones Ian** » 16 May 2005, 16:35

6.9 million viewers tuned in to watch Khans bout with Kindalen, thats good figures, it might make ITV think about showing more boxing.

Warrens contract with Sky ends after the Hatton fight, and rumour has it that he's looking to put the Skelton v Williams fight on ITV, Khan would be on the undercard.

dve3333 · Post by **dve3333** » 16 May 2005, 16:41

Sweet I would say he will go to ITV. When you think about it all of Warren's main players were on the programme Hatton, Calzaghe and now Khan it makes more financial and mainstream sense for Warren especially now that Sky are scaling down their own coverage. I think the last straw for Warren was the switch to Friday night which has led to more empty seats

KOJOE90 · Post by **KOJOE90** » 16 May 2005, 16:42

As much as I would like to see Boxing return to ITV one of my concerns is how many undercard fights will they show? If they only allocate a one hour time slot, take away adverts and studio chat etc that leaves 40 minutes of Boxing?

Glad the Khan fight got good figures though.

Chopping Right · Post by **Chopping Right** » 16 May 2005, 16:47

KOJOE90 wrote:As much as I would like to see Boxing return to ITV one of my concerns is how many undercard fights will they show? If they only allocate a one hour time slot, take away adverts and studio chat etc that leaves 40 minutes of Boxing?

Glad the Khan fight got good figures though.

I totally agree. Although BBC and ITV coverage is great for the sport it's bad news for hardcore fans if it takes them off Sky. Only Sky have the dedicated sports channels to give 2 hours of coverage per card and things like "Ringside".

It's a bloody shame Sky have lost so much interest in boxing. I blame the promoters for turning out so many turn-off mismatches these last few years and not letting the fights we want to see happen. Look at the (lack of) match-up in the light-middle division when that was on fire in the UK a couple of years ago. But then again Sky let them, I can't imagine HBO letting that happen. They demand good fights, pay big dollars and they "magically" happen.

josh fg · Post by **josh fg** » 16 May 2005, 16:49

dve3333 wrote:Sweet I would say he will go to ITV. When you think about it all of Warren's main players were on the programme Hatton, Calzaghe and now Khan it makes more financial and mainstream sense for Warren especially now that Sky are scaling down their own coverage. I think the last straw for Warren was the switch to Friday night which has led to more empty seats

Sky not showing the Viet fight wouldn't have gone down a treat eather. If ITV commit to getting back into boxing what do you think that will mean for Hennessy et al. Will there fighters be lined up on ITV shows or will they jump ship to Warren in order to get domestic TV coverage and money?

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 16 May 2005, 16:54

It will interesting to see what was the viewing figures throughout the show, did it dwindle at any stage.

steve689 · Post by **steve689** » 16 May 2005, 16:55

Some excellent points made, ITV having Boxing is good for the sport but i doubt it is good news for the hardcore fan, do you think SKY would continue with Boxing if Warren jumped ship?

josh fg · Post by **josh fg** » 16 May 2005, 16:59

steve689 wrote:Some excellent points made, ITV having Boxing is good for the sport but i doubt it is good news for the hardcore fan, do you think SKY would continue with Boxing if Warren jumped ship?

In terms of the make up of the contract I immagen Warren will still keep his right to do PPV on Sky, also Sky may get some forign fights still. For me it is only good news for boxing if more people see it what ever the coverage is like to be fair ITV will only be seen as an improvement by most when they had Match of the Day, F1, Champions League etc they were being compaired to other terrestreal broadcasters where as with this most people can't get sky coverage so they will not miss it so much.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 16 May 2005, 17:00

steve689 wrote:Some excellent points made, ITV having Boxing is good for the sport but i doubt it is good news for the hardcore fan, do you think SKY would continue with Boxing if Warren jumped ship?

Why cannot (and I'm mearly speculating here) the fight skool events be on a Friday on Sky and the big events (such as Williams vs Skelton) be on ITV on a Saturday.

Also, if there was an exclusive jump of ship (entirely) why cannot there be a continuation of the boxing on ITV 2 or ITV 3 (or ITV4 - designed for 25-35 men when it comes out) after the main event (or before).

KOJOE90 · Post by **KOJOE90** » 16 May 2005, 17:02

stujones wrote:Also, if there was an exclusive jump of ship (entirely) why cannot there be a continuation of the boxing on ITV 2 or ITV 3 (or ITV4 - designed for 25-35 men when it comes out) after the main event (or before).

Great idea.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 16 May 2005, 17:04

The Big fight live extra or something like that.

We do need though

Duh Duh Duh Deh Duuuuh du du du.

steve689 · Post by **steve689** » 16 May 2005, 17:07

KOJOE90 wrote:
stujones wrote:Also, if there was an exclusive jump of ship (entirely) why cannot there be a continuation of the boxing on ITV 2 or ITV 3 (or ITV4 - designed for 25-35 men when it comes out) after the main event (or before).
Great idea.

That is a good idea, the main event and razmatazz for the casual viewer and then a continuation of the undercard fights on ITV2 or ITV3

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 16 May 2005, 17:10

At the moment there is a definate need for two different days of boxing a week for Sports Network, whether it is on two different channels must be decided. I find it a tad confusing that Paul Dempsey has to say "this is part of the fight skool production - when it is not such an eye catching fight".

Last time it was on a different day with different titles and Michael Pass dressed in a headmasters uniform.

dve3333 · Post by **dve3333** » 16 May 2005, 17:17

steve689 wrote:Some excellent points made, ITV having Boxing is good for the sport but i doubt it is good news for the hardcore fan, do you think SKY would continue with Boxing if Warren jumped ship?

I looks like Sky are planning to focus more on coverage from the US

josh fg · Post by **josh fg** » 16 May 2005, 17:27

dve3333 wrote:
steve689 wrote:Some excellent points made, ITV having Boxing is good for the sport but i doubt it is good news for the hardcore fan, do you think SKY would continue with Boxing if Warren jumped ship?
I looks like Sky are planning to focus more on coverage from the US

Can't blame them after the shit they have had to put up with from Warren over the last few years.

Chopping Right · Post by **Chopping Right** » 16 May 2005, 18:12

josh fg wrote:
dve3333 wrote:
steve689 wrote:Some excellent points made, ITV having Boxing is good for the sport but i doubt it is good news for the hardcore fan, do you think SKY would continue with Boxing if Warren jumped ship?
I looks like Sky are planning to focus more on coverage from the US
Can't blame them after the shit they have had to put up with from Warren over the last few years.

LOL. But seriously Sky write the cheques, have they no balls to say something? It seems not.

split_decision · Post by **split_decision** » 16 May 2005, 18:22

So if Warren and his merry mismatches move to ITV would it not make perfect sense for Sky to pick up on the rest of the remaining talent in the UK? Hell it's not like there's a shortage. This year alone in Big fights they could have had Howard Eastman vs Hopkins, Witter vs Ndou, Woods vs Hoye, Froch vs Porras, and upcoming Reid vs Lacy. Froch vs Barney & Witter vs Kotelnik. With the talent available and some sky money backing them I have no doubt that Sky boxing could be better than ever. I may be mistaken but I can't recall a Warren show on sky this year coming anywhere close to being a "big show".

An exclusive deal with one promoter was always a ludicrous idea anyway. Imagine HBO signing exclusively with Bob Arum and missing out on all the Don King, Golden Boy etc shows. It's sheer stupidity. It should always be a case of "Bring us the fights, we pay you the money".

josh fg · Post by **josh fg** » 16 May 2005, 18:34

That could be good for boxing if there were two compeeting channels (Sky and ITV) and compeeting promoters (hennessy, SN, Fight Acadamy etc) then the quality on both fronts would go up.

On the other hand it may curtail bidding for fights as they may not be able to rely on Television money.

Freiheit · Post by **Freiheit** » 16 May 2005, 19:05

Speaking of viewing figures, Calzaghe vs Veit 2 only had 3,43 million viewers on ZDF which is kind of disappointing for ZDF.

Twinkle Toes · Post by **Twinkle Toes** » 17 May 2005, 02:35

Chopping right wrote:
LOL. But seriously Sky write the cheques, have they no balls to say something? It seems not.

This is only my own take on the situation, but I figure that SKY and their current contract with SN had the insistence of titles being at stake.

We all know SN can't deliver respectable title fights on a regular basis, hence the massive influx of spurious titles being shown on SKY.

Even fight skool had to have a title at stake for the main headline i.e the English title.

It's a total farce, and I believe SKY are a little more street wise this time around.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 17 May 2005, 03:48

It was suggested that this was the case (speculation and opinion here!) Twinkle Toes when Warren stated that Sky wouldn't permit Calzaghe vs Magee being a non-title fight.

Although, they did have Magee vs Vester on the undercard which had a title on the line.

Coconut · Post by **Coconut** » 17 May 2005, 04:34

Warren can't put mismatches on ITV. 6.9 million is decent, but this one was hyped to bvggery and had a name that most people knew, plus a large captive Pakistani audience. In light of that it could even be slightly disappointing for a Saturday night, although I realise that this isn't the peak slot...

Warren's on a trick with SKY. SKY show ruddy everything - they've four sports channels to fill which is why there's dog racing, aerobics, windsurfing, etc on air all the time. How many times do you flick through the sports channels and are genuinely spoilt for choice? Not often for me, and I'll watch anything.

Basically SKY will stomach AN Prospect fighting EZ Slavic-Journeyman because dickheads like us will watch anything with boxing gloves on. However, the incremental audience should these shows move to ITV is not that big at all. I doubt you'd get over 3 million for Skelton - Williams. If Calzaghe - Lacy was on ITV, you'd get about the same. Kevin Mitchell? Kevin Who?

Warren's suffering because his names aren't big in the UK any more, with the exception of Calzaghe, whose rep was built initially off Chris Eubank, a former ITV fighter, and Hatton, who's become something of a phenomenon and for whatever reason is one guy that even non-boxing fans seems to know about. If he moves his stable back to ITV then he's got to build his audience again, and the momentum went within a couple of years of him being at SKY. Where are the new fans now? As far as I can see, Khan is the only one who could become a viable terrestrial fighter now, having become a star on terrestrial and known by millions, he is just about the only natural avenue into sufficient numbers of TV sets for Sports Network at the moment.

Basically, the public isn't going to tune in to watch talented guys blast out nobodies. Every match has to be a corker. Otherwise the public and, de facto, ITV, aren't going to want to know. Viewers are way more fickle than they were ten years ago.

On top of which Warren can't just take his top 4 or 5 guys over to ITV - SKY would be mightily annoyed. Then where does the exposure for guys like Mitchell come? Having the supporting bouts on another channel may make some sense but practically you'll get more people watching a 2-hour show with undercard than you will tuning in to the undercard when they know the main event starts at a certain time on another channel.

Fundamentally, if Warren does move to ITV then he has to do something to keep punters well interested for a long time and boxing in general will struggle to do that now. If he stays with SKY then he retains his captive audience, PPVs are easy to sort as and when the come along, and his stable ensures a certain longevity that comes from not beiing in wars every other week

dve3333 · Post by **dve3333** » 17 May 2005, 04:55

I think Skelton - Williams would do well on ITV providing it was hyped properly as a quality old school British Heavyweight fight add the way Khan is having his debut and it should get good ratings

KOJOE90 · Post by **KOJOE90** » 17 May 2005, 12:15

If live Boxing is moved to ITV then it is vital that it has a good advertising campaign like the Khan fight did.

Bard of Boxrec · Post by **Bard of Boxrec** » 17 May 2005, 12:37

if ITV broadcast Khan's first few fights it'll be the audley harrison'why can't he fight lennox lewis' fiasco all over again.

Casual viewer tunes in expecting Khan contending for a world title

'didn't khan win silver at the olympics, everyone's talking about him, so why can't he fight for the world title?'

Gets confused when Khan knocks over 'opponent' 'But I thought this was a big fight'

Next time:

'OK so I've read in the paper that his first fight was for confidence (But if he's that good why can't he fight for the world title). So now he'll be ready, who's the champion, what division is this?'

Gets even more confused with khan taken a couple of rounds by bloated stayer.

Loses interest. Forgets about Khan.