Winnie_20, Welcome to Golden Skate! Post long and often
And that is a good question. It might have something to do that Eurosport in different countries carry different things, but all use the same search database?
The assumption would be that my process as a TV watcher would be:
1. When is that figure skating on?
2. The search function says Wedsnesday at 5 pm.
3. Check my local Eurosport listings. Snooker.
4. Rats. Snookered again
5. Check Russian Eurosport for Wednesday AHH! There it is. Now how do I get it..
Each Eurosport website has a different search database. This can be seen by searching for "skating" on British Eurosport's website, and comparing their results to the results for the same search on any other Eurosport website:
British will have a couple of skating programmes on Eurosport 1. All the other Eurosport variations will only have skating programmes on Eurosport 2.
I had to go through 4 different websites to construct the list that I posted yesterday:
http://tv.eurosport.com/ (for International's schedule)
http://tv.eurosport.de/ (for Deutschland's schedule)
http://tv.eurosport.fr/ (for France's schedule)
http://tv.eurosport.co.uk/ (for British's schedule)
In each case, I used the search facility to get the start times, and then went through each day to get the finish times, and check had anything been missed out. It was very time consuming, and I know fine well that what is actually broadcast will be totally different to what is on my list. But, it is better to have a rough guide to when something might be on than just going in completely blind.
Before the Europeans, I did look up Eurosport Russia's schedule ( http://tv.eurosport.ru/ ). But, when I saw it was in Cyrillic, I thought "Ah, this is going to be too complicated to find the skating. I'll just stick with doing 4 schedules."
Usually, International, Deutschland and France have the same schedule. I've never watched ESP France, so I don't know how much they derivate from the published schedule.
On the other hand, I have watched ESP Deutschland quite a lot over the years, as ESP1 Deutschland is Free-To-Air on satellite. ESP Deutschland quite frequently gives priority to LIVE Handball (what?!) matches (as opposed to the highlights being shown on International) over what is being shown on the International schedule. And, as Winnie_20 says, live Bundesliga matches.
British is usually totally different to International. And I hate that!
When Setanta GB closed down a few years back, British Eurosport bought the British rights to a lot of sports they showed. It was mostly stuff that Eurosport never showed before, like cricket. However, Eurosport does not have the pan-European rights to these sports. So, British gives them priority over whatever is being shown on International.
The result is us British Eurosport viewers are missing out on a lot of stuff that is being shown on Eurosport International. Take ski jumping: British Eurosport has NEVER shown the Men's Summer Grand Prix series or the Ladies World Cup competitions live. We have got highlights of a few of the competitions, but not many.
And, for the figure skating, we usually get a lot less coverage than our counterparts on the continent get.
I don't know if there is a particular reason why, but on British Eurosport this winter, biathlon and the bobsleigh-type sports (luge, skeleton, etc.) have been getting priority over other wintersports that are being shown on International.
Also, whenever there has been snooker on this season, whereas other versions of Eurosport have left it to go to other sports (eg. ski jumping), British Eurosport has tended to stay with the snooker. As I snooker fan in the UK, I'm not complaining as I can watch the other sport on the computer and record the snooker on the TV. But, it must be very annoying for those continental snooker fans who do not have access to British Eurosport on the computer.
One thing that really winds me up is when you are watching something on, say, ESP2 and then the commentator suddenly announces that it is about to switch to ESP1! Or vice-versa. If you are recording it to watch later, it means that you miss the end of it. That has happened to me plenty of times with the snooker.
I have long believed that to get rid of all this variation and confusion, Eurosport needs to become a 3-channel network:-
Eurosport International 1: a multi-soundtrack, single-video, Free-to-air channel showing sports ESP has pan-European rights to. (Teleshopping when off-air overnight). Can be viewed continent-wide.
Eurosport International 2: a multi-soundtrack, single-video, Free-to-air channel showing sports ESP has pan-European rights to. (Teleshopping when off-air overnight). Can be viewed continent-wide.
Eurosport National (known as ESP France, ESP Deutschland, British ESP, etc. in respective countries): a collection of single-soundtrack, single-video, subscription channels showing sports ESP only has national rights to (eg. MotoGP in UK and Fr; cricket in UK; Bundesliga in De; rugby in Fr). (Eurosport News when off-air overnight). Each channel can only be viewed in its designated country.
Also, if there is an extra channel, there will be less need for the powers-that-be to switch a programme from one channel to another!
CaroLiza_fan
PS. You can usually get Eurosport Russia on http://livetv.ru/en