Setanta Sports News launch date confirmed.

Just a few days ago I reported that Setanta Sports News would be added to the BARB figures on November 29th. Now, Digital Spy are reporting that November 29th has been cofirmed by Setanta and Virgin Media as the official launch date for the ITN-produced station.

The channel promises headlines every 20 minutes and will launch on Virgin Media channel 518 and on free-to-air digital satellite. No idea yet about position on the Sky EPG.

This promises to be a major new addition, and the possibility of this channel coming to Freeview remains very strong in my honest opinion. This is the first new sports news channel since EuroSport 2 replaced EuroSport News on the Sky platform. Contray to popular belief, EuroSport News didn't close, and continues to air in Asia and Australia. Indeed the news broadcasts on EuroSport 2 are simply relayed from EuroSport News, with branding changed as required. Perhaps this might cause EuroSport to reconsider bringing EuroSport News back to the UK and European markets, especially since EuroSport 2 is using less and less news coverage these days and providing more programming of its own.

ABC News Now, will come to the UK.

Digital Spy reports that ABC News Now, the US news channel from Disney, will launch in the UK within the next 6 months.

What ABC News Now does which is different to what other news channels do, is that they have 5 minute News Briefs every half hour, with feature programming between times. ABC News Now also airs an extra hour of Good Morning America at 9am Eastern, which doesn't air on the terrestrial network, plus it also airs the World News Webcast live at 3pm Eastern Time. They break away from the recorded programming for Breaking News and Live News Events as warranted.

Looking forward to this arriving on digital satellite, as it will provide an alternative American view to the one put forward by Fox News Channel. I would love to see MSNBC and CNN domestic over here as well, but I think that increasingly unlikely to ever happen.

A new Knight Rider!

Digital Spy have reported that a new lead has been cast for a re-imagining of Knight Rider,which will be a 2-hour TV movie, airing on NBC in the US.

If you remember Knight Rider, it starred David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight and William Daniels as the vocie of KITT, the supercar that accompanied Michael on his adventures. There was a spin off movie as well, Knight Rider 2000. I would like to see this, but I am always sceptical about producers bringing back ideas like this. Sometimes it works, and sometimes, it falls flat as a pancake. I sincerely hope it doesn't.