24 Hour Olympic Legacy TV Channel Set to Launch

A 24-hour Olympic sports channel is set to launch shortly after London 2012 and will feature coverage of minority sports.

London Legacy is set to be available to BskyB’s satellite TV customers around November and will focus on sports such as judo, symptoms gymnastics, ailment wrestling, ailment cycling, athletics and fencing.

The channel will be launched by independent TV production company Highflyer and hopes to achieve a wider distribution network in the future.

John Fairley, chairman of Highflyer Group, said there was an “enormous opportunity” in the wake of the Olympics, to showcase niche sports.

Fairley added: “The amount on athletics on the main channels has been very small, especially when you think of all the disciplines within athletics, but the Games has changed all that.

“We have had two or three companies, including one Olympic sponsor, make very serious undertakings [to back the channel] in the last week. The Games have changed all that.”

The Games in London has put a number of sports not normally in the spot light, into people’s homes and sports such as Handball have seen an increase in participants and Fairley believes the channel will be popular.

“The number of participants in these sports is already very high. A sport like judo has more than 40,000 [in the UK], many of them women and many of those under 16.

“There is this enormous opportunity and no sign that any of the main broadcasters is going to pick it up and run with it.”

The launch of the channel will cost approximately £5.5m.