Launched 17 February 2012 Founded 2012 | Owner Fox Sports Pty Limited | |
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Slogan We're a FOX Sporting Nation Motto We're a FOX Sporting Nation TV shows Similar Fox Sports (Australia), Foxtel, Fox Sports News (Australia) Profiles | ||
Fox Footy (Stylised as FOX FOOTY) is an Australian rules football subscription television channel dedicated to screening Australian rules football matches and related programming. It is owned by Fox Sports Pty Limited, operated out of their Melbourne based studios and available throughout Australia on Foxtel, and Optus Television. The channel is a revival of the former Fox Footy Channel, which was in operation between 2002–2006. The channel recommenced prior to the 2012 AFL season after a new broadcast agreement was reached between the former Premier Media Group, Austar, Foxtel and the Australian Football League (AFL). Fox Footy is currently the most watched channel on Foxtel.
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The 2016 AFL Preliminary Final between Greater Western Sydney & the Western Bulldogs was the highest-rating AFL game ever on Foxtel, recording a national subscription TV figure of 560,000 viewers. It also became the 5th most watched program in Foxtel history.
Fox footy channel
History
It was announced on 28 April 2011 that the channel would be revived for the 2012 AFL season. The channel returned exclusively on Foxtel and its broadcasting partners, under the proposed new name of "Fox Sports AFL", which was later changed back to its original name "Fox Footy". The channel relaunched at 5:00 pm AEDT on Friday 17 February 2012 with the first NAB Cup round-robin match between Hawthorn, Richmond and North Melbourne.
Fox Footy has live broadcast rights to selected NAB Challenge matches, all home and away matches and all finals matches (except for the Grand Final which is screened exclusively on Seven). All matches are broadcast live to air in both Standard and High Definition with no commercial breaks during play. When two live matches are being played simultaneously, Fox Sports 3 broadcasts one of the matches.
From the start of the 2012 AFL season, Fox Footy had become the most watched Pay-TV network in Australia.
Personnel
Brian Taylor left the network at the end of the 2011 season to join the Seven Network. He was replaced by former Network Ten commentator Anthony Hudson. Coverage of certain matches including Friday nights and public holidays is picked up from the Seven Network, with commentators including Dennis Cometti, Bruce McAvaney and Matthew Richardson, amongst others. The pre-match and post-match show, and other regular segments such as 7 Plays in 7 Days, are removed from the Fox Footy broadcast (those segments only air on the original Seven broadcast), and the official Seven logo is concealed.