Screensport

Screensport was a pan-European sports television channel, broadcasting from 1984 until its merger with Euro-sport in 1993.

History
Screensport on 29th March 1984 by R Kennedy,, within a few months ABC and ESPN took a Minority Stake in Screen Sport, thus allowing ABC and ESPN to gained coverage of British sporting Events, with SceenSport gained Access to ABC sport coverage from around the world. By Late 1984 WH Smith Television Group brought 15% stake in the company.

The studios and transmissions facilities was controlled by Media Communications in Knutsford, near Manchester, with its administration office based in London. Apart from the American sport, the station had regular and weekly British speedway, Stock cars and sponer  the "[ScreenSport Supercup] in the 1985/86.  By 1985 the station started to expand it broadcasting area to included the Netherlands and Sweden, which resulted in new programmes and sport being introduced including "Ice speedway", "Dutch ice hockey" and "Motor sport"

WH Smith Era
The WH Smith Television Group took over the the operations and management when ABC and R Kennedy pulled out in January 1986, By the end of 1986, the station had lost £700'000, and no longer broadcast to Sweden which resulted in a lost of 100,000 customers. In December 1988 ESPN, increased its stake in the channel from 3.5% to 25.5% after purchasing share from Wh Smith for £4.4million.

By 1988 the channel had increased it sport content which allowed the channel to broadcast 18 hours adays schedule including Ice Hockey, Skiing, Golf, tennis Yachting. By 1989, Screensport was renamed The European Sports Network, while WH Smith Television group later renamed itself WHSTV.

The channel also began broadcasting on the Astra 1A satellite in 1989 following a move of its operations from the north of England to central London, after taking full control of "Molinare" (Televisiosn service Group) in May 1989 which helped Screensport to operated as one channel under four different names; Screensport in English, TV Sport in French, Sportkanal in German, and Sportnet in Dutch. In January 1993 Eurosport and Screensport propose a merger to provide one stop channel, as both channels made losses, with the hope a single channel would become financial profitable The merged took place on 1 March 1993.

EBU
In 1987 Screensport, filed with the Commission of the European Communities, alleging that the joint purchasing scheme for sporting events by Eurosport's former owners, Sky Television plc & the EBU violated the competition (antitrust) law rules of the Treaty of Rome. After provisions were made for non-members access to the programming, the Commission granted the EBU a five-year conditional exemption from the requirements of the competition rules.