WWE Planning Highlights Show On Free UK TV

Ahead of their move to BT Sports, WWE is searching for a free-to-air broadcaster.

Jun 28, 2019 June 28th, 2019

For UK wrestling fans, it’s going to be strange not to find WWE content housed on Sky Sports once 2020 comes around. With Vince McMahon’s wrestling behemoth officially signed up for a move to BT Sports in the future, now comes a new piece of information on WWE material potentially being made available elsewhere for UK audiences.

In a report from SportBusiness Media, it’s claimed that WWE is actively in talks with free-to-air UK broadcasters about finding a home for a highlights offering. Sky Sports is a paid subscription service, as is BT Sports, and the WWE has not provided UK household with free programming for nearly 20 years now.

Back in 1999, Channel 4 agreed a deal to air the then-WWF’s weekly Sunday Night Heat show and four PPVs a year. Despite the WWE’s huge popularity at the time, Channel 4 would decide against renewing this deal only a year later; all WWE content finishing up on the channel in 2001.

Given how All Elite Wrestling’s upcoming weekly TV product will be available for free on ITV4, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that this has come played a part in WWE's thinking. If AEW is aired on free TV, yet WWE is behind the paywall of Sky Sports and then BT Sports, that instantly gives AEW one-up on WWE in terms of how many households their product is available to.

After airing on Sky Sports for nearly 30 years, WWE will move to BT Sports in January 2020.

Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.

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