Later in the year, Sky 3D will offer a range of movies, sport, documentaries, entertainment and arts content.
For over 40 years, viewers have watched an average of over three and a half hours of TV a day - a mixture of drama, comedy, news, sport, documentaries, and general entertainment - mostly to relax, in the evening, in the living room, with other family members.
Showtime executives would not reveal how much they are investing in sport documentaries, but the programs' value is clear.
"Knuckleball!" would be a first-rate sports documentary in any season.
And yet Last Chance U might be the best sports documentary series I have ever seen.
Yesterday, SFX also acquired Black Canyon Productions, the renowned sports documentary producer, which has won three Peabody Awards and three Sports Emmy Awards.
Mr. James, whose "Hoop Dreams" may be the best sports documentary ever made, is motivated by a fan's devotion as well as a journalist's skepticism.
"Every sports documentary on HBO or ESPN is a story that happened in the past," said Radovich, whose crew, including five editors, will probably work nearly until the documentary has its premiere Monday night at the Museum of Modern Art.
Through the end of 2010, ESPN will try to shift the tectonic plates in the sports documentary business, as it has in so many other segments of sports, and carry the equivalent of six or seven years' worth of HBO's sports documentary output.
It shares another trait with this year's festival selections: it uses the sports documentary as a vehicle to portray a culture in which athletics is the expression of a shared heritage or worldview.
In late April comes the release of TT3D: Closer to the Edge, the world's first full-length 3D sports documentary, which tells of the 2010 edition of the infamous Isle of Man Tourist Trophy motorbike race.
