Fuel TV
Launched	July 1, 2003 (2003-07-01)
Owned by	Fox Sports Media Group (News Corporation)
Picture format	720p (HDTV) 480i (SDTV/16:9 letterbox)
Slogan	The Most UFC, Motocross and Snowboarding on Television.
Country	United States
Language	English
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California
Sister channel(s)	Fox Sports Networks Speed Fox Soccer Fox Soccer Plus Fox College Sports Fox Deportes Big Ten Network
Website	www.fuel.tv
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV	Channel 618 (HD/SD) Channel 1618 (VOD)
Dish Network	Channel 398 (SD)
TopTV (South Africa)	Channel 225
Cable
Available on some cable providers	Check local listings
Verizon FiOS	Channel 198 (SD)
IPTV
AT&T U-verse	Channel 651 (SD)
Vodafone Casa TV (Portugal)	Channel 71

Fuel TV is an American sports-oriented cable and satellite television channel that focuses on the cultures of extreme sports, including skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding, motocross, surfing, BMX and FMX. Launched on July 1, 2003,^[1] the channel is owned by the Fox Sports Media Group division of News Corporation and is based out of the Fox Sports division's headquarters in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. As of March 2013^[update], Fuel TV programming reaches approximately 26 million subscribers in the United States.

Additionally, Fox Sports Australia operates Fuel TV in Australia and a Portuguese language version of the channel also operates in Portugal; some Fuel TV content previously aired on FX channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Fuel TV's program content is available to more than 100 countries around the world.^[1]

Background [edit]

The network's concept has originated out of several extreme sports programming concepts. One of them originated from Al Gosling, founder of The Extreme Sports Channel and Extreme Sports TV Distribution and Production company Extreme International. The concept, taken by Gosling to David Sternberg of Fox Sports Net, focused on expanding the coverage of extreme sports. This was translated into growing the existing programming block on Fox Sports Net airing in early evenings during the early 2000s on the network's affiliates, which included Blue Torch TV and EX TV, and combining it with brokered arrangements for individual shows which included among others New Waves Surf Television and 16MM, along with ideas from the European based Extreme Sports Channel. Major contributors to the effort were CJ Olivares, Lloyd Bryan Adams and David Sternberg.^[2][3][4]

Another spoke was the network's name itself, from a concept conceived and launched by independent producer Chris Braly^[5] as a regional music and extreme sports weekly broadcast which began airing September 8, 2001 on Chattanooga-based WB affiliate WFLI-TV (channel 53), using Saturday evening paid programming time on that station.^[6] News Corporation eventually negotiated a buy-out of the concept and trademark in late 2003. The regional weekly version of Fuel TV aired its final episode on WFLI in September 2003.^[7]

Original logo, used from July 2003 to January 2012.

The Fuel TV satellite channel features programming from original series, exclusive events, licensed films, and creative interstitials. Extreme sports programming was formerly the bulk of the network, with a diverse combination of sports, music, reality programming, extreme sports news, and other content, including comedy content.^[8][9] As of late 2011, became the official cable home of the Ultimate Fighting Championship as part of a broader agreement between Fox and the UFC, featuring pre-match and analysis programming involving the circuit such as the weekly UFC Tonight, along with undercard fights for UFC pay-per-view events.

However as of the second half of 2012, the programming schedule has been dominated by mixed martial arts and boxing programming, and other programming made of existing reality programming from sister channel Speed. With the 2012–13 Premier League season, extra live and recorded English Premier League matches are carried on Fuel TV, giving Fox Soccer three venues to carry live matches on EPL match days; this began in May 2012 with Fuel carrying one of nine games on the final day of the EPL season as part of Fox Sports's "Survival Sunday" effort to air all that day's Premier League matches across their cable properties. In March 2013, Fuel TV began adding weekly telecasts of the Super League, a rugby league circuit based primarily in northern England, on Monday afternoons. The Super League telecasts are simulcast from sister network Sky Sports.

Proposed relaunch as Fox Sports 2 [edit]

On November 27, 2012 Fox filed a logo and name trademark application for "Fox Sports 2" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.^[10] In January 2013, reports began surfacing that Fuel TV would be relaunched as "Fox Sports 2", a secondary national sports network that would be spun off from Fox Sports 1, another planned cable channel that was formally announced two months later on March 5, 2013 for an August 17 launch.^[11] The proposed rebranding of Fuel, which was not announced in the initial presentation unveiling the launch of Fox Sports 1, is expected to take place around the same time as Speed's relaunch into the new primary Fox Sports national channel and would expand its slate of programming outside of extreme sports and watersports programs.^[10][12]

See also [edit]

• Fuel TV Australia
• Fox Sports

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Official website
• News Corp Press Release May 30, 2007 - News Corporation/NBC Universal Joint Venture Inks Deals with Troupe of Premier Content Partners