NBAPremium TV was a Philippinepay televisionsports-oriented network owned by Solar Entertainment Corporation. The channel is a joint venture between Solar and NBA TV. It was a live simulcast broadcast of NBA TV, the league's dedicated channel in the United States. On September 25, 2019, it announced on the official Facebook page of Basketball TV as well as on its Instagram and Twitter accounts that the channel and BTV will cease their operations on October 1, 2019. The final program to air on this channel was a replay of NBA Playoff Playback on 30 September 2019 before signing off at 12:10 a.m. on 1 October 2019. Upon the channel's termination, Sky Cable and Cignal in their joint statement said that they were jointly negotiating directly with the NBA to make games and programming available to millions of fans in the Philippines, “We have submitted an offer to the NBA and are awaiting a response.” 10 months later, NBA awarded the broadcast rights of its games to Cignal and its sister stationsTV5 and One Sports, with Cignal launching its own channel NBA TV Philippines on July 31, 2020.
Features
NBA Premium was the sister channel of Basketball TV, but the channel aired more games and NBA-content than its sister channel or ABS-CBN. Since it was also a re-direct broadcast of NBA TV, there were no local commercial insertions and only aired commercials coming from the US feed and during some NBA games were not to be televised on NBA TV, it used local advertisements and few from the US advertisements. The channel was only dedicated to NBA programs. The channel also retained commentary from US broadcast during the NBA Finals, and also a direct re-broadcast from ABC/ESPN, while BTV and ABS-CBN used the world feed and local commentary, respectively. The channel also aired NBA-related programming during off-season like WNBA games on pre-season games.
History
On April 10, 2017, Sky Cable, Destiny Cable & Sky Direct dropped NBA Premium TV along with Basketball TV, Jack TV, Solar Sports & CT allegedly due to Sky Cable's unpaid carriage fees. However, on October 16, 2018, the channel was restored on Sky Cable & Sky Direct after 18 months of carriage disputes. On October 28, 2018, the channel was dropped again on Sky Cable & Sky Direct. On January 1, 2019 the channel was restored again on Sky Cable and Sky Direct.
