As BT Sport prepares to hand baton to TNT Sports, how is picture so unclear?

B T Sport will host its last big night on Saturday. The Champions League final in Istanbul will be the end for a brand that, over the past decade, extended live coverage of sport in the UK and became the first serious rival to Sky Sports. Taking its place will be TNT Sports, a channel that promises “new name, same game”. But with a month until it launches, viewers are still in the dark as to what exactly that will mean.

TNT Sports goes live on 18 July but does not yet have a website in the UK. The cost of watching it remains not entirely clear either. That the channels will roll over existing deals for the Premier League and Champions League, alongside Premiership rugby union and MotoGP among other sports, is guaranteed, but some programmes are being axed and who will present and analyse the action is not known. All of this comes against a backdrop of increasing turbulence in what was once known as the pay-TV industry, with TNT Sports’ UK and Ireland offering just one cog in a global wheel of content.

Viewers know the face of BT Sport football, Jake Humphrey, is to depart. Manchester City v Internazionale will be his last match as he moves on to “fulfil other ambitions”. There is widespread expectation he will be replaced by Laura Woods, an ITV and TalkSport presenter. She is described as having “great warmth and deep knowledge” by one executive who has worked with her, and is highly rated in the industry. Her appointment has yet to be announced.

What has been confirmed is that Final Score, the Soccer Saturday imitation which featured pundits such as Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton, is to be axed. Sutton has been rumoured to be a transfer target for Sky. Rumours say that many of the other pundits will be rolled over