The Sport Thread

I admit I didn't, but I still stand by my point, if the BBC want more people to watch it, why don't they put it on before something that will be watched by Sports fans? IE Before Football Focus, or at least earlier in the evening.

I just think that putting it on at 11.05pm on a Monday isn't going to attract big audiences for something that BBC Sport want to do well.

I agree. An early-evening slot on BBC2 would be good IMO. I suppose they might count on the revised Sunday lunchtime edition to pick up a few viewers.

I have my suspicious about the Sunday set-up. Inside Sport will be broadcast LIVE on a Sunday, which means Gabby Logan will be in a perfect position to introduce a nice little 'coming up' segment at the start of the afternoon, and link things together 'Sunday Grandstand' style. And the funny thing is - it wasnt that long ago that Sunday Grandstand started with a magazine-style segment. Remember 'G Two' and 'Sport Plus'??

On a separate note, for anyone outside Northern Ireland who havent heard, BBCNI have picked up the rights to the famous North West 200 motorcycle road races - a slightly smaller version of the Isle of Man TT, but very famous in these parts and in the wider motorsport world.

Previously, UTV held the rights and therefore the races werent really seen by network viewers. But the Beeb, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to broadcast a 90-minute highlights package on network BBC2 at 2.15pm on Sunday 20th May, with Suzi Perry and Stephen Watson presenting. Any bike fans out there should not miss it!

The slot is terrible - even 10.35pm straight after the news would be alot better - but possibly the best option would be for it to take the Football Focus slot over the summer.

I know UTV's NW200 coverage was picked up by Men & Motors and Eurosport in recent years, but it's great that BBC are bringing the NW200 to the network (I assume a BBC NI production for the network?). Good to see Stephen Watson getting more network exposure alongside the always pleasing Suzi Perry.

Any word on BBC NI's local coverage of the NW200 yet, BBCSport? I am sure more stuff will be shown locally with Stephen Watson, either as a NW200 branded package of programmes, or under the Bikes! banner (hence the involvement of the lovely Karen Patterson). I wonder if they will rope in Mark Robson as UTV have done in the past few years as he is freelance.

Wonder if UTV will bother sending their whole sports department up there this year given they have lost the rights - I will miss seeing Logie, Claire (is she back from maternity leave yet?) and the others in their UTV Sport polo shirts.

I mentioned this over on the Northern Ireland News thread as it had been discussed there before!

But BBCNI are sending down a pretty sizeable team to cover TV, radio and online. More details at this very impressive website.

I know it would be logistically difficult, but I still think its a real shame that nobody does LIVE race day coverage of the North West - at least its being streamed live online this year.

EDIT: and yes, I forgot about the Men&Motors coverage in recent years. But hopefully this will get more exposure.

EDIT2: bit of a bummer for the Beeb that Zara Phillips has pulled out of the Badminton Horse Trials - not sure if so much airtime would have been given if they had known the Sports Personality of the Year wouldn't be involved!

BBC / TWI increasingly looking like they've lost the plot with snooker. After the ridiculous titles, the normally tension building intro to this years final session was the worst I've ever seen, there was nothing in it to keep me interested never mind the casual viewer. Clive Everton's in hospital and the only entertainment is the druken ramblings of Jimmy White between frames. Snookers not that good either.

Dennis Taylor in commentary has even just plugged Inside Sport "starting in a few moments on BBC One." Have you ever seen a sports programme so well plugged yet so doomed to fail.

Titles - agreed, rubbish
Drunken ramblings of Jimmy White - harmless enough, but not very insightful
Snooker - well Selby's just pulled it back to a 1-frame deficit... quite exciting, I'd say!!

As for plugging Inside Sport during the snooker coverage... a very strange idea. In what other sport final would the commentators say "Why not turn over and watch something else now?"

Bozz

Inside Sport lost 1/3 of it viewers on Monday night. It down to 600,000 from 900,000.

and within a few weeks, bosses will once again be wondering what to do with Gabby Logan.
Agreed Inside Sport is on wrong time, wrong place, I would have gone for Sunday morning not Monday night's.
As for the Snooker, well it was better than the Dott Vs Ebdon borefest, although the titles and commentary are not at the best, they really missed Clive Everton.

Not surprising considering it was up against the snooker - but still it's the slot that's killing it.

Sport has never really done that well on a Monday night - remember Premiership Parliament?


In other news, C4 has announced they will screen The Red Bull Air Race over 12 weeks in a 4pm slot on Saturday afternoons, rather than a late-night or early-morning slot where most of it's sport plays out.

Despite constant plugging. I don't know how many times I saw That Bloody Trailer during the snooker coverage (they were even sticking it in at the end of frames, where they never usually stick trailers, and there's the soon-to-be-infamous plug they made Dennis Taylor do in commentary during the final itself)., but it became annoying very, very, VERY quickly.

I know what you talking about. I could probably repeat word for word what Gabby says in the advert. I remember watching a behind the scenes video of the making of an advert for Inside Sport on the BBC website which looked nothing like the advert they did end up showing. Nice waste of money.