What next for BBC Sport?

But by 2016 things will be very different. Having 48 TV channels on a traditional linear TV platform may not happen for Rio but will they need to?

A significant number of people viewed the online streams of the various events and that the use of the internet as a way of watching TV will increase in the next 4 years especially as the next thing seems to be 'Smart TVs' and services like Apple TV, YouView etc.

Here's a radical idea - they've got 3-4 hours to play with between the end of Football Focus and the start of Final Score on BBC1 on a Saturday afternoon. They could show some minority sports in that slot. Maybe they could call it Grandstand.

That's a good idea, why didn't I think of that!

It's also his last. He's stepping up to the role of 'Head of 2012' for as long as that role lasts, then he's off. Quite a send-off!


That's all very well - but each interactive channel got at least 100k viewers at some point. You can't rely on the county's internet infrastructure to deliver that many simultaneous streams - not unless there's a massive investment in multicasting. As I'm sure you know, broadcasting works very well for getting the same thing to lots of people at once.

I never thought I'd hear myself say this but . . . I would be perfectly happy to see three hours of Bargain Hunt and Escape to the Country on a Saturday afternoon if the BBC made a commitment to showing LIVE sport on BBC Two when its available to them.

I'd rather see Coast repeats at 7pm on a Wednesday and Thursday evening bumped for some live track cycling, rather than showing two hours of recorded highlights on a Saturday afternoon instead of Cash in the Attic.

Slightly OT, but peaking of Saturday afternoons, has there been any official confirmation that Final Score will be shown in its entirety on BBC Two from later in the season?

Absolutely, it's a very inefficient form of 'broadcasting'... but it is very likely to be the future and look at what's changed in the last 4 years, stuff is moving fast. The big problem is more that broadband is varied across the country, there's still quite a divide between the service in metropolitan and rural areas

The other factor is that there will be less interest in Rio than there was London, it's not a home Olympics and the 4/5 hour time difference puts some events late night. I have no doubt that by 2020, where-ever that will be, having multiple events on the broadcast networks will be a thing of the past

Well, that's a meaningless comparison because ITV hired Des Lynam to compete with the BBC and in the major tournaments they were on at the same time, and they were rivals for rights and audiences, never mind the fact ITV signed him for millions and millions of pounds to a golden handcuffs deal. The BBC don't care anymore what other channels do with the racing because they don't show any racing anymore.

And they let John Inverdale present the French Open and then return to Wimbledon two weeks later.

I do think though the BBC have to do what is right for the BBC. Yes, that might be retaining Claire's services for rugby league, swimming and the Olympics (be interesting to know whether C4 would stop her doing Equestrian, though I think the BBC only covers Badminton) - but on the other hand one of the few complaints about BBC coverage over the last couple of weeks was that it was spread too thinly over too many presenters - and the best way to move forward with BBC Sport might be to concentrate on just a handful of presenters handling a wider portfolio of sport.

Stuart Earl (the producer of Final Score last season, now at BBC News) tweeted this on the 1st June:


However it seems this is not the case for the first two weeks. Perhaps it won't happen until BBCHD becomes BBC2HD.

Don't think it's been mentioned here but Carl Hicks (BBC Sport's editor of Rugby, Racing and probably more) is off to IMG to head C4 Racing.

In terms of Freeview Red Button that Brekkie talks so passionately about, it's worth noting that the ratings for these channels over the last two weeks were very small compared to the Sky/Virgin/Freesat BBC Olympic Channels. In the first week of the Olympics Freeview Red Button channels had a 0.7% share (including HD). The BBC Olympics channels had a combined 5.1% share (beating Channel 4 and Channel 5) and had some massive peaks.

301HD really didn't do well - it's top programme was a repeat of Olympic Sportsday with 11,000. In fact, bizarrely, the top 10 programmes on 301SD and HD are ALL repeats of Olympic Sportsday, with the top rating on Saturday morning with 62,000. This suggests to me Freeview viewers aren't that interested in extra choice - they were happy with BBC1/3.

I'd interpret that quite differently - the Sky/Virgin figures show that given the extra choice people took it. Freeview viewers didn't have such a luxury so unless they were interested in watching the sport being offered (until Freeview decided to cut away to show something else!) it just wasn't worth watching, so more probably went online instead - not because they wanted to watch extra games footage online, but because they were forced too as it was the only option.

I didn't watch too much on 301/302 as the choice was so poor - and the couple of things I wanted to watch either started late or finished before their conclusion, while the EPG rarely seemed to match the sport being shown - or wasn't updated in good time to highlight that something was being shown.

But then you have people being put on sports they don't know enough about, which surely is something you wouldn't be in favour of. They'll choose presenters based on knowledge and convenience for both parties, as they should. If you're arguing Balding should do rugby league, swimming and the Olympics, what's left for her not to do anyway?

I don't know who complained the BBC coverage "was spread too thinly over too many presenters" (well, I can probably think of one person who complained) but they got their money's worth from all the hosts, Inverdale was at the rowing and the athletics, including both on the same day on the first Friday, Matt Baker was presenting and commentating, and the likes of Walker, Persad and Bhasin were all sent to various venues as well as their marathon linking stints. Perhaps the only reason why it looked like there more than in previous years is because in previous years all the presenting stints were double-headed and longer, whereas this year the presenters' stints were shorter but they were all solo in the studio (and they still had people at the venues in previous games as well).

I don't know why people consistently say the BBC have too many presenters, and Gary Lineker should do Match of the Day and Football Focus. You may as well say Bruce Forsyth should do both Strictly and the lottery.

On Breakfast this morning, Kelly Smith was basically appealing for more television coverage of women's football. There's a huge opportunity there for the BBC to support a fledgling sport that would get quite a lot of interest and would create more role models for women and girls, isn't getting a lot of commercial interest and therefore would be cheaper to cover than the men's game and other sports. Not that BBC bosses would have been watching, though.