As mentioned in the Wimbledon thread BBC Wales are dedicating most of the afternoon to the home coming of the Welsh football team with coverage of their arrival at Cardiff Airport from 2.15-3pm, the bus tour from Cardiff Castle to Cardiff City Stadium from 3.50-6pm and the Home Coming Event at the stadium from 6.30-7.30pm. Wouldn't harm surely just to point people to the News Channel for the 6pm news either, especially as there is a strong chance it'll be disrupted by the networks Wimbledon coverage anyway. S4C have coverage of the parade from 4-5.30pm, though sadly nothing outside the news on ITV Wales it appears.
Meanwhile last nights match saw 74% of Welsh viewers tuning in, peaking at 1.379m in Wales and 15.4m across the UK, with the match average at 1.2m in Wales and just under 10m across the UK.
Meanwhile last nights match saw 74% of Welsh viewers tuning in, peaking at 1.379m in Wales and 15.4m across the UK, with the match average at 1.2m in Wales and just under 10m across the UK.
Great ratings for Wales and indeed ITV and great coverage by ITV bar the appalling co-commentator Mark Bowen and I ended up turning over to RTE for the match commentary with the excellent George Hamilton & Jim Beglin but that's not necessarily having a go at ITV as the BBC don't have a standout co-commentator either.
Also worth noting that 5.42 million were watching Andy Murray on BBC One between 7pm-9pm so also a good night for the BBC as well and sport in general.
TL
Toby Lerone
TV3 Ireland yesterday tweeted that Martin O'Neill is joining their team for the final, it says he will be alongside Neil Lennon and Kevin Kilbane in the Dublin studio with commentary by Trevor Welch & Keith Andrews. RTE will have the usual John Giles (appearing on RTE for the final time), Liam Brady & Eamon Dunphy with commentary by George Hamilton & Jim Beglin. Would say RTE commentary is massively better than TV3 but their studio panel looks promising.
For me I think Giles going is about time as he has been poor recently a prime example is giving analysis on a Euro 2016 match (Ukraine v Northern Ireland which was live on TV3) saying it was poor then admitting later he hadn't watched it and the likes of Damian Duff and Didi Hamann have been massively better than him this year.
Would anyone like to read a piece on the history of football tournaments on the BBC, with some interesting pictures and some scans from Radio Times, and written by some self-promoting idiot? You're in luck.
Yeah, the papers have been constantly saying how Wales haven't even qualified for a major tournament in more than half a century. Scotland were there, Wales weren't.
Can you imagine the uproar there'd be from non-football fans in Wales if they had made it through to the final and this had been in the pre-digital age and three out of four (possibly five) of the main terrestrial channels had been allowed to show the final!
Can you imagine the uproar there'd be from non-football fans in Wales if they had made it through to the final and this had been in the pre-digital age and three out of four (possibly five) of the main terrestrial channels had been allowed to show the final!
I think what these past couple of weeks have proved is that for the time being there ARE no non-football fans in Wales.
I do wonder though how many of them will turn up to the first World Cup home match against...er...Moldova on a dark cold September night....
I'm usually one of the lone voices in backing ITV for their coverage of major tournaments but I think the BBC have won this one hands down.
Gary's broadcasting pedigree seems to have risen with Leicesters fortuens over the last year or so and he is finally out of the long lingering shadow of Des Lynam - indeed he's probably the BBC's longest serving number one football host now. Meanwhile ITV have really missed the laid back attitude of Adrian Chiles - Pougatch is a very competent presenter, but just has little spark about him.
Pundit wise ITV definately had the number one with Slaven Bilic but what he added was really shown up once he left. Apart from that the BBC pretty much had it covered, although their Welsh contingent was nothing to shout about. The most interesting thing about Dean Holdsworth was his parking fine.
BBC definately won presentation wise for me - wasn't sold on the intro to begin with but quickly came to love it, whilst although I liked ITV's idea I found it annoyed me rather than inspired me. Their graphics were woeful too - even just tweaking them to be in the tournament colours would have helped.
