Olympics 2016

The Ski Sunday theme was always the Winter Olympics theme as well, as mentioned it was the case right up until 2006, after which the Games have had their own unique themes.

As for Grandstand, you may find Roger Mosey's book Getting Out Alive interesting when he talks about dropping Grandstand when he became Head of Sport. When they first started having discussions about it in 2005, someone apparently said they surely had to keep it going for just another seven years so it was around for the 2012 Olympics, which wouldn't be the same without it.

The comparison with Top of the Pops is a daft one, though. Loose format though it is, Top of the Pops is a format. Grandstand is just some sport.

That really is underselling Grandstand and it's heritage though. IMO Top of the Pops is just some music.

Nowadays BBC Sports programming is all sports specific other than the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, so bringing back the brand for the former wouldn't be out of place.

They've already got a brand for that, The Olympics.

The reason Grandstand went was because they stopped airing sport regularly on Saturday afternoons, not because of any branding problem. Days like yesterday where they had athletics and a rugby match are not the norm nowadays.

I think they missed a trick by not bringing back Grandstand after the 2012 Olympics. Easy to save face and avoid admitting that it was a mistake cancel it, by announcing that it's coming back to cover those minority sports that attracted new interest in the London Olympics but are not often seen otherwise. On weekends with plenty of live action that they have rights for that would take priority, but there must be plenty of opportunities to show highlights from other sports.

Bookend that with Football Focus and Final Score, use the BBC Sports Centre set to do continuity - it had always looked like it has more than an accidental nod to Grandstand in its design - and you've got quite a nice package.

Maybe not aired sports regularly on a saturday because they lost the rights for sports that would of been covered on like Cricket, Golf, Horse Racing, F1, Rugby and so they do cover loads of sport on Saturday afternoons but seems to be maybe once a month that has Homes Under the Hammer, Flog It and Escape to the Country on instead.

They'd still need to film and commentate on these minor events though, and at the end of the day it's cheaper for the BBC to just chuck on a repeat of Bargain Hunt.

Highlights in general seem to be out of favour because even for events that the BBC have the rights for, highlights shows are often an after thought aired late at night.

This could have gone in any Olympic thread really, accusations of over work lead to OBS' assets in Brazil being sequestrated.

Rio judge seizes assets of OBS, the official Olympic broadcaster (from @AP) https://t.co/HhYTPSkSOw

— Steve Wilson (@SteveWilson_LDN) September 19, 2016

Interesting Snippet heard discussed today that from 1st January when Eurosport's access kicks in that we might get Olympic Archive programmes plus live minor sport events from the IOC's Olympic Channel, which is doing well at picking up minor rights simulcast on ES.

Well Eurosport for years had been airing Olympic events outside of the Olympics anyway. The main reason I suspect they struck a deal to run the IOC channel was to avoid the competition.

Wasn't the IOC channel part of the deal that Discovery struck with the IOC that also included the European rights. (Discovery own Eurosport)

Worth noting that NBC and the US Olympic Committee are launching an Olympic channel.