The Euro 2004 Thread

Some interesting schedules are starting to appear in Digiguide for the first few days of Euro 2004.

Saturday 12th June , both matches are on BBC1 which means the usual Saturday night line-up is replaced by football.

Sunday 13th June , the 5pm K/O is on BBC1. This pushes the main news back to 3.45pm. Then there is Strictly Come Dancing at 7pm. The 2nd match K/O 7.45pm, the all important France v England is on ITV1, so their schedule looks like this:

16.30 Regional News and ITV News
17.00 F1 Grand Prix
19.15 Euro 2004
22.00 Fantasy Football

Monday 14th June is the most interesting so far, as both matches are on ITV1. This means a very unusual schedule:

14:30 Antiques Auction
15:00 CITV
16:00 Regional News Magazine
16:30 Euro 2004
19:00 ITV Evening News
19:30 Euro 2004
22:00 TBA

The main local news showing in full at 4pm is a bit strange. Notice CITV starting 15 mins early as well.

Tuesday 15th June is also interesting as ITV1 are showing the 5pm match again, so it looks like this

14:30 Antiques Auction
15:00 CITV
16:00 Regional News Magazine
16:30 Euro 2004
19:00 Emmerdale
19:30 ITV Evening News - Possibly including Regional News
20:00 The Vault

BBC1 are showing the 7.45pm K/O which fits in nicely in the middle of prime time so doesn't afect the news etc

No doubt when BBC1 show the 5pm game on a weekday, the BBC News and Regional News will show at the normal time on BBC2, rather than any unusual late or early showings?

I can't believe the fact that ITV are going two days without Emmerdale or Corrie!

Regional News at 4pm? Oh well you'd better get used to it, it was like that during France '98, as I remember on several occasions that CiTV was only on for about half an hour and then you would have a shorter Granada Tonight at 4.20pm or so, this happened more than once I can tell you that!

Shame they can't do what they did with the Rugby World Cup and move parts of CiTV to the weekend or something.

That's why we've currently got all these triple episodes of Corrie and hour-long Emmerdale specials!

And over on BBC2 on Sunday evenings, Top Gear disappears for 5 weeks.

I'm guessing this is more to do with audience demographics and that your 'average' Top Gear viewer is more likely to watch the football than Mr Clarkson et all, rather than the fact that the BBC have scheduled some of the less important games on BBC2 during this period..?

Will the BBC show regional news on BBC2? They shifted all their regional programming to BBC1because they don't have a regionalisation package for Sky digital on 2.

They're not supposed to! It was agreed some time ago that all English regional programmes would be shown on BBC ONE. This is for two main reasons: the DTT transmitters in English regions are only configured to opt out on Net1 only and English DSAT regionality is limited to BBC1 too.

There are a few exceptions: "The Super League Show" is still shown accross the North of England on BBC TWO (analogue only) and of course, the BBC Nations still operate a full regional service on both channels (on analogue, DTT and DSAT).

English Regional opts on BBC TWO do still happen occasionally however, for trails when a specific campaign has been agreed, or for occasions such as these, where unusual circumstances dictate that News programmes move to BBC TWO. The most recent example was when the Hutton Report was being cpovered on BBC ONE, and the One o' clock News was moved to BBC TWO. The Network announcer advised digital viewers to watch analogue for "their regional programmes"...

Well, BBC2 will have Wimbledon, so it's unlikely.

Now, what was it they said at network about the integrated news hour being such a winner that it should never be split up again?

If the BBC News bulletins switch to BBC Two, then the Oxford, Cambridge, Jersey and Hull sub-opts can't happen.

This also means that Sky viewers can only watch the local news for BBC London, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland as these are the only BBC Two services on digital satellite.

However the worst hit would be the inhabitants of the Channel Islands. Their ANALOGUE transmitters are fed via digital satellite (and BBC Two Analogue in the Channel islands is the BBC Two England satellite feed - which is London for local news) This means that not only would viewers in the Channel Islands not get their sub-opt, they wouldn't even get the Plymouth main programme - instead they'd get BBC London News... On ANALOGUE...

If they do shift the news and regional news to BBC Two there will be complaints!

Apparently it wont be on BBC2. There is 30 minutes of News and Regional News between 1900 and 1930 on BBC One.

Neighbours is being moved all over the place in the BBC schedules. Sometimes I wish the BBC would treat Neighbours better!

Suggestion on days when Citv is cut short on ITV1 they should continue broadcasting it on ITV2. A lot of people have FreeView / Cable / Sky thus they would be able to watch it.