The Sport Thread

Whatever happens it could be a little messy. However the precedent has now been set - Murray has been on BBC One since the third round, so to 'shunt' him onto BBC Two at 6pm - rightly or wrongly - at the quarter-final stage would seem slightly strange.

And its pretty likely that his match will run past 6pm - unless Federer can come up with some way to tackle Karlovic's huge serve in the first match.

Elsewhere, the first four live Championship games on the BBC have been announced today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/07_july/01/football.shtml

I'm actually quite surprised that they've gone with two relegated Premier League sides for the first match. But I suppose they're looking for the 'big story' with Newcastle's first match in the second tier.

There is a bit more flexibility later in the schedules tonight though, so I think they'll stick with BBC1 and delay the news until it's over - at least the regional news anyway - dropping Real Rescues at 7.30pm.

Seems that on present form that Murray will be on court much earlier than expected. Federer leads Karlovic by two sets to love, after just over an hours play.

It would seem that the "straight swap" option, however unfortunate for the English regions, is the simplest by far, both for the viewer and schedulers. If the match has finished by 6:30 (even if it's only with a couple of minutes to spare) then I'd hope they would switch the regional news back to BBC One (having moved the Six to BBC Two) and get back to the rest of the schedule on both channels.

If it hasn't, though, then I think it'll be "worst case scenario" and the regions will (almost without doubt) be shifted onto BBC Two, to avoid having to fill an unknown amount of time 'til the match finishes - the same applies for the idea of delaying the Six itself to keep it on BBC One.

... and so Murray will start shortly, that first match went so quickly.

. . . and Ferrero shouldn't pose too many problems for Murray - he won in straight sets at Queen's a few weeks ago. So we could be done and dusted well before 6pm. But you never know . . . if past British Wimbledon performances are anything to go by, we're probably in for a five-set thriller.

Well, here's what's at the top of tonight's Look North newsletter:

Join us at 6.30 - when we'll be on BBC1 as usual if Andy Murray has finished his match at Wimbledon; and on BBC2 if not.

... no schedule problems for the BBC Tonight. Ferrero hit the Rochers(*), Murray through in straight sets in the heat of the blistering sunshine.

(*)Apologies.

Of course, there was never ANY doubt that both Federer and Murray would win in three easy sets today.

I wonder if that's really the case or whether it was just some journalist ssuming that's what would happen

Moving the regions to BBC2 would be a very silly thing to do, not only would a lot of the audience not get their regional programmes but a lots of BBC staff across the country would have no choice but to tear up their days work and go home!

I thought that sort of nonsense was stopped years ago

I would hope it was just a journalist... but then this is the BBC we're talking about!

I heard that as late as 10 minutes before the opt out on Saturday it was going to be on BBC2, then it got switched back to BBC1.