BBC London Stoke v Tottenham Andy Rowley and Steve Froggett (commentary) Everton v West Ham Nick Godwin (also host) and James Scowcroft (commentary following the above match) Fulham v Liverpool Emma Jones QPR v Newcastle Phil Parry Watford v Leicester Jamie Hill
Jamie Hill went berserk when Watford 'did a Doncaster' and scored from a dubious Leicester penalty. Jon Marks on BBC 3CR was similar - I wonder how Ian Sreinger sounded on BBC Radio Leicester.
BBC Three Counties Radio Watford v Leicester Jon Marks, Derek Payne, Nick Wright and Paul Robinson (commentary) with Luke Ashmead.
In addition, Jason Harris did his last commentary of a Saracens match for BBC 3CR. For whatever reason (move of ground?), BBC 3CR will no longer cover Saracens. Good luck Jason in the future.
Jamie Hill went berserk when Watford 'did a Doncaster' and scored from a dubious Leicester penalty. Jon Marks on BBC 3CR was similar - I wonder how Ian Sreinger sounded on BBC Radio Leicester.
BBC Three Counties Radio Watford v Leicester Jon Marks, Derek Payne, Nick Wright and Paul Robinson (commentary) with Luke Ashmead.
In addition, Jason Harris did his last commentary of a Saracens match for BBC 3CR. For whatever reason (move of ground?), BBC 3CR will no longer cover Saracens. Good luck Jason in the future.
Anyone got the BBC Radio Leicester commentary of the ending of the game?
Or any Leicester reaction would be an interesting listen and a bit of a contrast, i bet.
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Ray Houghton
Championship Play-Off Semi-Final Second Leg
Brighton & Hove Albion v Crystal Palace - Elliot Cook
To clear something up from the weekend, Dom McGuinness did indeed commentate on the Premier League trophy presentation at Old Trafford on Sunday during The Press Pass on talkSPORT. From flicking around stations, Absolute Radio carried audio from Old Trafford with Ian Wright and Ian Stone commentating on it off-screen, while both stations plus talkSPORT Live carried audio of the whole of Sir Alex Ferguson's post-match speech, although the latter was doing its Premier League highlights show during the presentation. Newstalk Sport Sunday had gone off-air by the time the trophy was lifted.
Anyone have details of Wish FM's FA Cup Final coverage? I know some audio from their commentaries and coverage of previous matches was carried as part of one of the features about Wigan Athletic during ITV's pre-match build-up to the final.
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Ray Houghton
Championship Play-Off Semi-Final Second Leg
Brighton & Hove Albion v Crystal Palace - Elliot Cook
To clear something up from the weekend, Dom McGuinness did indeed commentate on the Premier League trophy presentation at Old Trafford on Sunday during The Press Pass on talkSPORT. From flicking around stations, Absolute Radio carried audio from Old Trafford with Ian Wright and Ian Stone commentating on it off-screen, while both stations plus talkSPORT Live carried audio of the whole of Sir Alex Ferguson's post-match speech, although the latter was doing its Premier League highlights show during the presentation. Newstalk Sport Sunday had gone off-air by the time the trophy was lifted.
Anyone have details of Wish FM's FA Cup Final coverage? I know some audio from their commentaries and coverage of previous matches was carried as part of one of the features about Wigan Athletic during ITV's pre-match build-up to the final.
Radio Manchester was on air with Rugby League and then the rugby league phone-in after 4.45pm, crossing regularly to Old Trafford for reports from Bill Rice. They did the whole of the Ferguson speech at around 6pm and then stayed on air until 6.20pm after coverage of the presentation, handing over to Indus (an Asian magazine show) that was already in progress on Radio Lancashire. Rather than join it mid-conversation though, the presenter stopped to welcome Radio Manchester before carrying on with the ongoing debate.
However I was also listening to the start of the United game on Radio Manchester when the players and AF were coming out to the guard of honour. It was half time in the RL game so they were previewing the United game, then for some reason seemed to hand back to the RL just at the critical moment of the guard of honour as AF was coming out, Jack Dearden (or whoever was at the RL), briefly mentioned the RL coverage coming up and then silence for about 3 seconds and then Bill Rice started describing the scenes again. It was as if they had told Bill Rice to hand back and then realised that was a bad idea so went back again.
Anybody fed up with Sam Matterface and his boring commentry?
I like the bloke as a person but he says the same old things over and over.
2 phrases he always says is
5Live 13.05.2013.
Championship Play-off Semi Final second leg: Brighton and Hove Albion v Crystal Palace: Conor McNamara and Steve Claridge (commentary)
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Ray Parlour
Premier League
Arsenal v Wigan Athletic - Mike Bovill
Reading v Manchester City - Ian Danter
Mark Saggers, Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore will be talkSPORT's team for tomorrow's Europa League Final.
talkSPORT Live
Premier League
Arsenal v Wigan Athletic - Adam Bridge and Alan McLoughlin (featured 7.45pm commentary on international radio stations)
Reading v Manchester City - Kevin Hatchard
Anybody fed up with Sam Matterface and his boring commentry?
I like the bloke as a person but he says the same old things over and over.
2 phrases he always says is
Seems John Hartson will be heard more often on the BBC, per a comment from ABB before the start of the Arsenal match. Not sure if this was knowledge beforehand.
Arsenal v Wigan - Jack Dearden and Paul Rowley - commentary on 95.1 FM
Reading v Man City - Ian Cheeseman and Fred Eyre - commentary on DAB only
A rare occasion when Man City aren't on FM, due to the importance of the Wigan match tonight. Can anyone remember the last time City weren't the live commentary match on FM ?
Anyone have details of Wish FM's FA Cup Final coverage? I know some audio from their commentaries and coverage of previous matches was carried as part of one of the features about Wigan Athletic during ITV's pre-match build-up to the final.
Sports Producer/Presenter Chris Milow was Live from inside Wembley from 4pm last Saturday (as he was for the semi final) with commentary from the usual commentary team of Paul Chialton & Neill Rimmer (who to my knowledge have done every Wigan commentary for Wish FM/Latics Player this season).
Obviously a bitter sweet contrast tonight BUT going forward relegation will actually be good for Wish FM, like it was with Bolton on Tower FM. The illegal streaming goes out the window in the championship, meaning radio commentary is boosted and they get tons of extra midweek games to cover. Be interesting to see if the station covers Europa League matches next year with six of them (at least) to play. I suspect the nature of the deal with "Latics Player" will see them do so, but that is my pure speculation.
Sports Producer/Presenter Chris Milow was Live from inside Wembley from 4pm last Saturday (as he was for the semi final) with commentary from the usual commentary team of Paul Chialton & Neill Rimmer (who to my knowledge have done every Wigan commentary for Wish FM/Latics Player this season).
Many thanks for posting the Wish FM FA Cup Final details that I requested Andy, it is much appreciated.
I believe this is the second FA Cup Final UTV Radio has broadcast on a local radio basis since returning to local radio sports commentaries across most of the British stations in their group, the first being the Manchester City v Stoke City final on Signal two years ago; it will have also been their third cup final locally including the Capital One Cup Final between Bradford City and Swansea City which went out live on both Pulse and Swansea Sound earlier this year.
Obviously a bitter sweet contrast tonight BUT going forward relegation will actually be good for Wish FM, like it was with Bolton on Tower FM. The illegal streaming goes out the window in the championship, meaning radio commentary is boosted and they get tons of extra midweek games to cover. Be interesting to see if the station covers Europa League matches next year with six of them (at least) to play. I suspect the nature of the deal with "Latics Player" will see them do so, but that is my pure speculation.
This is certainly true. That the option to watch Wigan Athletic's 3pm games via the internet or at certain pubs is largely out of the window now, Wish FM should see a boost in their listening figures. I remember reading a Twitter conversation involving a commentator from Free Radio 80s in the Midlands a while back that discussed the respective listening figures The Goalzone's coverage of Premier League and Championship games was receiving, where he stated that actually their listening figures for their Championship clubs' commentaries were significantly higher for precisely this reason.
As for whether Wish FM (and indeed Swansea Sound) will cover Wigan (and Swansea) in the Europa League - I think Signal's coverage of Stoke City in that competition last season should act as a fair guide given that all three stations are owned by UTV Radio. Signal provided commentary on Stoke's three home games in the Europa League group phase and the home leg of their play-off against Thun (although not the home leg of their pre-qualifier against Hajduk Split), plus both legs of their Round of 32 tie against Valencia with commentator Simon Humphreys being on-site for the away leg of that.
Hopefully both Wish FM and Swansea Sound will be afforded the same treatment, although for Swansea Sound it might be tricky as most of their commentators also work on UEFA.com's Champions League and Europa League coverage during European weeks. Perhaps they could call on talkSPORT's Roger Hughes for these games?
Seems John Hartson will be heard more often on the BBC, per a comment from ABB before the start of the Arsenal match. Not sure if this was knowledge beforehand.
I listened to the second half of last night's game on Radio 5 Live (a rare listen to that station's football coverage for me) and I thoroughly enjoyed both Alistair Bruce-Ball's commentary and the fair-minded analysis provided by John Hartson. John is one of the better recently-retired former professionals for my money and it would be a good move on the BBC's part to get him involved more often, particularly seeing as he now has built up a fair bit of punditry experience since retiring on S4C's Sgorio.
Speaking of S4C, Ian Cleverly posted in the Football Commentators thread in the Broadcasting section recently that last weekend's FAW Welsh Cup Final was to be John Hartson's last appearance on Sgorio. Given the confusion surrounding 606, I'm wondering if Radio 5 Live might have lined up Hartson to be (one of) the new voice(s) on that next season? He has co-hosted the phone-in in the past with Robbie Savage and at points during last night's commentary he was encouraging people to ring in to their post-10pm half hour and setting up call subjects as Stan Collymore would in the latter stages of a talkSPORT commentary match preceding an edition of Call Collymore.
BBC London Host Nick Godwin (studio) Europa League Final: Benfica v Chelsea (Amsterdam Arena) John Murray, Alan Green and Nigel Spackman (BBC Five Live commentary) with Ian Ramsdale
And in other shocking news, I listened to TS twice this last weekend.
Firstly in The FA Cup final build up and first twenty minutes of the game. I thought the build up was good, Danny Murphy sends me to sleep though but I know he's a popular figure in the media. He didn't convey any excitement. The commentary was good from what I heard.
Then I listened to some of the Stoke vs Spurs game, it was fine listening to it.
I think it's the presenters on TS I'm not always into, I think I could cope with the commentary of games. Sadly, my main experiences of TS is Drivetime which I simply cannot stand. I'm also not a huge Matterface fan.
Richard Gordon presenting Sportsound on 810MW from Rugby Park.
Kilmarnock v Hibernian - John Barnes, Billy Dodds and Steven Thompson (commentary) with Chick Young pitchside Alloa v Dunfermline - Kenny McIntyre East Fife v Peterhead - Jim Spence
The audience figures have been released for the first quarter of 2013 so how are our sports stations doing?
talkSPORT
talkSPORT attracted 2.9 million listeners in the first quarter of 2013 - down 9.9% year on year and down 4.0% from the previous quarter.
However, listening hours increased by 5%, up to 19.2 million – 83% of the station’s audience (2.4 million) is of the male gender.
The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast added 6.2% from the previous quarter, with Richard Keys and Andy Gray adding 7%.
The station’s Programme Director, Liam Fisher, said: “The fact that people are listening longer to talkSPORT is testament to the work of our on-air and production teams who have made the station the home of live sport and breaking sports news.
“Last week, when Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement, talkSPORT was at the heart of the news throughout the day and we were the first to break the news of David Moyes’ appointment as the new Manchester United manager.
“This season has been our busiest ever with 130 live football commentaries and with live and exclusive coverage of the British and Irish Lions starting next month, we have no intention of slowing down over the summer.”
Managing Director, Calum Macaulay, added: “We’re attracting a record number of ABC1 male listeners which is reflected in the advertisers who have signed or re-signed with talkSPORT in 2013 including Ford, Heinz, Sky, Renault and Microsoft.
“As exclusive broadcasters of the Lions tour to Australia, the first time the event has been on UK commercial radio, we’re also very likely to be attracting new listeners to the station over the next couple of months.
“As we proved by winning a Sony Gold award for Best Competition on Monday for our work with Coca-Cola we’re in a position to be offering brands exciting and innovative content to reach our listeners on talkSPORT.”
Absolute Radio
Absolute Radio’s network of stations upped its listener numbers by 274,000 (+9.2%) in the last year.
The network’s listening hours also increased, from 23.5m to 25.7m hours (+9.2%) quarter-on-quarter, and +22.6% year-on-year.
Absolute Radio, the network’s main station, added 76,000 listeners quarter-on-quarter (+4.7%), and 1.4 million hours year-on-year (+13.7%).
Content Director, Tony Moorey, said: ”The Absolute Radio Network has seen consistent and strong growth since its launch in 2008 and has now achieved record listening hours. Our strategy is one of steady growth and consistently high reach and best ever share is testament to a Sony Award winning year for The Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show and a strong quarter of new music relevant to our brand.”
BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live, crowned station of the year at the Sony Radio Academy awards earlier this week, was broadly flat, on 6.3 million.
Many thanks for posting the Wish FM FA Cup Final details that I requested Andy, it is much appreciated.
I believe this is the second FA Cup Final UTV Radio has broadcast on a local radio basis since returning to local radio sports commentaries across most of the British stations in their group, the first being the Manchester City v Stoke City final on Signal two years ago; it will have also been their third cup final locally including the Capital One Cup Final between Bradford City and Swansea City which went out live on both Pulse and Swansea Sound earlier this year.
Indeed Wish FM's first Wigan Athletic commentary was on the 1999 Auto Windscreens Final against Millwall that Wigan also won 1-0 with an injury time winner. Matt McCann was the commentator that day. He is now head of press at Liverpool.
I think it's the presenters on TS I'm not always into, I think I could cope with the commentary of games. Sadly, my main experiences of TS is Drivetime which I simply cannot stand. I'm also not a huge Matterface fan.
Out of interest, are you talking about the standard of presenting on talkSPORT in general terms or specifically about that of their live football/sports coverage? If it's the latter, I actually think this is one of the areas in which they really excel in.
I too cannot stand Drive Time, which I think is by far the poorest programme on the station, and Adrian Durham's role as on that - but on Matchday Live on Saturdays it is like listening to a different presenter. Adrian has a superb knowledge of the Football League and is an extremely slick anchorman, perfectly capable of throwing between games and updating scores during the Around the Grounds section from 2pm. I think most people who have listened to a fair amount of both Adrian's weekday and weekend work would agree with my assessment here, I know that certainly seems to be the case on this thread.
Elsewhere, Georgie Bingham for me has been a big success on Sunday Exclusive since taking over from Alan Brazil at the beginning of last year, she has a nice style for the 90 minutes of discussion prior to the 1.30pm commentaries and tends to gel well with the different studio pundits. Danny Kelly is probably talkSPORT's form presenter of the last few years and his Thursday and Friday Kick Off programmes are of a consistently high standard, Ian Danter is a versatile deputy on just about every show, particularly on Matchday Live when Adrian was ill for a few months at the start of the year (and he is a very good commentator and reporter too), and while Mark Saggers has his faults (he tends to get irate easily) on his day he is a strong live anchorman who asks the pertinent questions of his guests. That Saggers is probably the weakest link of their presenting line-up for live sport these days says a lot, as when he was on Radio 5 Live he was for me their strongest live sports presenter.
In my opinion, talkSPORT has a much stronger roster of live sports presenters than Radio 5 Live does these days. I thought 5 Live had a really good line-up about 6-7 years ago when it included the likes of Saggers, Russell Fuller, Arlo White and Bob Ballard, but all of these hosts have subsequently moved on and I don't think they have been replaced at all well. I've warmed to Mark Pougatch over the years - to me he is now by far their strongest suit in sports presenting terms - but I struggle to take Mark Chapman and Colin Murray seriously as straight sports hosts and have never really warmed to either Ian Payne or Eleanor Oldroyd. I like Nat Coombs, who presents 5 Live Baseball on Sports Extra as well as ESPN's Bundesliga coverage, and would like to see him used on the main station, but rather than getting heard on 5 Live he's started appearing as a presenter on talkSPORT.
As for 606, the less said about that the better - it has to be at its lowest ebb right now and is in desperate need of a rethink in the summer. It's easy to see why 5 Live bosses have made at least two attempts to re-sign Stan Collymore, his Call Collymore phone-in blows 606 out of the water in my opinion.
Not a surprise but 5Live have gone for Newcastle vs Arsenal on Sunday
I think it was always going to be a case of Newcastle United v Arsenal on Radio 5 Live, Tottenham Hotspur v Sunderland on Absolute Radio ever since the final whistle went at the Emirates on Tuesday night.
As most probably expected, talkSPORT will be doing an Around the Grounds show on Sunday afternoon - Georgie Bingham confirmed at the weekend that she was presenting the last Sunday Exclusive and talkSPORT Premier League commentary of the season, with a Saturday style Matchday Live with Adrian Durham and Ray Parlour taking the Sunday 12noon-6pm slot this weekend, followed by a Call Collymore in the usual Press Pass slot.
Georgie will be presenting Saturday's Matchday Live with Matt Holland this weekend, which is in its normal timeslot. By the sounds of it, they'll only be doing updates (or at best partial commentary) on the League One and Two Play-Off Finals which is a shame. Saturday evening's schedule includes a Premier League Preview with Sam and Stan between 5-7pm and then a second edition of boxing/MMA show talkSPORT Fight Club with Daily Telegraph journalist Gareth A. Davies - which received very favourable reviews on the talkSPORT Chat thread when it got a first airing before Christmas - between 7-9pm.
Next weekend, Georgie Bingham is listed to be hosting Saturday and Sunday Scoreboard shows from 12noon on both days. On Saturday, this will be followed by The Transfer Tavern with Nat Coombs (Radio 5 Live Sports Extra's baseball presenter who has hosted Extra Time in recent months) from 5-7pm, while on Sunday cricket show Howzat! returns between 4-6pm, followed by the usual line-up of The Press Pass, Full Contact and My Sporting Life. That weekend's Saturday Scoreboard will include commentary on rugby union's Premiership Play-Off Final with Andrew McKenna.
On the night of Saturday 25th May, between 7-10pm an edition of Kick Off is listed with the programme description reading as follows: "Danny Kelly, Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore bring you the very latest on the Champions League final from Wembley." So it sounds like it will be updates-only coverage of the UCL Final, which is consistent with the live football on talkSPORT page of talkSPORT.co.uk. Good to hear Danny Kelly will be anchoring their coverage, as I felt it was a shame he didn't get to host last night's Europa League Final coverage despite doing so for the bulk of their live matches from earlier in the competition. I suspect this has more to do with Mark Saggers hosting the Weekend Sports Breakfast that morning more than anything else.
From Saturday 1st June, talkSPORT's weekend schedule will have to be given a considerable rejig in order to incorporate live British & Irish Lions commentaries for six consecutive Saturdays.
Elsewhere, Adam Bridge has confirmed on Twitter that he'll be presenting on Saturday afternoons between 2-6pm on BBC WM during the summer months from this weekend onwards (the first Saturday without any live football). It'll be interesting to hear if his show includes any live Warwickshire CCC cricket commentaries, as he works on WM's webstreams of county matches during the summer. I'm also interested to find out whether Adam will be used as Absolute's man at an alternate match on Sunday - presumably Newcastle v Arsenal - as he has been on the final day of the past two Premier League seasons, or if he'll be commentating on a game for talkSPORT Live instead.
Comments
Stoke v Tottenham Andy Rowley and Steve Froggett (commentary)
Everton v West Ham Nick Godwin (also host) and James Scowcroft (commentary following the above match)
Fulham v Liverpool Emma Jones
QPR v Newcastle Phil Parry
Watford v Leicester Jamie Hill
Jamie Hill went berserk when Watford 'did a Doncaster' and scored from a dubious Leicester penalty. Jon Marks on BBC 3CR was similar - I wonder how Ian Sreinger sounded on BBC Radio Leicester.
Watford v Leicester Jon Marks, Derek Payne, Nick Wright and Paul Robinson (commentary) with Luke Ashmead.
In addition, Jason Harris did his last commentary of a Saracens match for BBC 3CR. For whatever reason (move of ground?), BBC 3CR will no longer cover Saracens. Good luck Jason in the future.
BBC Three counties radio commentary:- Clicky
Anyone got the BBC Radio Leicester commentary of the ending of the game?
Or any Leicester reaction would be an interesting listen and a bit of a contrast, i bet.
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Ray Houghton
Championship Play-Off Semi-Final Second Leg
Brighton & Hove Albion v Crystal Palace - Elliot Cook
To clear something up from the weekend, Dom McGuinness did indeed commentate on the Premier League trophy presentation at Old Trafford on Sunday during The Press Pass on talkSPORT. From flicking around stations, Absolute Radio carried audio from Old Trafford with Ian Wright and Ian Stone commentating on it off-screen, while both stations plus talkSPORT Live carried audio of the whole of Sir Alex Ferguson's post-match speech, although the latter was doing its Premier League highlights show during the presentation. Newstalk Sport Sunday had gone off-air by the time the trophy was lifted.
Anyone have details of Wish FM's FA Cup Final coverage? I know some audio from their commentaries and coverage of previous matches was carried as part of one of the features about Wigan Athletic during ITV's pre-match build-up to the final.
Radio Manchester was on air with Rugby League and then the rugby league phone-in after 4.45pm, crossing regularly to Old Trafford for reports from Bill Rice. They did the whole of the Ferguson speech at around 6pm and then stayed on air until 6.20pm after coverage of the presentation, handing over to Indus (an Asian magazine show) that was already in progress on Radio Lancashire. Rather than join it mid-conversation though, the presenter stopped to welcome Radio Manchester before carrying on with the ongoing debate.
However I was also listening to the start of the United game on Radio Manchester when the players and AF were coming out to the guard of honour. It was half time in the RL game so they were previewing the United game, then for some reason seemed to hand back to the RL just at the critical moment of the guard of honour as AF was coming out, Jack Dearden (or whoever was at the RL), briefly mentioned the RL coverage coming up and then silence for about 3 seconds and then Bill Rice started describing the scenes again. It was as if they had told Bill Rice to hand back and then realised that was a bad idea so went back again.
I like the bloke as a person but he says the same old things over and over.
2 phrases he always says is
"Across the face of goal"
"Salaloms down the wing"
Championship Play-off Semi Final second leg: Brighton and Hove Albion v Crystal Palace: Conor McNamara and Steve Claridge (commentary)
With Mark Pougatch at The Emirates
Arsenal v Wigan - Alistair Bruce-Ball + John Hartson (commentary)
Reading v Man City - Jonathan Legard (Ian Brown + Clive Allen for Sports Extra)
Mark Pougatch will present from Amsterdam tomorrow with John Murray and Nigel Spackman part of the commentary team for the Europa League final.
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Ray Parlour
Premier League
Arsenal v Wigan Athletic - Mike Bovill
Reading v Manchester City - Ian Danter
Mark Saggers, Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore will be talkSPORT's team for tomorrow's Europa League Final.
talkSPORT Live
Premier League
Arsenal v Wigan Athletic - Adam Bridge and Alan McLoughlin (featured 7.45pm commentary on international radio stations)
Reading v Manchester City - Kevin Hatchard
"RATTING AROUND" !!! :rolleyes:
Arsenal v Wigan - Jack Dearden and Paul Rowley - commentary on 95.1 FM
Reading v Man City - Ian Cheeseman and Fred Eyre - commentary on DAB only
A rare occasion when Man City aren't on FM, due to the importance of the Wigan match tonight. Can anyone remember the last time City weren't the live commentary match on FM ?
Sports Producer/Presenter Chris Milow was Live from inside Wembley from 4pm last Saturday (as he was for the semi final) with commentary from the usual commentary team of Paul Chialton & Neill Rimmer (who to my knowledge have done every Wigan commentary for Wish FM/Latics Player this season).
All the cup final stuff is here - http://www.wishfm.net/on-air/wigan-athletic-live/facupfinal/
Obviously a bitter sweet contrast tonight BUT going forward relegation will actually be good for Wish FM, like it was with Bolton on Tower FM. The illegal streaming goes out the window in the championship, meaning radio commentary is boosted and they get tons of extra midweek games to cover. Be interesting to see if the station covers Europa League matches next year with six of them (at least) to play. I suspect the nature of the deal with "Latics Player" will see them do so, but that is my pure speculation.
Many thanks for posting the Wish FM FA Cup Final details that I requested Andy, it is much appreciated.
I believe this is the second FA Cup Final UTV Radio has broadcast on a local radio basis since returning to local radio sports commentaries across most of the British stations in their group, the first being the Manchester City v Stoke City final on Signal two years ago; it will have also been their third cup final locally including the Capital One Cup Final between Bradford City and Swansea City which went out live on both Pulse and Swansea Sound earlier this year.
This is certainly true. That the option to watch Wigan Athletic's 3pm games via the internet or at certain pubs is largely out of the window now, Wish FM should see a boost in their listening figures. I remember reading a Twitter conversation involving a commentator from Free Radio 80s in the Midlands a while back that discussed the respective listening figures The Goalzone's coverage of Premier League and Championship games was receiving, where he stated that actually their listening figures for their Championship clubs' commentaries were significantly higher for precisely this reason.
As for whether Wish FM (and indeed Swansea Sound) will cover Wigan (and Swansea) in the Europa League - I think Signal's coverage of Stoke City in that competition last season should act as a fair guide given that all three stations are owned by UTV Radio. Signal provided commentary on Stoke's three home games in the Europa League group phase and the home leg of their play-off against Thun (although not the home leg of their pre-qualifier against Hajduk Split), plus both legs of their Round of 32 tie against Valencia with commentator Simon Humphreys being on-site for the away leg of that.
Hopefully both Wish FM and Swansea Sound will be afforded the same treatment, although for Swansea Sound it might be tricky as most of their commentators also work on UEFA.com's Champions League and Europa League coverage during European weeks. Perhaps they could call on talkSPORT's Roger Hughes for these games?
I listened to the second half of last night's game on Radio 5 Live (a rare listen to that station's football coverage for me) and I thoroughly enjoyed both Alistair Bruce-Ball's commentary and the fair-minded analysis provided by John Hartson. John is one of the better recently-retired former professionals for my money and it would be a good move on the BBC's part to get him involved more often, particularly seeing as he now has built up a fair bit of punditry experience since retiring on S4C's Sgorio.
Speaking of S4C, Ian Cleverly posted in the Football Commentators thread in the Broadcasting section recently that last weekend's FAW Welsh Cup Final was to be John Hartson's last appearance on Sgorio. Given the confusion surrounding 606, I'm wondering if Radio 5 Live might have lined up Hartson to be (one of) the new voice(s) on that next season? He has co-hosted the phone-in in the past with Robbie Savage and at points during last night's commentary he was encouraging people to ring in to their post-10pm half hour and setting up call subjects as Stan Collymore would in the latter stages of a talkSPORT commentary match preceding an edition of Call Collymore.
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: Europa League Special
UEFA Europa League Final
Benfica v Chelsea - Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore (7.45pm commentary), with Ian Abrahams at pitchside
Host Nick Godwin (studio)
Europa League Final: Benfica v Chelsea (Amsterdam Arena) John Murray, Alan Green and Nigel Spackman (BBC Five Live commentary) with Ian Ramsdale
And in other shocking news, I listened to TS twice this last weekend.
Firstly in The FA Cup final build up and first twenty minutes of the game. I thought the build up was good, Danny Murphy sends me to sleep though but I know he's a popular figure in the media. He didn't convey any excitement. The commentary was good from what I heard.
Then I listened to some of the Stoke vs Spurs game, it was fine listening to it.
I think it's the presenters on TS I'm not always into, I think I could cope with the commentary of games. Sadly, my main experiences of TS is Drivetime which I simply cannot stand. I'm also not a huge Matterface fan.
Richard Gordon presenting Sportsound on 810MW from Rugby Park.
Kilmarnock v Hibernian - John Barnes, Billy Dodds and Steven Thompson (commentary) with Chick Young pitchside
Alloa v Dunfermline - Kenny McIntyre
East Fife v Peterhead - Jim Spence
Indeed Wish FM's first Wigan Athletic commentary was on the 1999 Auto Windscreens Final against Millwall that Wigan also won 1-0 with an injury time winner. Matt McCann was the commentator that day. He is now head of press at Liverpool.
Out of interest, are you talking about the standard of presenting on talkSPORT in general terms or specifically about that of their live football/sports coverage? If it's the latter, I actually think this is one of the areas in which they really excel in.
I too cannot stand Drive Time, which I think is by far the poorest programme on the station, and Adrian Durham's role as on that - but on Matchday Live on Saturdays it is like listening to a different presenter. Adrian has a superb knowledge of the Football League and is an extremely slick anchorman, perfectly capable of throwing between games and updating scores during the Around the Grounds section from 2pm. I think most people who have listened to a fair amount of both Adrian's weekday and weekend work would agree with my assessment here, I know that certainly seems to be the case on this thread.
Elsewhere, Georgie Bingham for me has been a big success on Sunday Exclusive since taking over from Alan Brazil at the beginning of last year, she has a nice style for the 90 minutes of discussion prior to the 1.30pm commentaries and tends to gel well with the different studio pundits. Danny Kelly is probably talkSPORT's form presenter of the last few years and his Thursday and Friday Kick Off programmes are of a consistently high standard, Ian Danter is a versatile deputy on just about every show, particularly on Matchday Live when Adrian was ill for a few months at the start of the year (and he is a very good commentator and reporter too), and while Mark Saggers has his faults (he tends to get irate easily) on his day he is a strong live anchorman who asks the pertinent questions of his guests. That Saggers is probably the weakest link of their presenting line-up for live sport these days says a lot, as when he was on Radio 5 Live he was for me their strongest live sports presenter.
In my opinion, talkSPORT has a much stronger roster of live sports presenters than Radio 5 Live does these days. I thought 5 Live had a really good line-up about 6-7 years ago when it included the likes of Saggers, Russell Fuller, Arlo White and Bob Ballard, but all of these hosts have subsequently moved on and I don't think they have been replaced at all well. I've warmed to Mark Pougatch over the years - to me he is now by far their strongest suit in sports presenting terms - but I struggle to take Mark Chapman and Colin Murray seriously as straight sports hosts and have never really warmed to either Ian Payne or Eleanor Oldroyd. I like Nat Coombs, who presents 5 Live Baseball on Sports Extra as well as ESPN's Bundesliga coverage, and would like to see him used on the main station, but rather than getting heard on 5 Live he's started appearing as a presenter on talkSPORT.
As for 606, the less said about that the better - it has to be at its lowest ebb right now and is in desperate need of a rethink in the summer. It's easy to see why 5 Live bosses have made at least two attempts to re-sign Stan Collymore, his Call Collymore phone-in blows 606 out of the water in my opinion.
I think it was always going to be a case of Newcastle United v Arsenal on Radio 5 Live, Tottenham Hotspur v Sunderland on Absolute Radio ever since the final whistle went at the Emirates on Tuesday night.
As most probably expected, talkSPORT will be doing an Around the Grounds show on Sunday afternoon - Georgie Bingham confirmed at the weekend that she was presenting the last Sunday Exclusive and talkSPORT Premier League commentary of the season, with a Saturday style Matchday Live with Adrian Durham and Ray Parlour taking the Sunday 12noon-6pm slot this weekend, followed by a Call Collymore in the usual Press Pass slot.
Georgie will be presenting Saturday's Matchday Live with Matt Holland this weekend, which is in its normal timeslot. By the sounds of it, they'll only be doing updates (or at best partial commentary) on the League One and Two Play-Off Finals which is a shame. Saturday evening's schedule includes a Premier League Preview with Sam and Stan between 5-7pm and then a second edition of boxing/MMA show talkSPORT Fight Club with Daily Telegraph journalist Gareth A. Davies - which received very favourable reviews on the talkSPORT Chat thread when it got a first airing before Christmas - between 7-9pm.
Next weekend, Georgie Bingham is listed to be hosting Saturday and Sunday Scoreboard shows from 12noon on both days. On Saturday, this will be followed by The Transfer Tavern with Nat Coombs (Radio 5 Live Sports Extra's baseball presenter who has hosted Extra Time in recent months) from 5-7pm, while on Sunday cricket show Howzat! returns between 4-6pm, followed by the usual line-up of The Press Pass, Full Contact and My Sporting Life. That weekend's Saturday Scoreboard will include commentary on rugby union's Premiership Play-Off Final with Andrew McKenna.
On the night of Saturday 25th May, between 7-10pm an edition of Kick Off is listed with the programme description reading as follows: "Danny Kelly, Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore bring you the very latest on the Champions League final from Wembley." So it sounds like it will be updates-only coverage of the UCL Final, which is consistent with the live football on talkSPORT page of talkSPORT.co.uk. Good to hear Danny Kelly will be anchoring their coverage, as I felt it was a shame he didn't get to host last night's Europa League Final coverage despite doing so for the bulk of their live matches from earlier in the competition. I suspect this has more to do with Mark Saggers hosting the Weekend Sports Breakfast that morning more than anything else.
From Saturday 1st June, talkSPORT's weekend schedule will have to be given a considerable rejig in order to incorporate live British & Irish Lions commentaries for six consecutive Saturdays.
Elsewhere, Adam Bridge has confirmed on Twitter that he'll be presenting on Saturday afternoons between 2-6pm on BBC WM during the summer months from this weekend onwards (the first Saturday without any live football). It'll be interesting to hear if his show includes any live Warwickshire CCC cricket commentaries, as he works on WM's webstreams of county matches during the summer. I'm also interested to find out whether Adam will be used as Absolute's man at an alternate match on Sunday - presumably Newcastle v Arsenal - as he has been on the final day of the past two Premier League seasons, or if he'll be commentating on a game for talkSPORT Live instead.