Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: Monday Night Feist Night alongside Stan Collymore
Premier League
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Graham Beecroft
talkSPORT Live
Premier League
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Adam Bridge and Alan McLoughlin
BBC WM
Mark Regan presenting WM Sport from Anfield
Premier League
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Richard Wilford and Mark Regan (8pm commentary)
In other WM news, Peter Withe has taken over as the co-host of their Monday evening Football Phone-In following David Kelly's decision to take the assistant manager's job at Walsall (and then, nine days later, the respective job at Nottingham Forest).
Sunday 10th February - BBC World Service (Sub-Saharan Africa) and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra
Lee James presenting Sportsworld from FNB Stadium, Soccer City, Johannesburg
Africa Cup of Nations Final
Nigeria v Burkina Faso - John Bennett, Matthew Kenyon and Lutz Pfannenstiel (6.30pm GMT commentary), with Nick Cavell reporting
Unlike their coverage of Wednesday's semi-finals, Radio 5 Live Sports Extra are taking the World Service's presentation as well as their commentary.
Being stuck driving a car on Sunday evening, I was listening to Sports Extra (thanks to 3G via mobile) from about 8.00 and coverage was lost with about 8 mins left. When they finally returned it was in the 89th minute, and it was commented "while you were away there was a substitution..." imlying that World Service also lost the coverage. I don't know what WS did in the break but Sports Extra just went straight to the normal loop of trailers, which played out until it returned - surely there must be a "sorry about this break in transmission, we are trying our best etc" or someone in the studio like when they do TMS? It meant that after 5 mins of trailers I was not confident of them returning at all, especially considering it wasn't clear why it had gone to trailers. It was like it had ended early and that was that. I find it hard to believe many listeners were left!
Being stuck driving a car on Sunday evening, I was listening to Sports Extra (thanks to 3G via mobile) from about 8.00 and coverage was lost with about 8 mins left. When they finally returned it was in the 89th minute, and it was commented "while you were away there was a substitution..." imlying that World Service also lost the coverage. I don't know what WS did in the break but Sports Extra just went straight to the normal loop of trailers, which played out until it returned - surely there must be a "sorry about this break in transmission, we are trying our best etc" or someone in the studio like when they do TMS? It meant that after 5 mins of trailers I was not confident of them returning at all, especially considering it wasn't clear why it had gone to trailers. It was like it had ended early and that was that. I find it hard to believe many listeners were left!
Thanks for posting that, it is interesting to know. To be honest I had been expecting Radio 5 Live Sports Extra to be doing their own studio presentation separate to the World Service's coverage, as they did for the semi-finals. Had this happened on Sunday, then surely the studio team would have taken over and provided off-tube commentary from television pictures during the time in which the line was down. As it happened, 5LSE's coverage began at 6.15pm with them picking up the World Service broadcast and ended when the WS ended at around 8.45pm (I watched the game on TV but listened to 5LSE during the commercial breaks during ITV4's coverage).
During the power delay that held up last Sunday's Super Bowl, commentary on which was simulcast on both Radio 5 Live and 5LSE, when Up All Night presenter Dotun Adebayo crossed to a pre-recorded news item while they were waiting to reconnect to their line to the stadium, 5LSE actually opted out of this and went to their recorded transmission looped message before they were able to return to the stadium.
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Matt Holland
UEFA Champions League Round of 16 First Leg
Celtic v Juventus - Nigel Adderley and Ray Houghton
FA Cup Fourth Round Replay
Leicester City v Huddersfield Town - Geoff Peters
Championship
Brighton & Hove Albion v Blackburn Rovers - Elliot Cook
Hull City v Derby County - John Temple
Middlesbrough v Leeds United - Graham Courtney
Roddy used to commentate on all Scottish games pretty much, as they've dropped down to 1 commentator, I just wonder if they don't see him as a 90 minute man?
Or, he's now just contracted as a reporter and that's all he can do otherwise he'd be on the commentator roster?
BBC Radio Leeds, and official websites of Huddersfield Town and Bradford City studio Nick Hatton* host: Gareth Jones at the KP Stadium
Wycombe Wanderers versus Bradford City (103.9 FM, AM, DAB and official Bradford City website) commentator: Dave Fletcher summariser: Mike Harrison
(92.4, 95.3 and 102.7 FM, online, and official Huddersfield Town website)
Leicester City versus Huddersfield Town commentator: Paul Ogden summariser: Martin McIntosh
Middlesbrough versus Leeds United reporter: Katherine Hannah
The Pulse
Wycombe Wanderers versus Bradford City host and commentator:Tim Thornton summariser: Ian Ormondroyd
Yorkshire Radio (DAB), Minster FM and official Leeds United website host: Michael Weadock
Middlesbrough versus Leeds United commentator:Thom Kirwin summariser: Eddy Gray
BBC Radio York host: Sharon Shortle
York City versus Gillingham commentator: Barry Parker summariser: Chris Jones
BBC Radio Humberside host: Matt Dean
Hull City versus Derby County (FM) commentator: David Burns summariser: Peter Swan
Scunthorpe United versus Carlisle United (AM and DAB) commentator: Mike White summariser: Lee Turnbull
*The frequencies were split before the beginning of Huddersfield Town's match, until the conclusion of Bradford City's match. Nick Hatton hosted the Bradforc City coverage during this time.
Disappointingly, Radio Manchester had no coverage of Bury v Sheffield United, opting for Mark Forrest instead.
Considering they are opting out to just (presumably) simulcast 5 Live tomorrow, I was hoping for some local coverage tonight.
I had thought that this national show would be beneficial to local coverage meaning that local stations now had no reasons to stick with local specialist shows, so would go with the local commentaries more. However it seems they are doing it less. Pretty much 100% that Radio Manchester would have done Bury v Sheff Utd if it was as before.
Hereford United V Wrexham - John Hardy and Waynne Phillips (North FM / Online)
Newport County V Mansfield Town - Mark Poyser and Ian Walsh (SE FM / Online)
Welsh Open Snooker, Newport - John Ifans
BBC Somerset
Richard Hoskin (studio host)
Yeovil Town V Preston North End - Chris Spittles and Chris Sweet (95.5FM)
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: Champions League Live
UEFA Champions League Round of 16 First Leg
Real Madrid v Manchester United - Sam Matterface and Andy Gray (7.45pm commentary)
Having flicked through last night's Kick Off on Listen Again, talkSPORT just did a normal Around the Grounds show rather than stopping at either Celtic or Leicester for extended spells of coverage/commentary (albeit with Ray Houghton involved the Celtic v Juventus updates were probably slightly longer than the norm).
Aprils live games have worked out very well for 5Live
Yes, the second Manchester derby of the season has been pencilled in for a Monday night for the second season running (although that could be brought forward depending on Champions League fixtures should Manchester United progress to the quarter-finals), plus as things stand there are games scheduled in the Saturday 12.45pm timeslot and on Monday night during three of the four April weekends (although the weekend of the 13/14/15th is set to be affected by the FA Cup Semi-Finals).
As for talkSPORT, as it stands they'll only be able to do five or six Premier League commentaries in April, which are as follows:
Sunday 7th April - Liverpool v West Ham United (1.30pm) AND/OR Tottenham Hotspur v Everton (2.05pm)*
Sunday 14th April - Stoke City v Manchester United (1.30pm)
Sunday 21st April - Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City (1.30pm)
Saturday 27th April - Newcastle United v Liverpool (5.30pm)
Sunday 28th April - Reading v Queens Park Rangers (1.30pm)
*The former game has been pushed back to a Sunday due to The Grand National, the latter one is a rare ESPN Sunday live match.
All of those six fixtures involve teams who are either chasing the title, European football or battling against relegation, so on paper talkSPORT have done fairly well in that respect, however they'll be disappointed with there only being one Saturday teatime kick-off during April. That said, they may have expected this given ESPN's TV picks so far and their selection policy in previous seasons.
Looking at the bigger picture for talkSPORT, through until the end of February (so including the Manchester City v Chelsea game on the last Sunday of the month) they will have covered 45 live Premier League games this season: 18 in the Saturday 5.30pm timeslot, 22 on Sundays (of which three of these were 3pm kick-offs as part of double headers) and 5 Wednesday matches (one of these being their Boxing Day commentary).
Adding in those matches scheduled in talkSPORT's timeslots for March and April (presuming they only do one live game on 7th April), their total should stand at 55 live Premier League commentaries at the end of April (27 Saturday/Wednesday games and 28 Sunday games), although they could lose two Sunday games during FA Cup weekends (Fulham v Chelsea on 10th March and Stoke City v Manchester United on 14th April) but are likely to gain some Wednesday night matches as a result of FA Cup related rescheduling and perhaps a few early Sunday games off the back of fixture changes due to Europa League or even Champions League commitments.
In May, there are only three Premier League matchrounds and of those it is unlikely that talkSPORT will do a commentary on the final day of the season. Therefore, assuming there are single commentary games in both of their timeslots during the first two weekends of May (thus four more live matches), they'll be five commentaries short of hitting their 64 game quota for the season before you get to any rescheduled Wednesday/Sunday fixtures. And then you have the three games talkSPORT "left over" from their quota last season, which I mention as 5 Live seemed to call upon commentary opportunities they didn't use during 2010/11 when slightly exceeding their PL quota last term (giving them a degree of flexibility that seemed very fair to me and hopefully this is something that would be offered to talkSPORT if necessary this year).
Therefore talkSPORT should have no problems in doing any Europe-dictated Sunday double headers in the final few months of the season and given their surplus of commentaries it would not surprise me if they opted to send commentary teams to both of the matches they have the ability to do on Sunday 7th April, whether that be by splitting their platforms or simply by covering Liverpool v West Ham in full and then picking up commentary on the final half hour of Spurs v Everton after the game at Anfield finishes.
Amazingly, Radio Manchester had Bill Rice in Madrid with commentary and Arthur Albiston in the studio. Presentation in the studio was by Stuart Gardener (well it sounded like him, but I didn't hear him namechecked).
I was listening from about 8.40-9.00 and they made a point of saying that Radio Manchester was "the home of Manchester United's Champions League games", which certainly wasn't the case earlier in the season when there was no commentary on any station for some games, and occasionally they had just relayed 5 Live commentary.
I'm still slightly annoyed that they are fine to spend the money on Man United away in Madrid but (presumably) save money by not doing anything with Bury v Sheff Utd the night before (which was a big game for Bury in the League 1 relegation battle).
The station will also broadcast Bayern Munich v Arsenal and Juventus v Celtic next month. I'd really be interested to know how much more the likes of Arsenal, Celtic and Manchester United "charge" for commentary rights to home games as talkSPORT don't appear willing to spend the cash on the games.
I would too. I'm sure you are aware of occasions in recent seasons when Manchester United and Arsenal "locked out" reporters from home Champions League games on the basis of stations being unwilling to pay their asking price for reporting access on Champions League evenings, so clearly money is a factor but unfortunately figures have never been publically disclosed. One for Charles Sale to get his teeth into perhaps.
It's clearly been talkSPORT's policy since the beginning of last season to pick up rights to cover the British teams' away games in the Champions League whenever possible. I think the only British club they have covered at home in this time is Chelsea, with the station having a long-standing history with them in terms of both their domestic local radio rights and their national radio European rights during the 2000s. Thus the Round of 16 draw has worked out very well for talkSPORT in so much as the three away legs for the British clubs are Wednesday night games and so will be on Sky Sports rather than ITV.
I think it's pretty obvious that TalkSport are prioritising the games which aren't on ITV, and there are obvious reasons for doing so, rather than the radio rights for home games being particularly more expensive than away games.
talkSPORT's commentary details for this weekend's FA Cup...
Saturday 16th February
Luton v Millwall - Sam Matterface & Ray Houghton
Arsenal v Blackburn - Nigel Pearson & Ray Parlour
Oldham v Everton - Nigel Adderley & Stan Collymore
Sunday 17th February
Chelsea v Brentford - John Roder & Matt Holland
Manchester City v Leeds - Nigel Pearson & Ray Parlour
Huddersfield v Wigan - Ian Danter & Stan Collymore
Monday 18th February
Manchester United v Reading - Nigel Adderley & Stan Collymore
Drive Time with Adrian Durham and Darren Gough, followed by Danny Kelly presenting Kick Off alongside John Cross from the Daily Mirror
UEFA Europa League Round of 32 First Leg
Zenit Saint Petersburg v Liverpool - Graham Beecroft
Sparta Prague v Chelsea - Mike Bovill
Newcastle United v Metalist Kharkiv - Graham Courtney
Tottenham Hotspur v Olympique Lyonnais - Ian Abrahams
Thanks for posting the FA Cup Fifth Round commentary details 4-4-2. It will be interesting to see what talkSPORT Live do, whether they produce their own commentaries on the TV games as they did during the Third Round or just simulcast talkSPORT UK's commentaries as per their coverage of the Fourth Round, particularly on Sunday when they also have to take Liverpool v Swansea City in the Premier League into consideration.
I think it's pretty obvious that TalkSport are prioritising the games which aren't on ITV, and there are obvious reasons for doing so, rather than the radio rights for home games being particularly more expensive than away games.
Well, during this season's group phase, talkSPORT provided live commentaries on Real Madrid v Manchester City (Matchday 1), CFR Cluj v Manchester United (Matchday 2) and Olympiakos v Arsenal (Matchday 6), all three of which were televised live on ITV1. On the three other Tuesdays staging group games in 2012, on two occasions ITV opted to screen games involving the English teams playing at home - Manchester United v SC Braga (Matchday 3) and Manchester City v Ajax (Matchday 4) - while talkSPORT stuck to their usual policy of covering games taking place on the continent, Shakhtar Donetsk v Chelsea and Schalke 04 v Arsenal respectively. The only game involving an English side away from home during this season's group stage that ITV selected and talkSPORT didn't was Juventus v Chelsea on Matchday 5, on that evening talkSPORT went for Benfica v Celtic instead.
During both the previous and the current season, talkSPORT have quite clearly been operating a policy of covering away games for the British clubs in the Champions League whenever possible, for whatever reason that may be (I'm not speculating as to why this is, just pointing out an obvious trend I have noticed). Of the 13 Champions League games the station will have covered this season by the end of the Round of 16, only two of these matches have been played in the UK (Chelsea's games v Juventus on the Wednesday of Matchday 1 and v FC Nordsjaelland on the Wednesday of Matchday 6). On both of those occasions, all three of the British teams in action that night were playing at home. On the two evenings during the group stage when they did not do a commentary game (the Wednesdays of Matchdays 2 and 5), both Arsenal and Manchester City were playing at home.
Last season, talkSPORT broadcast 18 live Champions League commentaries - every single one of those games was played outside of the UK. I don't have the statistics to hand to tell you how many of those 18 fixtures were also live on ITV, but I seem to remember that at least a reasonable proportion of these games were.
Yes, clearly there are very obvious reasons why talkSPORT would get a bigger audience for a live Champions League commentary on a Wednesday night than they would on a Tuesday night, and that Tuesday games that are exclusive to Sky Sports would almost certainly gain them more listeners than those that are live on ITV would, but as you can see from the statistics I have provided, offering commentaries on games that are not live on free-to-air television through ITV has not been UTV's main determining factor when it comes to buying rights for talkSPORT - if this was the case, they surely wouldn't have covered half of the group games ITV televised this season.
As I posted on here on the day the Round of 16 draw was made and the fixture list was drawn up, I just think it's a happy coincidence for talkSPORT that the three away legs involving the three remaining British teams are taking place on Wednesdays and so are on Sky Sports rather than on Tuesdays and ITV. Undoubtedly, this will have been what UTV management will have been hoping for in order to maximise their listening audience for the three games they were always likely to pick up commentary rights to. But had the draw worked out differently, would talkSPORT have altered their usual selection policy? I guess we'll never know, but going by their choices over the past 18 months I doubt it.
Comments
Alan Green is in Madrid
It's Ian Dennis, Ian Brown & Lawro tonight
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: Monday Night Feist Night alongside Stan Collymore
Premier League
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Graham Beecroft
talkSPORT Live
Premier League
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Adam Bridge and Alan McLoughlin
BBC WM
Mark Regan presenting WM Sport from Anfield
Premier League
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Richard Wilford and Mark Regan (8pm commentary)
In other WM news, Peter Withe has taken over as the co-host of their Monday evening Football Phone-In following David Kelly's decision to take the assistant manager's job at Walsall (and then, nine days later, the respective job at Nottingham Forest).
Being stuck driving a car on Sunday evening, I was listening to Sports Extra (thanks to 3G via mobile) from about 8.00 and coverage was lost with about 8 mins left. When they finally returned it was in the 89th minute, and it was commented "while you were away there was a substitution..." imlying that World Service also lost the coverage. I don't know what WS did in the break but Sports Extra just went straight to the normal loop of trailers, which played out until it returned - surely there must be a "sorry about this break in transmission, we are trying our best etc" or someone in the studio like when they do TMS? It meant that after 5 mins of trailers I was not confident of them returning at all, especially considering it wasn't clear why it had gone to trailers. It was like it had ended early and that was that. I find it hard to believe many listeners were left!
Thanks for posting that, it is interesting to know. To be honest I had been expecting Radio 5 Live Sports Extra to be doing their own studio presentation separate to the World Service's coverage, as they did for the semi-finals. Had this happened on Sunday, then surely the studio team would have taken over and provided off-tube commentary from television pictures during the time in which the line was down. As it happened, 5LSE's coverage began at 6.15pm with them picking up the World Service broadcast and ended when the WS ended at around 8.45pm (I watched the game on TV but listened to 5LSE during the commercial breaks during ITV4's coverage).
During the power delay that held up last Sunday's Super Bowl, commentary on which was simulcast on both Radio 5 Live and 5LSE, when Up All Night presenter Dotun Adebayo crossed to a pre-recorded news item while they were waiting to reconnect to their line to the stadium, 5LSE actually opted out of this and went to their recorded transmission looped message before they were able to return to the stadium.
Must be the first time Ian Brown has done a commentary on 5 live (rather than SE) for a while? He seems to have fallen massively out of favour.
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Matt Holland
UEFA Champions League Round of 16 First Leg
Celtic v Juventus - Nigel Adderley and Ray Houghton
FA Cup Fourth Round Replay
Leicester City v Huddersfield Town - Geoff Peters
Championship
Brighton & Hove Albion v Blackburn Rovers - Elliot Cook
Hull City v Derby County - John Temple
Middlesbrough v Leeds United - Graham Courtney
Ian was off sick for a long time and only returned in November so he may have slipped down the pecking order
Richard Gordon presenting Sportsound from Celtic Park on 810MW with Chick Young.
Celtic v Juventus (7.45pm) - Liam McLeod, Owen Coyle and Murdo MacLeod (commentary)
Al Lamont was outside speaking to fans and Pat Nevin joined from Five Live for a chat.
Presented by Mark Pougatch at Celtic
Celtic v Juventus - Darren Fletcher + Pat Nevin (commentary). Roddy Forsyth is there as well, would love to know why they don't let him commentate.
Leicester v Huddersfield - John Acres (Alistair Bruce-Ball + Dean Kiely on Sports Extra)
Brighton v Blackburn - Russell Fuller
Hull v Derby - Peter Slater
Middlesbrough v Leeds - Steve Wyeth
Or, he's now just contracted as a reporter and that's all he can do otherwise he'd be on the commentator roster?
BBC Radio Cumbria Sport Presented by James Phillips at Glanford Park
Scunthorpe United v Carlisle United James Phillips and Chris Lumsdon (commentary)
Southport v Barrow Garry Woodworth and Andy Legg (commentary)
studio Nick Hatton*
host: Gareth Jones at the KP Stadium
Wycombe Wanderers versus Bradford City (103.9 FM, AM, DAB and official Bradford City website)
commentator: Dave Fletcher
summariser: Mike Harrison
(92.4, 95.3 and 102.7 FM, online, and official Huddersfield Town website)
Leicester City versus Huddersfield Town
commentator: Paul Ogden
summariser: Martin McIntosh
Middlesbrough versus Leeds United
reporter: Katherine Hannah
The Pulse
Wycombe Wanderers versus Bradford City
host and commentator: Tim Thornton
summariser: Ian Ormondroyd
Yorkshire Radio (DAB), Minster FM and official Leeds United website
host: Michael Weadock
Middlesbrough versus Leeds United
commentator: Thom Kirwin
summariser: Eddy Gray
BBC Radio York
host: Sharon Shortle
York City versus Gillingham
commentator: Barry Parker
summariser: Chris Jones
BBC Radio Humberside
host: Matt Dean
Hull City versus Derby County (FM)
commentator: David Burns
summariser: Peter Swan
Scunthorpe United versus Carlisle United (AM and DAB)
commentator: Mike White
summariser: Lee Turnbull
*The frequencies were split before the beginning of Huddersfield Town's match, until the conclusion of Bradford City's match. Nick Hatton hosted the Bradforc City coverage during this time.
Considering they are opting out to just (presumably) simulcast 5 Live tomorrow, I was hoping for some local coverage tonight.
I had thought that this national show would be beneficial to local coverage meaning that local stations now had no reasons to stick with local specialist shows, so would go with the local commentaries more. However it seems they are doing it less. Pretty much 100% that Radio Manchester would have done Bury v Sheff Utd if it was as before.
Simon Davies (studio host)
Hereford United V Wrexham - John Hardy and Waynne Phillips (North FM / Online)
Newport County V Mansfield Town - Mark Poyser and Ian Walsh (SE FM / Online)
Welsh Open Snooker, Newport - John Ifans
BBC Somerset
Richard Hoskin (studio host)
Yeovil Town V Preston North End - Chris Spittles and Chris Sweet (95.5FM)
Presented by John Sinclair from the King Power Stadium
FA Cup - Fourth Round Replay
Leicester City v Huddersfield - Ian Stringer and Alan Young (19:45 commentary)
Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: Champions League Live
UEFA Champions League Round of 16 First Leg
Real Madrid v Manchester United - Sam Matterface and Andy Gray (7.45pm commentary)
Having flicked through last night's Kick Off on Listen Again, talkSPORT just did a normal Around the Grounds show rather than stopping at either Celtic or Leicester for extended spells of coverage/commentary (albeit with Ray Houghton involved the Celtic v Juventus updates were probably slightly longer than the norm).
Richard Gordon presenting Sportsound on 810MW.
Inverness CT v Kilmarnock - Rob Maclean, Billy Dodds and John Robertson (commentary) with Jim Spence pitchside
Seemingly Rob Maclean turned up late due to the weather, so Jim Spence commentated for the first few minutes.
Yes, the second Manchester derby of the season has been pencilled in for a Monday night for the second season running (although that could be brought forward depending on Champions League fixtures should Manchester United progress to the quarter-finals), plus as things stand there are games scheduled in the Saturday 12.45pm timeslot and on Monday night during three of the four April weekends (although the weekend of the 13/14/15th is set to be affected by the FA Cup Semi-Finals).
As for talkSPORT, as it stands they'll only be able to do five or six Premier League commentaries in April, which are as follows:
Sunday 7th April - Liverpool v West Ham United (1.30pm) AND/OR Tottenham Hotspur v Everton (2.05pm)*
Sunday 14th April - Stoke City v Manchester United (1.30pm)
Sunday 21st April - Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City (1.30pm)
Saturday 27th April - Newcastle United v Liverpool (5.30pm)
Sunday 28th April - Reading v Queens Park Rangers (1.30pm)
*The former game has been pushed back to a Sunday due to The Grand National, the latter one is a rare ESPN Sunday live match.
All of those six fixtures involve teams who are either chasing the title, European football or battling against relegation, so on paper talkSPORT have done fairly well in that respect, however they'll be disappointed with there only being one Saturday teatime kick-off during April. That said, they may have expected this given ESPN's TV picks so far and their selection policy in previous seasons.
Looking at the bigger picture for talkSPORT, through until the end of February (so including the Manchester City v Chelsea game on the last Sunday of the month) they will have covered 45 live Premier League games this season: 18 in the Saturday 5.30pm timeslot, 22 on Sundays (of which three of these were 3pm kick-offs as part of double headers) and 5 Wednesday matches (one of these being their Boxing Day commentary).
Adding in those matches scheduled in talkSPORT's timeslots for March and April (presuming they only do one live game on 7th April), their total should stand at 55 live Premier League commentaries at the end of April (27 Saturday/Wednesday games and 28 Sunday games), although they could lose two Sunday games during FA Cup weekends (Fulham v Chelsea on 10th March and Stoke City v Manchester United on 14th April) but are likely to gain some Wednesday night matches as a result of FA Cup related rescheduling and perhaps a few early Sunday games off the back of fixture changes due to Europa League or even Champions League commitments.
In May, there are only three Premier League matchrounds and of those it is unlikely that talkSPORT will do a commentary on the final day of the season. Therefore, assuming there are single commentary games in both of their timeslots during the first two weekends of May (thus four more live matches), they'll be five commentaries short of hitting their 64 game quota for the season before you get to any rescheduled Wednesday/Sunday fixtures. And then you have the three games talkSPORT "left over" from their quota last season, which I mention as 5 Live seemed to call upon commentary opportunities they didn't use during 2010/11 when slightly exceeding their PL quota last term (giving them a degree of flexibility that seemed very fair to me and hopefully this is something that would be offered to talkSPORT if necessary this year).
Therefore talkSPORT should have no problems in doing any Europe-dictated Sunday double headers in the final few months of the season and given their surplus of commentaries it would not surprise me if they opted to send commentary teams to both of the matches they have the ability to do on Sunday 7th April, whether that be by splitting their platforms or simply by covering Liverpool v West Ham in full and then picking up commentary on the final half hour of Spurs v Everton after the game at Anfield finishes.
I was listening from about 8.40-9.00 and they made a point of saying that Radio Manchester was "the home of Manchester United's Champions League games", which certainly wasn't the case earlier in the season when there was no commentary on any station for some games, and occasionally they had just relayed 5 Live commentary.
I'm still slightly annoyed that they are fine to spend the money on Man United away in Madrid but (presumably) save money by not doing anything with Bury v Sheff Utd the night before (which was a big game for Bury in the League 1 relegation battle).
I think it's pretty obvious that TalkSport are prioritising the games which aren't on ITV, and there are obvious reasons for doing so, rather than the radio rights for home games being particularly more expensive than away games.
Saturday 16th February
Luton v Millwall - Sam Matterface & Ray Houghton
Arsenal v Blackburn - Nigel Pearson & Ray Parlour
Oldham v Everton - Nigel Adderley & Stan Collymore
Sunday 17th February
Chelsea v Brentford - John Roder & Matt Holland
Manchester City v Leeds - Nigel Pearson & Ray Parlour
Huddersfield v Wigan - Ian Danter & Stan Collymore
Monday 18th February
Manchester United v Reading - Nigel Adderley & Stan Collymore
I don't think anyone else was there for 5Live
Drive Time with Adrian Durham and Darren Gough, followed by Danny Kelly presenting Kick Off alongside John Cross from the Daily Mirror
UEFA Europa League Round of 32 First Leg
Zenit Saint Petersburg v Liverpool - Graham Beecroft
Sparta Prague v Chelsea - Mike Bovill
Newcastle United v Metalist Kharkiv - Graham Courtney
Tottenham Hotspur v Olympique Lyonnais - Ian Abrahams
Thanks for posting the FA Cup Fifth Round commentary details 4-4-2. It will be interesting to see what talkSPORT Live do, whether they produce their own commentaries on the TV games as they did during the Third Round or just simulcast talkSPORT UK's commentaries as per their coverage of the Fourth Round, particularly on Sunday when they also have to take Liverpool v Swansea City in the Premier League into consideration.
Well, during this season's group phase, talkSPORT provided live commentaries on Real Madrid v Manchester City (Matchday 1), CFR Cluj v Manchester United (Matchday 2) and Olympiakos v Arsenal (Matchday 6), all three of which were televised live on ITV1. On the three other Tuesdays staging group games in 2012, on two occasions ITV opted to screen games involving the English teams playing at home - Manchester United v SC Braga (Matchday 3) and Manchester City v Ajax (Matchday 4) - while talkSPORT stuck to their usual policy of covering games taking place on the continent, Shakhtar Donetsk v Chelsea and Schalke 04 v Arsenal respectively. The only game involving an English side away from home during this season's group stage that ITV selected and talkSPORT didn't was Juventus v Chelsea on Matchday 5, on that evening talkSPORT went for Benfica v Celtic instead.
During both the previous and the current season, talkSPORT have quite clearly been operating a policy of covering away games for the British clubs in the Champions League whenever possible, for whatever reason that may be (I'm not speculating as to why this is, just pointing out an obvious trend I have noticed). Of the 13 Champions League games the station will have covered this season by the end of the Round of 16, only two of these matches have been played in the UK (Chelsea's games v Juventus on the Wednesday of Matchday 1 and v FC Nordsjaelland on the Wednesday of Matchday 6). On both of those occasions, all three of the British teams in action that night were playing at home. On the two evenings during the group stage when they did not do a commentary game (the Wednesdays of Matchdays 2 and 5), both Arsenal and Manchester City were playing at home.
Last season, talkSPORT broadcast 18 live Champions League commentaries - every single one of those games was played outside of the UK. I don't have the statistics to hand to tell you how many of those 18 fixtures were also live on ITV, but I seem to remember that at least a reasonable proportion of these games were.
Yes, clearly there are very obvious reasons why talkSPORT would get a bigger audience for a live Champions League commentary on a Wednesday night than they would on a Tuesday night, and that Tuesday games that are exclusive to Sky Sports would almost certainly gain them more listeners than those that are live on ITV would, but as you can see from the statistics I have provided, offering commentaries on games that are not live on free-to-air television through ITV has not been UTV's main determining factor when it comes to buying rights for talkSPORT - if this was the case, they surely wouldn't have covered half of the group games ITV televised this season.
As I posted on here on the day the Round of 16 draw was made and the fixture list was drawn up, I just think it's a happy coincidence for talkSPORT that the three away legs involving the three remaining British teams are taking place on Wednesdays and so are on Sky Sports rather than on Tuesdays and ITV. Undoubtedly, this will have been what UTV management will have been hoping for in order to maximise their listening audience for the three games they were always likely to pick up commentary rights to. But had the draw worked out differently, would talkSPORT have altered their usual selection policy? I guess we'll never know, but going by their choices over the past 18 months I doubt it.