I think that Matt Dean is still on holiday in Australia, so would be missing the Humber derby for that reason.

Mike White - not sure. Although his involvement in Saturday Sport has been limited to cover for other commentators and once in the studio I believe. Last season was always involved in those or if not, always at Hull match

Andy, this is definitely true regarding the fact that the matches allocated to the Saturday evening and Sunday lunchtime slots have appeared to be decent fixtures:

ESPN have the Saturday games and their general principle has been to choose the other "Big 4" team that has not already been selected.
The Sunday TV games seem to be Sky's second pick.
There have also been some "tasty" fixtures moved to Sunday lunchtime on police advice.

The schedule is out of TS's hands, however, the TV companies have chosen some of the matches so they must consider them worth showing, thus they are likely to appeal to the radio listener too.
Additionally, if police have moved a game it is must be for a genuine reason, so an increased audience would be expected. These games are also well hyped in the media again boosting profile.

Whether TS are getting higher listening figures for these games is probably more debatable: a lot of football fans will watch these games on TV, and many others will switch off after the final whistle reports at around 5pm to do something else unrelated to football.
The target audience for these commentaries is surely the club's fans without access to TV coverage and other radio sport fans. Whether this is means an increased percentage share from last year I don't know. Is this information available somewhere?

The one radio commentary slot that appears to be worth less nowadays than previously is the Saturday 3pm. None of the key match-ups in the season are played at this time. Also, the amount of time spent away from the actual match on action and updates from other games (and other sports) detracts from the commentary itself.
I think one of the reason 5L are keen to keep this slot is that it ties in nicely with the BBC World Service. The same applies to the Sunday late afternoon games.

Andy, thanks for making the effort to look up the Radio Lancashire details from the IPlayer. It is much appreciated.

I think I will do what you did for a number of other BBC local stations who were said to be affected by the strike on Saturday when I get time.


According to the latest RAJAR figures, talkSPORT had 3 million listeners in Q3 (between July and September), the largest audience in the station's history. That strongly indicates that the newly acquired live Premier League commentaries are bringing an awful lot of new and existing listeners to the station.

I personally believe the radio rights to the Saturday 5.30pm games are vastly undervalued.

Think of the massive potential audience of football fans who have been to a 3pm game and want something to listen to on their journey home.

True, some fans are able to watch those games on TV and some will want a break from football, but there are surely many, many fans travelling home who want to listen to some live football and follow the late game from the Premier League, particularly those fans who have more than an hour of travelling time ahead of them (ie visiting supporters).

The effect these commentaries are having on talkSPORT is far from debatable. From financial and growth standpoints, winning rights to standalone Premier League matches is probably the best thing to have ever happened to the station.

I agree that there will be many listeners at this time, but surely less than are listening up until 5pm? And of those that are listening to football radio will they all be drawn to live commentary of teams they do not follow?
From a personal point of view it would depend on the particular match and the alternative sports radio available, and not entirely on which station had rights to certain events.


I totally agree here Diff. and Wednesday evening ought to be one of their bigger midweek evening audiences will the Manchester derby.

I wouldn't know - I've no idea how much of a crossover audience there is between Matchday Live and Premier League Live, but certainly there's a massive potential audience of travelling fans who are tuning in for the first time that day after 5pm.

Put yourself in this position - you are a fan of a Premier League club who have played away from home at 3pm on Saturday. You've been to the game and afterwards get in the car with no local radio station covering your club available. One of your rivals (either locally or at your end of the table) are playing in the 5.30pm game. The likelihood is you're going to want to hear commentary on that match on your way home. So who are you going to tune in to?

In these terms, I believe the Saturday 5.30pm games could possibly prove to be more valuable to talkSPORT than the Sunday 1.30pm matches are.

Newcastle were very badly affected, no TV came out of the pink palace, and a lot of the radio stuff was shared with Tees.

Just to clear these up Adam Cottier (who does a few of the southern based commentaries) did Bristol City v Preston on 103.9 and 104.5FM. There were also updates on the games involving Blackpool (Ian Chisnall doing flashes), Morecambe and Fleetwood.

On 95.5FM, 855, 1557MW and DAB it was Scott Read and Chris Boden covering Norwich v Burnley, along with reports on Blackburn and Accrington.

Ian Chisnall and Steve Canavan also provided commentary for Radio Merseyside through a link via Radio Lancashire, so a pretty technical set-up by the sounds of it.

Radio Lancashire also provided pre-match build-up for both stations between 2 and 3 and then again at half-time. During the interval they also collated non-league scores for both areas.

Thanks for the further Lancs details Nuttybutty.

A couple of further questions; I take it Bristol City v Preston and Norwich v Burnley were both commentary games, if so was there a co-commentator at Ashton Gate?

Also, seeing as BBC Radio Lancashire were providing Everton coverage for BBC Radio Merseyside, did they also have reporters at the AFC Bournemouth v Tranmere Rovers and Hartlepool United v Vauxhall Motors games? Or were Radio Merseyside taking Lancashire's Everton commentary on their FM platforms and broadcasting their usual Tranmere coverage on AM?

Saturday 6th November - BBC Radio Shropshire

Tim Beech presenting Shropshire United and The Verdict

FA Cup First Round
Southampton v Shrewsbury Town - Stuart Dunn and Steve Cross (commentary)

Blue Square Bet North
AFC Telford v Solihull Moors - Ben Oliver and "Bucks fan of the day" Laurence Miles


Usual presenter James Bond and Telford commentator Adam Green were on strike, although both of the regular Shrewsbury commentators were available.

Tim Beech is BBC Radio Shropshire's managing editor, although before joining the station he was a football commentator and presenter during his time as sports editor at BBC WM (1996-2003) and assistant editor at BBC Radio Stoke (2003-06), so was the natural choice to assume the presenting role.

Radio Shropshire would normally have Shrews commentary on FM and Bucks commentary on DAB and online, but due to the BBC strike they weren't able to do Telford commentary this weekend, meaning Shrewsbury were on all platforms (including online due to their game being an FA Cup match).


BBC Newcastle

Premier League
Sunderland v Stoke City - Nick Barnes and Gary Bennett (commentary)


This was as much as I could make out from the IPlayer (the main North East Sport programme was not archived), so I don't know if they had representation at/commentary on Notts County v Gateshead in the FA Cup.

After 5pm, the usual Total Sport phone-in with Matthew Raisbeck was pre-empted by an extended version of music show Beat Surrender, although it was mentioned that they'd be AM commentary on Newcastle Falcons v Ospreys in the rugby with Kevin Williams and Ian Smith later that evening.


BBC Tees

Ali Brownlee presenting BBC Tees Sport and The Boro Hour from the Riverside Stadium

Championship
Middlesbrough v Crystal Palace - Ali Brownlee and Gary Gill (95.6FM commentary)

FA Cup First Round
Darlington v Bristol Rovers - Ray Simpson
Hartlepool United v Vauxhall Motors - Brian Arundale (DAB and online commentary)
Classified scores and non-league round-up - Mike Hill

Seems like BBC Tees was unaffected by the BBC strike.

Yes the Preston and Burnley games were both commentaries, with Adam Cottier doing the comm alone. Pretty sure that wasn't because his summariser was on strike as it's normally either a fan or former player.

Blackpool v Everton was the only featured game on Merseyside as there was no-one covering Tranmere or Vauxhall Motors.

Don't know whether Merseyside decided not to send someone to the Tranmere game because it was a pretty lengthy journey or because Derek Jones was out on strike.

As for following non-league teams, they only provide limited coverage, if any at all.

Thanks again nuttybutty.

A bit of a shame Vauxhall Motors didn't get covered having made the FA Cup "proper", now things are back to normal hopefully Radio Merseyside will cover their replay at home.

I don't think they will and that's where they let themselves down. The Southport coverage yesterday was feeble by all accounts.

It is a shame because Merseyside may have two Premier League teams, but other than that they've only got Tranmere.

Lancashire seem to approach things very differently which as a football fan is far more pleasing.

Not only do they now follow seven teams (including Fleetwood), they do regular frequency splits and have a weekly non-league hour preview as well as half-times/full-time result updates on the 18 non-league teams,

So as a listener it feels like they are bothered about all the teams on their patch.

At least the BBC Local Radio stations cover non-Premier League teams. I can't think of any commercial station (with the exception of the Orion Communications stations in the West Midlands) which cover npower league sides. BBC London covered Hayes and Yeading this week and BBC WM covers non-league sides occasionally.

I think you are spoiled for choice in the North-West ever since the days of the late lamented Red Rose Radio.

The Pulse covers Bradford, Pompey I'm sure are covered by a commercial station. Real Radio and prior to them Metro Radio, have covered Newcastle and Sunderland when they've been in the Championship. I'm also sure Central Radio have commentary on Preston North End games. Oh, and Yorkshire Radio/Minister FM cover Leeds United games. If there are any other commercial stations cover non Premier League sides, I'm sure someone else will point them out.

That sounds like a challenge to come up with some exceptions to that rule, Ian.

Of the stations in the UTV Radio group (talkSPORT's parent company), Swansea Sound provides commentaries on Swansea City, Peak FM covers Chesterfield and The Pulse of West Yorkshire does Bradford City matches. Additionally UTV owns Wish FM, which does commentaries on Wigan Athletic (not the most well-established of Premier League clubs), as well as Signal and The Wolf who covered Stoke and Wolves respectively in the recent past when neither were Premier League clubs. Central Radio did Preston North End commentaries before the station was sold by UTV in early 2010.

You've mentioned Orion Media, who brought the rights to Coventry City commentaries for Mercia FM in 2009. In addition, Beacon Radio in Shropshire used to do reports on Shrewsbury Town and commentary on AFC Telford before they started taking Orion's commentaries on Wolves in January 2010.

From other smaller radio groups you have Local Radio Company stations 2BR, which provided Burnley commentaries until very recently, and Minster FM, which takes Yorkshire Radio's Leeds United coverage. Real Radio South Wales has reports on Cardiff City and Swansea City games. North-West community station Pure Radio provides commentary on Stockport County matches, having picked up the rights (and commentary team) from then-UTV station Imagine FM a few years back. Further down the pyramid, Black Country community station The Bridge does commentary on Zamaretto League club Stourbridge.

As for the bigger groups, I don't think any station within the Global group (an amalgamation of Chrysalis and GCap, itself a merger of the Capital and GWR groups) carries football commentaries any more, while Key 103, Radio City, Clyde and their sister stations are the only stations in the Bauer Radio group that still does football coverage: all of which is concentrated on the top flight teams on their patch.

It's true that many local commercial stations have turned their back on sports coverage over the past ten years, particularly when it comes to the "smaller" clubs, but the ones that remain provide admirably dedicated services and are worthy of our support.

Just spotted Jimmy's post, he got in there before me to mention quite a few of the local commercial stations which still do football commentaries.

One station we both forgot was Express FM in Portsmouth, who took over Pompey's local commercial radio rights this season after club-owned station Quay FM was sold to Celador and became The Breeze.

BBC Tees

Ali Brownlee presenting BBC Tees Sport and The Boro Hour from the Riverside Stadium

Championship
Middlesbrough v Crystal Palace - Ali Brownlee and Gary Gill (95.6FM commentary)

FA Cup First Round
Darlington v Bristol Rovers - Ray Simpson
Hartlepool United v Vauxhall Motors - Brian Arundale (DAB and online commentary)
Classified scores and non-league round-up - Mike Hill

Seems like BBC Tees was unaffected by the BBC strike.[/quote]

Tees was affected. James Mountford usually presents the DAB show featuring Hartlepool United. Mark Drury is also usually the Boro touchline reporter. He was replaced by a geordie voice who I didnt recognise.

Ta for that, I meant to respond to you on the strike thread but I was kidnapped and forced to drink beer and watch Wales play rugby. It's a hard life

You gave a far more in depth response to the topic than I ever could.

We forgot to mention Diverse FM who do Luton Town commentaries, though. I also remember a few years back TFM would make up for not having the Boro rights by doing in the stadium coverage of the Boro and local football in general. The presenter would talk about anything other than the match itself, whilst an ex Boro player would watch the game and now and then chip in with comments about the game, ie after a major decision. chance on goal etc etc.

Around the same time (this was mid 2000s by the way), I remember then covering a few end of season play-off games for Hartlepool and Darlington (although I'm fairly certain some of these were on sster station Magic 1170), I think TFM may have at some point after this, started doing Darlo commentaries quite regularly throughout the season, but I only ever listened a bits of there coverage on an occasional Saturday so I don't know the exact details. I do know however, that ex referee and Boro fan, Jeff Winter would present a full-time phone covering the three local teams, live from the Darlington Arena.

I'm not sure that they do any football coverage these days. Maybe someone else has more details on TFM's coverage over the years.

Jeff Stelling started there when it was Radio Tees (and the BBC service was Radio Cleveland), I believe. Late 1970s.

Didn't Century Radio (as was) do Boro commentaries on its relevant frequency regularly a few years back, before leaving them to the Beeb?

BBC Cleveland (now Tees) and Century FM/Radio (used both names for various periods over the years, but now Real Radio), used to both commentate on Middlesbrough home and away, hence why TFM couldn't do commentaries on them. A few years back when their Boro deal ended, Century dropped the Boro commentaries, to take up Sunderland commentaries to go with the Newcastle ones they'd started doing the previous season.

Century's Boro commentator Alistair Brownlee stayed with the station for a while doing Boro match reports, but at some point ended up as Boro commentator for BBC Tees.

Oh, and didn't Jeff Stelling used to work for the local Hartlepool newspaper (is it called the Hartlepool Mail?).

I dare say he did. But Radio Tees was where he started broadcasting, before he went to Radio 2 (and didn't he also do the sports bulletins in the Today programme?).

Of course, SGR bought the rights to Ipswich Town but they went back to the Beeb after a season because it became Heart, and Horizon FM also did McFranchise commentaries until (and, indeed, slightly after) it also became Heart.

You know what, a similar thing happened to me on Saturday.


Thanks for the clarification Rigs (and welcome to this section of the forum).

I'd forgotten about James Mountford, he was Tom Ross' deputy on BRMB and Gold Birmingham's football coverage for a few seasons after Ian Danter joined talkSPORT, before moving to BBC WM where he was mostly a news reporter.

I had heard that he'd moved to BBC Tees not that long after joining WM but wasn't sure that he was still there.


His programme on TFM concluded after the 2007/08 season, although as of last season Winter's post-match programme serving Darlington and Hartlepool was being broadcast on Local Radio Company station 103.2 Alpha Radio.


You are correct on both counts.


That's true. Horizon's season of covering the MK Dons was 2008/09, with the station being rebranded as Heart midway through the season.

Credit to them though for seeing the season out, as their football coverage only ended after the final game of the season.

Their commentator that season was Mikey Burrows, who's now among the pool of commentators used by the Orion stations in the West Midlands.

Merseyside did have a reporter (Neil Turner) covering Chester City, but since they've folded and reformed, they don't have a reporter at every game. The new Chester FC is at the same level as Cammell Laird, Prescot Cables & Skelmersdale, and below Marine (and Southport of course) who very rarely, if ever, get reports, so it's not unexpected, however Chester's fanbase is larger than all of the above (average 2,500ish this season). The club is still covered by Dee 106.3, who do reports every 10 minutes during games as they've always done.