Originally Posted by RobinCarmody:
“I don't normally tut at alleged BBC "expenses", but is there *really* any reason why BBC London should do commentary on England matches? I know the England team are based in London, but so are Arsenal, and BBC London haven't done commentaries on them for years (if ever).”
I was waiting for this debate to reoccur during the international week, so thanks for bringing it up Robin (and thank you for your information on the Arsenal local radio situation earlier in the week too).
Personally, I don't really have a problem with BBC London doing their own commentary on England home internationals - like Andy, I presume that the rights enabling them to do so are covering by BBC Radio's national FA deal (as we are told it extends to coverage of the FA Cup on BBC Local Radio), and as he also says BBC London would only be doing a studio based sports show anyway so I don't see the harm in sending a team across the capital to Wembley if the rights to do this come at no extra cost.
Rather my issue here is this - why is BBC London the only BBC local radio station able to enjoy this luxury? If the BBC are going to send a BBC local radio team to Wembley for England matches, then why not extend this coverage across every BBC local radio station in the country or at least to those stations that cover wide areas and can be picked up across large catchment pools.
What I would like to see happen when the FA deal comes up for renewal in 2012, should the BBC retain rights to England games of course, would be for them to come to an agreement to broadcast England internationals on FM across numerous BBC local radio stations rather than just in London.
Coverage could be simulcasted across BBC Local Radio in England with them calling upon either the likes of John Murray from 5 Live in the commentary box or the cream of BBC LR (Phil Parry and Nick Godwin of BBC London, Mark Regan and Mike Taylor of BBC WM and Mick Lowes of BBC Newcastle would be candidates IMO), with either an English 5 Live regular or a big name guest from local radio (Ron Atkinson is probably the most notable they have from the latter pool) doing the summarising honours.
There clearly is a demand for such coverage, as we saw during the World Cup when stations like BBC WM and BBC London took commentary on England games, with much of that audience coming from people who rarely listen to speech radio but were tuning in - via FM - specifically for those internationals.
I dare say they'd also be an audience of those who can't stand the presence of Alan Green on 5 Live and would like an alternative to their coverage. Doing this could stop those people from flicking over to talkSPORT or Absolute should one of them win non-exclusive rights to England games along with the BBC come 2012 (which is probably quite likely). It'd also be a good, albeit small, way of saving money from BBC Local Radio's budget.
Take a station like BBC WM - they do sports output every weekday evening, so surely last night it would have made far better sense for them to take BBC London's commentary on England v France than to have Mark Regan in the studio spinning disks and chatting about the game as it takes place. By having the ability to do the former, you save money, satisfy WM's existing audience and probably draw in a bigger audience including new listeners.
I'm not saying I agree with the networking of BBC Local Radio on a larger scale - but in this specific scenario I think it makes good sense.
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