Originally Posted by sporter92:
“But they would of had to cut the Pro12 Final short as the Diamond League Athletics from New York was live on the Red Button from 6pm-8pm so I think the BBC made the right decision”
I can see the argument in favour of the BBC's scheduling decisions in this instance, although it is very easy to say that if you are a Pro12 fan based in Northern Ireland or Wales (and maybe Scotland - do Freeview viewers there have access to BBC Alba?). Being in England, I had to settle for watching the Grand Final through a low quality stream on the Scrum V website, which was a disappointment.
It's annoying that rank-and-file Pro12 games are available on the Red Button all season long yet due to other commitments, this hasn't been possible for a game on the final day of the regular season, both Semi-Finals and now the Grand Final, not to mention the only Wales Autumn International (against Samoa) that wasn't available on UK-wide BBC TV.
I wish there was some way the BBC could get round this. Obviously the ideal scenario would be that there were still two Red Button platforms on Freeview in channels 301 and 302, but failing the return of the latter, could perhaps BBC Parliament be used in situations like this? From checking the channel yesterday, they were just showing a re-run of questions from the Senedd from midweek while the Pro12 Grand Final was on - in situations like this, would it be out of the question for the BBC to suspend normal programmes for a couple of hours and use the channel as an overspill for live sport that otherwise wouldn't get a nationwide airing? I think it would be a reasonable solution.