I have been totalling up the commentary figures from talkSPORT Live throughout their first season as the global radio broadcaster of the Premier League and with the top flight league campaign and both domestic cups having concluded, I thought I would share the final numbers as to who did what over the course of season.
talkSPORT Live broadcast live commentary on all 380 Premier League games plus 33 other matches: 24 from the FA Cup, 8 from the Capital One Cup and the FA Community Shield. Of these, 16 of their FA Cup commentaries were direct relays of broadcasts from talkSPORT UK, as such I've not included the details of the commentators or co-commentators used on those relays in the statistics below, which only includes commentaries that were unique to talkSPORT Live. Here goes:
Commentators - all matches (games airing both on international radio stations and on talkSPORT.com only)
Alex Crook - 38 games
Kevin Hatchard - 38
Richard Connelly - 37
Piers Edwards - 36
Adam Bridge - 34
Tim Long - 29
Toby Gilles - 26
Phil Blacker - 22
Keith Hall - 22
Mark Tompkins - 22
John Anderson - 18
Tom Rennie - 16
Dan Wheeler - 15
David Oates - 10
Peter Martin - 9
Ian Danter - 7
Phil Barker - 6
Russell Hargreaves - 5
Will Gavin - 3
Chris Sharples - 2
Ian Beach - 1
Tony Lockwood - 1
Commentators - featured matches (games that were broadcast on talkSPORT Live's international radio partners as a main commentary game)
Richard Connelly - 35
Alex Crook - 25
Piers Edwards - 25
Phil Blacker - 22
Tom Rennie - 14
John Anderson - 12
Kevin Hatchard - 11
Adam Bridge - 10
Peter Martin - 8
David Oates - 8
Ian Danter - 7
Mark Tompkins - 5
Toby Gilles - 2
Tim Long - 2
Tony Lockwood - 1
Dan Wheeler - 1
Phil Barker, Ian Beach, Will Gavin, Keith Hall, Russell Hargreaves and Chris Sharples only commentated on games that aired solely on talkSPORT.com. In contrast, Phil Blacker and Ian Danter only commentated on games that were carried on talkSPORT Live's international radio service as well as talkSPORT.com, in the case of Blacker almost all of his 22 live games were Sunday 4pm kick-offs.
Co-Commentators (only used on featured games broadcast by talkSPORT Live's international radio partners)
Paul Mortimer - 40
Matt Lawrence - 28
Darren Eadie - 26
Paul McVeigh - 24
Bobby Gould - 15
Alan McLoughlin - 14
Alvin Martin - 11
Jason Euell - 7
Kevin Watson - 6
Sean Davis - 5
Marc Bircham - 3
Stewart Robson - 3
Nicky Summerbee - 3
Clive Walker - 1
In total, talkSPORT Live produced 397 commentaries of their own this season, 188 of them airing on international radio as a featured game of that broadcast. However only 186 of those featured games possessed co-commentary. Richard Connelly flew solo for Reading v Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday 16th September, as I believe did Alex Crook on the Chelsea v Manchester United League Cup tie on Wednesday 31st October (although I don't have confirmation of that, so might be missing that one detail).
NB: Dan Wheeler was the commentator scheduled to do Sunderland v Reading on the second Saturday of the season for talkSPORT.com before that fixture was postponed on the afternoon of the game. That hasn't been included in the stats. The rescheduled game was commentated on by Alex Crook and Matt Lawrence across talkSPORT Live's international radio partners, which has been included instead.
Some analysis: in the case of the featured games, talkSPORT Live had a quartet of main commentators who were most frequently used on these matches in Richard Connelly, Alex Crook, Piers Edwards and Phil Blacker. Up there in number with them across all talkSPORT Live commentaries were Kevin Hatchard (whose numbers increased during the second half of the season) and Adam Bridge, who along with John Anderson and service editor Tom Rennie made up the second tier of their most frequently heard commentators on featured games. As far as the co-commentators went, Paul Mortimer was by far the most heard voice in this area with Matt Lawrence, Darren Eadie and Paul McVeigh also being regulars.
Their commentary teams for major "showpiece" games were:
Chelsea v Manchester City (FA Community Shield) - Ian Danter and Matt Lawrence
Bradford City v Swansea City (Capital One Cup Final) - Alex Crook and Matt Lawrence
Manchester United v Aston Villa (Premier League title clincher) - Tom Rennie and Alan McLoughlin
Manchester City v Wigan Athletic (FA Cup Final) - Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore, with Ian Abrahams at pitchside (as talkSPORT UK)
Manchester United v Swansea City (Premier League trophy presentation game) - Richard Connelly and Darren Eadie
While I'm here, I also have commentary statistics from Absolute Radio now that their coverage of the Premier League is over for another season.
They actually exceeded their 32 match quota by two games, or three if you include their coverage of Newcastle United v Arsenal on the final day of the league season. Their commentary games included two matches - Reading v Fulham on 27th October and Reading v Aston Villa on 9th March - that were broadcast on 105.8FM in London rather than on their usual national analogue platform of 1215AM.
Russ Williams presented all 34 editions of Rock 'N' Roll Football Live, with him being joined by Perry Groves for 33 of those shows - the one exception being their coverage of Stoke City v Queens Park Rangers on the 10th November when Clive Allen joined Russ. Russ presented 33 of these shows from the studio, but was on-site at QPR v Chelsea on the 15th September, when their live game was Manchester United v Wigan Athletic.
Jim Proudfoot commentated on all 34 of their main live games with Adam Bridge handling spells of commentary from the aforementioned Newcastle United v Arsenal fixture. Their co-commentary numbers are as follows:
Stewart Robson - 15 games
Tony Dorigo - 12
Clive Allen - 6
Frank Stapleton - 2 (including Newcastle United v Arsenal)
I have similar statistics for talkSPORT UK's football commentaries throughout 2012/13, but I will be keeping my powder dry on that front until the season has properly concluded - they still have three commentary games to come in the Championship Play-Off Final on Bank Holiday Monday and England's friendlies with the Republic of Ireland and Brazil, so I shall wait until those matches have taken place before I post the full talkSPORT details.