Originally Posted by carlmacar:
“well real radio northeast and real radio scotland no longer doing phone ins, and match day shows. also bbc newcastle the only station to cover Sunderland and Newcastles games in the premier league and cups this season, surely metro might go for it now that real has gone? as for hibs can anyone confirm, just bbc scotland, now that reals gone will forth not step in?”
Real Radio North East dropped commentary rights to Newcastle and Sunderland games this time last year, they were only doing the nightly phone-ins in 2011/12.
Real Radio Scotland were the only one of the three Real stations doing occasional commentaries, they had rights to 10 SPL games a year and I think they did the odd Scotland home international too. I presume they will be abandoning them as well as the phone-in should their contract have not expired anyway. Had someone like UTV Radio purchased the Real stations rather than the football-free Global group, it would have been interesting to see whether they would have continued with these SPL commentaries and, if so, which 10 games they would have opted for in the absence of Rangers and the four Glasgow derbies.
It'll also be interesting to see where the former Real Radio personalities end up. I have posted this in another thread but I see former Real Radio Scotland host Peter Martin returning to his old role on talkSPORT, where he reported on Scotland internationals and Scottish teams in European club competitions around his pitchside reporting work for Sky Sports on the SPL and Scottish Cup (presuming the latter will continue their Scottish football coverage into this season). I actually heard Peter on The Sports Bar a few weeks ago being described as "talkSPORT's Scottish football correspondent" so this looks like a cert.
With BBC Radio Scotland using umpteen summarisers each week and Clyde's Superscoreboard having a rotating team of pundits on their nightly phone-ins, I think it's safe to say that former Real pundits Alan Rough and Derek Johnstone, with their radio experience and name value, are likely to pop up on one of those platforms.
I see on the Real Radio North East Facebook page, someone using local rival Star Radio's Facebook account has posted this of the Three Legends: "Perhaps they'll appear on another station in the future?", drawing the obvious suggestions. Even if this weren't to transpire, I know Malcolm McDonald is still a very big name among Newcastle fans so may be in demand elsewhere, while Bernie Slaven has worked for talkSPORT as a pundit in the past and still pops up as a phone guest on that station these days, which might become more of a regular occurence in light of this.
As someone outside of the three affected areas, I actually think Real Radio Wales' phone-in is the biggest loss. Unlike the North East and Scotland, Welsh listeners aren't that well served when it comes to radio sports discussion programmes. Although their live coverage is IMO very good, BBC Radio Wales (and Swansea Sound for that matter) doesn't have that much in the way of sports programming around it other than rugby show Scrum V Radio. Maybe the loss of the Real Radio phone-in will be an opportunity for them to rectify this. I know last summer Mark Poyser moved from Real Radio to Radio Wales, so perhaps some of his former colleagues may follow him.
