Thursday 18th April - BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra

5 Live Baseball with Nat Coombs and Josh Chetwynd

Baseball: National League
San Francisco Giants @ Milwaukee Brewers - Bob Uecker and Joe Block (commentary provided by Newsradio AM 620 WTMJ - "The Brewers Radio Network")

For the record, 5LSE did cover the Blue Jays @ Tigers game until its conclusion once they had joined it last Thursday. Next Thursday's live game will be the Los Angeles Dodgers @ New York Mets in the usual 6pm timeslot.

the others are Clive Eakin (day 1 and 2 only),Phil Britt, Martin Emmerson and Mike Taylor (Days 3 and 4)

Friday 19th April - 102.4 Wish FM and 107.2 Wire FM

Chris Milow presenting Gerr'um On Side alongside Phil Bentham

Rugby League: Challenge Cup Fourth Round
Widnes Vikings v Doncaster - Joe Mills and John Stankevitch (8pm commentary on Wire FM)
Wigan Warriors v Leigh Centurions - Mark Wilson and Tom Spencer (8pm commentary on Wish FM)

Radio Sport New Zealand
R/U: Canterbury Crusaders v Otago Highlanders (AMI Stadium, Christchurch, 1935local. 0835UK) Brian Ashby and Warwick Taylor (commentary) with Tracy Nelson and Lesley Murphy (sidelines)

ABC Radio Grandstand
R/U: Queensland Reds v ACT Brumbies (Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, 1940local, 1040UK) Quentin Hull and John Rowe (commentary) with Luke Pentori (sidelines) and Brad Tallon (stats)
R/L: Samoa v Tonga Richard Swanton

Nathan Cleverly V Robin Krasniqi (WBO light-heavyweight, Wembley Arena)

BBC Radio Wales - Mike Costello and Gary Lockett
BBC Radio Cymru - John Ifans and Wynford Jones

One day, I swear the ring announcers will be able to say the 'Cefn' in 'Cefn forest' properly.

Over the last week I have been starting work at lunchtime so during the morning have been tuning in to ABC Grandstand hoping to catch any random games that might to be on, as it is early evening in Australia. However apart from the days when they have a live RL game on (Monday and Friday), the other days the seemed to just replay the whole of their Saturday afternoon RL programme as if it was live, which seemed bizarre. Took me a while to realise, until they kept updating the score of the A-League semi-final that was played on the Saturday! Seems a bit of a strange thing to do in prime-time radio.

But its just a digital extra station akin to Five Live Sports Extra. It's not always like that though.They have shows covering all sorts. You can see the Grandstand schedule here - http://www.abc.net.au/news/sport/gra...cast-schedule/. Note we are 9 hours behind AEST Time.

The sooner Radio Manchester gives up MCFC commentary rights the better because on a average game at Etihad Stadium or away there are 3 or 4 sets of commentators at the match being Radio Manchester the BBC Local Station of the away/host club Talksport and if they have rights BBC R5 Live and it is unfair on Rugby League fans on Sundays when MCFC play why don't Radio Manchester put the Football on FM and Rugby League on DAB/online like Merseyside do

News of darts coverage on the radio. Dan Dawson was reporting on the PDC UK Open qualifying tournament at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall last night (Monday 22nd April) for, at least, Free Radio 80s' The Sports Bar. I'm not sure if he was covering the event for more stations on behalf of the DLI Radio Sport agency, going by his Twitter account he will be doing so for the tournament finals at Bolton's Reebok Stadium in June.

Meanwhile, BBC WM's breakfast show presenter Pete Morgan and their early breakfast/Early Kick Off host Daz Hale actually played each other in the qualifying tournament (entry is open to all comers) and were featured as part of Ian Winter's report on the event on tonight's Midlands Today (Daz won their match although didn't get any further if you were wondering). Elsewhere last night, Mike Taylor commentated on the Elite League speedway meeting between Wolverhampton Wolves and Eastbourne Eagles on BBC WM's online platforms.

They do tend to advertise their online coverage of games while the Sunday football is on, but this weekend, coverage of Warrington was dire. I was in the car at about 4pm, and Warrington were at Keighley in the Challenge Cup and the best coverage was on Radio Leeds - even though their main game was Rochdale v Bradford! Wire FM had no coverage at all as they aired the Network Chart Show, Radio Merseyside did have Warrington on AM/DAB but the weather was bad and the signal where I was made it unlistenable, while Manchester just continued the City post-match phone-in all afternoon and pretty much ignored all the rugby league.

It is Wire FM that surprised me though as they had covered Widnes v Doncaster on Friday, and it is not like Keighley is far away! The previous Sunday they had done Wakefield v Warrington.

BBC WM DAB

Monday15th April

Elite League Speedway

Wolverhampton Wolves v Poole Pirates - Richard Wilford (Presenter and commentator) and Mark Regan (in the pits)

Wednesday 17th April

Poole Pirates v Wolverhampton Wolves - Rob Gurney (commentator) and Mark Regan (in pit lane and presenter)

Wednesday 24th April

Birmingham Brummies v Lakeside Hammers - Richard Wilford (Presenter and commentator) and Rob Gurney (in the pits)

.ignore

Wire FM would have loved to have done commentary, but the ground at Keighley did not have ISDN facilities to accomodate commercial radio.

Thursday 25th April - BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra

5 Live Baseball with Nat Coombs and Josh Chetwynd

Baseball: National League
Los Angeles Dodgers @ New York Mets - Josh Lewin and Ed Coleman (commentary provided by WFAN Sports Radio 66AM - "The Mets Radio Network")

Beforehand, Kevin Howells was anchoring BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra's coverage of Durham v Yorkshire in the County Championship Division One from Chester-le-Street. Later tonight/tomorrow morning, Radio 5 Live Sports Extra will be providing full coverage of the 2013 NFL Draft with Darren Fletcher, Greg Brady, David Tossell (the NFL's director of public affairs in Europe) and producer Simon Crosse from Radio City Music Hall in New York.

5 Live tennis correspondant Jonathan Overend has tweeted this evening that he is stepping down from the role after Wimbledon after nearly 11 years in the job.

I thought his predecessor Iain Carter was brilliant in the role and was a tough act to follow but Jonathan really grew into the role and got better and better.

interesting now to see who takes over the tennis job and what Jonathan is doing next. This is pure speculation on my part but I wonder if he might be off to work on BTs tennis coverage.

He's staying with 5Live to report across all sports and some news shows according to Jonathan Wall.

It's for personal reasons.

I've heard Jonathan Overend on the Five Live evening show from time to time, and he's not bad actually.

BBC Sports Extra County Championship Cricket

Durham v Yorkshire Kevin Howells, Martin Emmerson (BBC Radio Newcastle) and Dave Callaghan (BBC Radio Leeds) (commentary)

I wonder if he'll start working more for TV now as he got his first match at Wimbledon last year. Shame he's stepped down though, the best radio tennis commentator IMO.

BBC Radio Merseyside - Friday 26th April 2013

Peter McDowall presenting.

Widnes v Wakefield - Ray French and Allan Rooney (commentary on all frequencies)

Royal Army V Royal Navy (Inter Services Championship RU from Twickenham)

BFBS Radio - John Anderson and Steve something (sounded like Warnell?) (commentary)

Here's something that as far as I'm aware, no other UK commercial radio station has done or is doing.

Mansfield 103.2 are doing extensive coverage of the Notts Premier League cricket every Saturday afternoon during the summer with reporters at all matches.

From 1.00 pm, match reports feature as part of a music and sports show, but then from 5.00 pm, it's a full speech show with reports and interviews from around the grounds through until around 8.00 pm.

Full details are here:
www.mansfield103.co.uk/sport/cricket/npl/

thats great news - often wondered why no one has done this before theres a lot of good cricket played at that level - be interested to hear how that goes this season

Saturday 27th April - Newstalk 106-108FM

Ger Gilroy presented Newstalk Sport Saturday alongside Adrian Barry

Rugby Union: Amlin Challenge Cup Semi-Final
Leinster v Biarritz - Oisin Langan, Reggie Corrigan and Trevor Hogan (2.30pm commentary)

Rugby Union: Heineken Cup Semi-Final
Clermont Auvergne v Munster - Dave McIntyre, Keith Wood and Bernard Jackman (5pm commentary)

Swansea Sound have announced details of their commentary team for this summer's British & Irish Lions tour to Australia. Surprisingly (to me at least) they'll not be simulcasting sister station talkSPORT's commentaries but will be producing ones of their own:


I think Michael Owen is an excellent choice of co-commentators: he was very good on talkSPORT and ITV's coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup and has subsequently continued to work in broadcasting on BBC Radio Wales' coverage of the Heineken Cup. Hopefully we'll hear him on talkSPORT's national radio coverage as well. I'm not familiar with Jason Harris, but from searching the other thread I read that he covers Saracens games for BBC Three Counties Radio. I'll be interested to hear how he fares and if he is used in a reporting role on talkSPORT's coverage.

As Swansea Sound will only be carrying commentary on the Test matches, it could be that Harris and Owen will work on talkSPORT's live coverage of the other tour matches.