Daniel McHardy is Wellington-based. He has been leading rugby commentator for all games in Wellington since the death of Graeme Moody in a surfing accident just before the 2011 Rugby World Cup. He is sideline eye for soccer (Wellington Pheonix in the Australian A League) and presents a 6 hour Saturday afternoon show in the Wellington region.

Malcolm Jordan has been presenter/producer of Radio Sport's Test coverage for a few years and is programme editor of the station. He has commentated on a wide range of sports.

Allen McLaughlin, Radio Sport's voice of Rugby League but also a highly qualified cricket coach, replaced McHardy for the final Test. Having the same team for almost the whole series is a departure for Radio Sport. Usually only Bryan Waddle and the overseas commentator if there is one move round. Other spots are filled with commentators from the part of the country where the Test is being played. However, three regular commentators have been lost recently. Peter Sharp from Christchurch died last year, Steve Davie from Dunedin has retired and the excellent Ron Snowden from Wellington has disappeared from the roster.

Radio Sport no longer covers first-class cricket outside Tests. Until two years ago it had a commentator at every Plunket Shield game and would take several hours' commentary a day. Davie and Snowden may have withdrawn in response to this. T20 and one-dayers in Wellington are now covered by Waddle and McHardy - both on the staff - instead of the freelance Snowden. Also,this the first Ashes series in Australia for which Radio Sport has not taken long spells of the ABC commentary, so cricket fans are not happy with the station.

Thanks for the Radio Sport cricket information Kentkiwi. Interesting to hear that the station has cut back on their cricket coverage outside of their coverage of the Black Caps. Has a change in management prompted this? Here in the UK, talkSPORT's live England Test cricket coverage ended when TWG sold the station to UTV Radio, and when Moz Dee became the station's programme controller in 2008 one of his first acts was to call time on the station's long running live coverage of the Open Golf Championship with a few years remaining on their existing contract (indeed my hope for 2014 would be for Liam Fisher to restore live commentary on The Open to talkSPORT).

Out of interest, how does cricket fare in the sporting pecking order in New Zealand. Obviously rugby union is king there, but are rugby league and football more popular sports too? I believe Radio Sport dominates the sporting radio rights landscape in New Zealand, and I know they have commentary rights to the All Blacks, Super 15, Kiwi rugby league team, NZ Warriors, Wellington Phoneix and the national football, basketball and netball teams, all of will take up far fewer hours to cover live and in full than cricket does.

Christmas Day - ESPN Radio

Kevin Winter presented The NBA on ESPN Radio from the Bristol, Connecticut studios

National Basketball Association
Oklahoma City Thunder @ New York Knicks - Marc Kestecher and P.J. Carlesimo (8pm GMT commentary)
Miami Heat @ Los Angeles Lakers - Kevin Calabro and Will Perdue (10pm GMT commentary)

There's not been a change of management at Radio Sport. Doing away with commentaries seems to be mostly a cost cutting measure, though the station does seem to be repositioning itself for a younger market currently, getting rid of Brendan Telfer, one of NZ's most experienced sports broadcasters, and introducing two music tracks an hour, rather bizarrely. NZ Cricket funded a brief trial of online commentary (one feed with commentary moving from ground to ground rather than separate commentaries on each game) but this didn't last.

Cricket remains the leading summer sport but Super 15 rugby starts in mid February, so the window is narrow. Competition comes from A League soccer and the Australasian club basketball league, both of which have NZ representation, and two weeks of tennis in Auckland in the first two weeks of the year which attract some leading players in the build up to the Aussie Open.

Radio Sport holds all major rights for commentaries in NZ apart from horse racing which is held by a separate organisation.

BBC Bristol / Somerset

Ian Randall (studio host)

Northampton Saints v Bath (Aviva Premiership RU) - Andrew Sheridan and Nick Blofeld (95.5FM / 104.6FM / 1548MW / 1566MW / Online)
Bristol v Moseley (RFU Championship) - Mark Hoskins and Iain Grieve (94.9FM / DAB / Online)

The Memorial stadium sounds like fun at half time, as I can hear the Benny Hill theme tune.

Saturday 28th December 2013 - BBC Radio Devon (1500-1800)

Alan Richardson Presenting Devon Sport from the Seymour Road Studios

Aviva Premiership
Harlequins v Exeter Chiefs - Nigel Walrond & John Lockyer - All Frequencies and BBC Devon Sports Website (1600)

Test Match Special: The Ashes, the Fourth Test

Commentators: Jonathan Agnew, Henry Blofeld, Jim Maxwell and Ed Smith

Summarisers: Geoffrey Boycott, Vic Marks and Michael Vaughan

Reporter: Mark Pougatch

Sunday 29th December - Absolute Radio 90s

NFL on Absolute Radio 90s with Will Gavin and Dan Louw

American Football: NFL Week 17
Green Bay Packers @ Chicago Bears - Dave Sims and Mark Malone (9.25pm GMT commentary provided by Westwood One)
Kansas City Chiefs @ San Diego Chargers - Josh Lewin and Hank Bauer, with Mike Costa on the sidelines (commentary on the closing stages of overtime provided by Rock 105.3 FM - "The San Diego Chargers Radio Network")

Good to hear the national Westwood One feed with Dave Sims commentating on Absolute Radio 90s' NFL coverage this weekend, what with the Packers @ Bears game being the outstanding choice in the post-9pm GMT slot. Dave Sims is the lead voice of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners' local television broadcasts and is a commentator whose work I rate highly. It was the first time Absolute have carried one of his commentaries and I hope we get to hear him again during the Playoffs.

After the conclusion of their main game, Will and Dan switched to the home teams' local feed in the Chiefs @ Chargers game, another late match with Playoff implications which had gone into overtime. They usually broadcast between 9pm-1am so could cover the decisive points comfortably within their normal timeslot. What with the final Playoff schedule not being set at that point, they couldn't confirm which game they'll be broadcasting next weekend when they went off-air, but it appears as if it will be whichever fixture is taking place in their usual Sunday night timeslot (I've not watched the Sunday Night Football game yet so I don't know what that is myself!).

With us at the end of the regular season, I thought I would tot up the different kinds of commentary feeds Absolute Radio 90s have used during the last 17 weeks of their coverage. After inheriting UK NFL radio rights from BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, who during most of their run would typically take national radio feeds - usually from Westwood One - but last year began taking individual team's radio networks instead, AR90s have mixed it up a bit.

They took commentaries from Westwood One on five games but the network they called upon most was Compass Media, which they took eight times, although only three of these commentaries were fully national services with the other five being simulcasts of their team radio networks (that of the Dallas Cowboys three times and the Oakland Raiders twice). They called on other team radio networks on six occasions (those of the San Francisco 49ers and New England Patriots twice each, with once each for those of the New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers).

They produced their own commentaries with Darren Fletcher for the two Wembley games, which takes their overall number of commentaries used up to 21 - with them covering 19 full games plus the overtime of the Chargers match on Sunday, the additional number comes from their coverage of the Seahawks @ 49ers game in week 14, where they started with Westwood One's commentary but for some reason switched to the 49ers service at some point.

New Year's Day - BBC Radio 5 Live

Phil Williams presented 5 Live Sport from the Alexandra Palace, London

Darts: PDC World Championship Final 2014
Peter Wright v Michael van Gerwen - John Rawling and Paul Nicholson (8.30pm commentary), with contributions from Carl Froch and Lynsey Hooper reporting from among the fans

Paul Nicholson is a PDC professional player who is ranked 20th in their Order of Merit, while IBF and WBA super middleweight boxing champion Carl Froch joined him and John Rawling to contribute to the commentary during and around the third and fourth sets, after which they went to a news break at 9pm before rejoining the match. They next took a news break at around 10.15pm between the tenth and eleventh sets before sticking with the game until its conclusion. Going by Twitter, Simon Crosse and Mike Holt produced their coverage.

Good on BBC Radio 5 Live not only for providing commentary on the final of the PDC World Championship but also for putting commentary on their main station as opposed to putting it on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, which would have been the easy option to avoid criticism from the "anything but sport" brigade. Given his experience of covering PDC darts tournaments for ITV4, John Rawling was a good choice of lead commentators - although I'm slightly surprised they opted for him, if only because as far as I'm aware he's not down to be part of the BBC TV team covering the rival BDO World Championship next week. I thought they might have gone for former Radio 5 Live darts reporter come TV commentator Vassos Alexander or even Jim Proudfoot (who is also due to be part of BBC TV's team at the Lakeside) instead. Perhaps Rawling might be Radio 5 Live's reporter at the Lakeside and could even be in line to commentate for BBC TV on semi-final Saturday in the event of Proudfoot being absent that day in order to commentate on Premier League football for Absolute Radio as was the case last year.

Out of interest, not being someone who listens to Radio 5 Live on anything like a regular basis these days, did they have a correspondent at the Alexandra Palace during the earlier stages of the tournament? I know for about five or six years now they haven't been sending a reporter to the PDC World Championship, but given that they arranged to do a live commentary on the final I'd like to think things will have changed in this respect and they'd have sent someone there for all/most of the other 15 days of the tournament. Elsewhere Dan Dawson provided syndicated updates throughout the tournament on behalf of the Dave Luddy International agency, as he has been doing from at least the last five PDC World Championships, for numerous local radio stations and notably talkSPORT nationally.

talkSPORT

Thursday 5th to Monday 9th December

Cricket: Second Ashes Test Match
Australia v England - Jack Bannister

Saturday 7th December

Rugby Union: Heineken Cup Pool 2
Exeter Chiefs v Toulon - Russell Hargreaves

Friday 13th to Tuesday 17th December

Cricket: Third Ashes Test Match
Australia v England - Jack Bannister

Friday 13th December to Wednesday 1st January

Darts: PDC World Championship 2014
Alexandra Palace, London - Dan Dawson

Saturday 14th December

Rugby Union: Heineken Cup Pool 3
Saracens v Zebre - Nick Heath

Friday 20th December

Rugby Union: Premiership
Sale Sharks v London Irish - Simon Ward

Thursday 26th to Sunday 29th December

Cricket: Fourth Ashes Test Match
Australia v England - Jack Bannister

Saturday 28th December

Rugby Union: Premiership
Harlequins v Exeter Chiefs (Twickenham) - Russell Hargreaves

Was this Rawling's first commentary back on Five Live since his defection to ITV to primarily commentate on (what turned out to be) their brief return to boxing over 8 years ago?

Ospreys v Llanelli Scarlets (RaboDirect Pro12 RU)

BBC Radio Wales - Rick O'Shea (host from stadium) Gareth Llewellyn and Paul Williams (proper commentary an' everyfin')

BBC Radio Cymru - Gareth Charles (host) and Emyr Lewis (commentary)

BBC RADIO LEICESTER

Premiership Rugby
Leicester Tigers v Bath - Gareth Jones presenting from Welford Road, with Bleddyn Jones and Steve Johnson (commentary)

It's a father-son combo on Radio Leicester today with Gareth presenting and his father commentating.

Just going back to the darts, Five Live did not provide any live reports from Alexandra Palace for the rest of the tournament.

Dan Dawson did feature briefly on the final coverage carrying out interviews with both finalists.

The reaction to the Five Live darts coverage has been overall very positive and indeed, it sounded brilliant on air.

I'd like to think they could expand this for next year, with reports on the early stages of the tournament, semi-final commentary on Sports Extra and the final on 5 Live again.

Thanks for answering my question JamSir. Disappointing to hear that once again BBC Radio 5 Live didn't have a correspondent covering the whole of the PDC World Championship given their intentions to do commentary on the final itself. Hopefully they will correct this for the 2015 tournament and give it the level of coverage you propose.

Sunday 5th January - Absolute Radio 90s

NFL on Absolute Radio 90s with Will Gavin and Dan Louw

American Football: NFL Wild Card Playoff
San Francisco 49ers @ Green Bay Packers - Tom McCarthy and Rod Woodson, with Mark Malone on the sidelines (9.40pm GMT commentary provided by Westwood One)

It sounds as if AR90s will only be carrying commentary on the 9.40pm Sunday game during the divisional round of the playoffs next weekend. Hopefully they'll be carrying both AFC and NFC Championship Games in two weeks time though.

Test Match Special: The Ashes 2013/14

Commentators: Jonathan Agnew, Jim Maxwell (Tests 1, 2, 4 and 5), Simon Mann (1-3), Henry Blofeld (3-5), Ed Smith (3-5) with occasional commentary stints from Simon Hughes (1-2)

Summarisers: Geoffrey Boycott, Michael Vaughan, Vic Marks (1, 2 and 4) and Glenn McGrath (1, 3, 5)

Reporter: Mark Pougatch

Superb coverage as always, my only complaint is we didn't have an Australian summariser for the tests in which McGrath was absent (last time they used Michael Slater and Ian Chappell).

The coverage of the Women's ashes is about to start, with Alison Mitchell, Alistair Bruce-Ball and Charles Dagnall flying out to commentate. Mitchell and Dagnall will be doing the England men's ODI's too, as some of these clash with Women's matches it will be interesting to see who commentates on what.

Ospreys v Northampton Saints (Heineken Cup RU)

BBC Radio Wales - Simon Davies (host from ground) Nick Webb and Huw Bennett (All frequencies / Online)
BBC 5LSX - Gareth Lewis and Robert Jones

Racing Metro 92 v Scarlets (Heineken Cup RU (Friday 9th January)

BBC Radio Wales - Rick O'Shea and Paul Williams (studio host and guest) Nick Webb and Dafydd Jones (All frequencies / Online)
BBC Radio Cymru - Dafydd Jones (FT report)

BBC Bristol

Jon Ford (studio host)

Bristol v Aberavon Wizards (British & Irish Cup Ru) - Tom Bradshaw and Kyle Traynor (1548MW / DAB / Online)

BBC TMS- Australia vs England the 1st ODI

Commentators: Alison Mitchell, Alistair Bruce-Ball and Tim Lane

Summarisers: Dirk Nannes, Damien Fleming and John Embrury

Sunday 12th January - Absolute Radio 90s

NFL on Absolute Radio 90s with Will Gavin and Dan Louw

American Football: NFL Divisional Playoff
San Diego Chargers @ Denver Broncos - Kevin Harlan and Dan Fouts, with Tim Ryan on the sidelines (9.40pm GMT commentary provided by Westwood One)

Going by Will and Dan's sign-off, it seems as if AR90s will only be broadcasting the earlier AFC Championship Game next weekend - they confirmed they'd be on-air at the earlier time of 7.30pm for an 8pm kick-off next Sunday - but not the later NFC Championship Game, which should directly follow that at around 11.30pm. Indeed only the AFC game is listed as an upcoming commentary on the NFL page of the Absolute Radio website.

BBC TMS- Australia vs England the 2nd ODI

Commentators: Charles Dagnall, Alastair Bruce-Ball and Jim Maxwell

Summarisers: Dirk Nannes, John Embrury, Dean Jones and Isa Guha

I think this is the first time TMS have used a woman as a summariser on a men's international, of course the excellent Alison Mitchell often is a ball-by-ball commentator (as she is doing on this series).

BBC Radio Wales

Rick O'Shea (studio host)

Leinster v Ospreys (Heineken Cup RU) - Cennydd Davies and Mike "o'" Ruddock (the O 'tag' being given to him by Rick as he's coach of Ireland's U20s)

Sunday 19th January - Absolute Radio 90s

NFL on Absolute Radio 90s with Will Gavin and Dan Louw

American Football: AFC Championship Game
New England Patriots @ Denver Broncos - Kevin Harlan and Dan Fouts, with Tim Ryan on the sidelines (8pm GMT commentary provided by Westwood One)

Unfortunately, Absolute Radio 90s only covered the AFC Championship Game and not the NFC decider, with their coverage ending for the night after their usual wrap following the conclusion of the earlier game. Westwood One's commentary team on the NFC Championship Game - San Francisco 49ers @ Seattle Seahawks - is Kevin Kugler and James Lofton, with Mark Malone on the sidelines.

So that's it for Absolute Radio 90s' NFL coverage for the season. In two weeks time, Super Bowl XLVIII will be on the main Absolute Radio station with Darren Fletcher and Rocky Boiman providing on-site commentary from MetLife Stadium. Indeed everything will be done on-site, with Will Gavin and Dan Louw confirming on-air tonight that they won't be involved in Absolute's coverage on Super Bowl Sunday.

Upon signing off for the season, they mentioned that they were hoping they'll be back next year - obviously this will depend on whether Absolute's new parent company Bauer wants to continue their weekly NFL coverage in 2014/15. I hope it does, although the lack of Sunday night double headers during the NFL Playoffs was a big step down from the service BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra provided in previous years (a pretty big miss admittedly), I thought that on the whole they did well - the choice of mostly national US radio commentaries was strong, the shows sounded fresh and slick in terms of how they flowed as broadcasts and I liked how the studio segments weren't too straight laced, particularly when Will and Dan became the regular presenting pairing midway through the regular season.

Thanks and well done to Will, Dan, original host Adam Hunt and everyone else who was involved in Absolute Radio 90s' coverage including the excellent production team from USP Content. Good luck to those members of their team who'll be involved in their Super Bowl coverage in two weeks time and here's hoping that weekly coverage of the NFL returns to British radio in 2014/15 - be that on Absolute Radio 90s or elsewhere.

BBC TMS- Australia vs England the 3rd ODI

Commentators: Alison Mitchell, Charles Dagnall and Jim Maxwell

Summarisers: Dirk Nannes, Damien Fleming and John Embrury


Alistair Bruce-Ball covered the women's ODI for the BBC, it was a co production with ABC, but the only other voice I caught was Drew Morphett (a regular Grandstand commentator who covered the ashes).