Phil Wye confirmed that McCoist not working for 5live at the WC.

Bit off-topic but before the advent of Twitter, where did you guys used to get your answers for Questions regarding issues in threads like these, now it seems any Question tweet Phil Wye and he will have the answer!!

Fair play to Phil for answering Questions!

I think we just had to listen and post as and when commentaries were broadcast! I sort of miss that, would be strangely exciting to tune in with absolutely no idea who would be commentating! Now, twitter tells us the week before...

ESPN Radio details
http://worldsoccertalk.com/2014/06/0...r-assignments/

Nigel Pearson has tweeted:

Thanks for posting that link - good to have one about ESPN Radio's coverage which isn't blocked on here due to having an ESPN Mediazone address!

I see JP Dellacamera and Tommy Smyth will be commentating on both semi-finals and the final for ESPN Radio, which you'd expect as they're not only their top team but the only one that will likely be on-site. However it's good to see former talkSPORT reporter Mark Donaldson getting to commentate on the second quarter-final with Smyth - it suggests he'll be in Brazil for at least that one match. It's JP and Tommy on the final quarter-final with Ross Dyer (ex-regional ITV) and Shep Messing on the other two last eight fixtures.

In other international radio news, SBS Radio have exclusive radio rights to the World Cup in Australia. Like talkSPORT and BBC Radio in the UK and ESPN Radio in the USA, they'll be doing commentary on all 64 games across their various platforms. I don't have any information about their coverage team, although I heard Lloyd Owusu - a one-cap Ghanian international who had a long Football League career playing for Brentford and Sheffield Wednesday among others and is now based in Australia - interviewed on talkSPORT's Sports Bar last night, who said that he'd be doing their co-commentaries on games involving African nations, intimating that he'd be doing those off-tube.

Thursday 12th June - talkSPORT

Mark Saggers presenting World Cup Live from Arena de Sao Paulo alongside Stan Collymore

FIFA World Cup Group A
Brazil v Croatia - Jim Proudfoot and Stan Collymore (9pm BST commentary), with Mike Bovill and Dennie Morris producing

Saggers and Collymore described parts of the Opening Ceremony, while Ian Abrahams is talking to supporters in the fan park in Rio de Janeiro and Ian Danter is reporting from Manaus ahead of England v Italy. Earlier Adrian Durham and Darren Gough were hosting the last edition of their World Cup Drive show from their Rio studio earlier (the 4-7pm weekday slot will be submerged into World Cup Live from tomorrow onwards).

5Live last night:

Mark Pougatch presenting from Sao Paulo with Jonathan overend in Rio.
Group a: Brazil v Croatia John Murray and Chris Waddle.

Overend’s role was quite minor, basically reading the sports news and reporting after the game on the small protest in Rio.

Pougatch was also joined pre and post match by someone who works for the BBC in Brazil, but I’m afraid I didn’t catch his name—he was good though.

Excellent stuff from both stations I think, tS certainly getting their own back for 5Live’s snide comments in previous tournaments about them off-tubing commentary. Jim Proudfoot mentioned on a number of occasions that TS were the only station providing commentary on all 64 matches. I believe 5Live are missing 3 games altogether. that's a good selling point to TS's coverage I think-- although the games 5Live are missing are maybe not that attractive, it is still good to have commentary of them as they are late games and people may listen in bed.

talkSPORT's commentary teams for tonight:

Mexico v Cameroon with Gary Taphouse and Ray Parlour
Spain v Netherlands with Andrew McKenna and Stuart Pearce
Chile v Australia with John Anderson and Matt Holland

It would appear that both talkSPORT's and BBC Radio 5 Live's coverage of Chile v Australia will be off-tube.

Thanks for posting tonight's commentary details 4-4-2, I haven't seen many of the talkSPORT appointments posted on Twitter or elsewhere online.


BBC Radio didn't do commentary on every game from the 2010 World Cup or Euro 2012 either from what I recall, due to their commitments with Wimbledon on Radio 5 Live and England international cricket on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra a similar handful of group games (mostly secondary clashing final group round fixtures) were not covered as a commentary on either platform - meaning talkSPORT could justifiably have described themselves as the only UK station providing commentary on every game then, too.

You would think a World Cup where games are largely taking place in the evening UK time would mostly remove this problem, but BBC Radio may strike it unlucky as should the second Test between England and Sri Lanka last five days, Test Match Special will likely run into the timeslot where 5LSE would otherwise hope to air a secondary final fixture from Group B (Monday 23rd June) and Italy v Uruguay from England's Group D (Tuesday 24th). They'll be hoping that England will be able to wrap the Test match up within four days, I'm sure. Who knows what impact Wimbledon will have on Radio 5 Live's coverage given how tennis games often run long into the evening. You can sympathise with BBC Radio over such conflicts giving them a headache with their World Cup commentaries, but not when it comes to the late night/early morning games that they aren't scheduled to be providing commentary on for no apparent reason. Perhaps these games will find their way onto Radio 5 Live Sports Extra eventually.

I'll be interested to see how talkSPORT offer their online-only commentaries of the eight clashing secondary final group games they can't accommodate onto their main platform. During the 2006 World Cup they offered an AM and DAB split which they won't be doing this time, but the alternative audio streams they offered on their website for such games during the 2010 World Cup, the 2011 Rugby World Cup and Euro 2012 worked for me well enough. However, in the two years since then the few online audio opt-outs for Aviva Premiership rugby union commentaries they have offered have had teething troubles in my experience - I remember a Twickenham game that was offered as an online commentary where the alternative feed flatly failed. With talkSPORT having a strategic partnership with the TuneIn radio app and a host of specific online streams on there available for listeners outside the UK and Republic of Ireland to listen to English club football commentaries, it would be good if talkSPORT could un-geoblock one of those streams for a week and offer these eight games on there. Failing that, they could commandeer the Bundesliga Radio English platform (on which they provide a weekly English language commentary during the Bundesliga season) for this purpose. Either option should be pretty failsafe.

Did Connor McNamara find his luggage which had been lost on the way from Rio to Salvador!

5Live info for today:

Jonathan Overend presenting coverage of Mexico V Cameroon with commentary from Darren Fletcher and Robbie Savage.

Mark Chapman presenting coverage of Spain V Holland with commentary from Conor McNamara and Tony Pulis.
Mark also presenting coverage of Chili V Australia with commentary from Ian Brown and Steve Claridge.

I don’t have BT sport so just wanted to say how good it was to hear Fletcher commentating on 5Live again—he’s a commentator I rate very highly.

re 5Live not providing commentaries of every game in previous tournements, I think (though I'm not 100 % sure) that these were available online when 5LSX was busy. if not every game was covered like this, then they certainly did a fair number in 2010 with Wimbledon and cricket on 5LSX. I think not covering games when all your platforms are tied up is fair enough-- but to not even have games like tomorrow's Japan v Ivory Coast on 5LSX is really poor. they are doing other off-tube commentaries, so it can't be that hard!
talksport it is for me then.

Mark Chapman described their commentary of Chile v Australia as "studio based" when introducing Ian Brown and Steve Claridge on BBC Radio 5 Live.

In 2010, the football would be on 5 Live, the cricket on 5 Live Sports Exttra, and Wimbledon on a temporary DAB channel where Radio 4 Longwave programmes are usually broadcast.

I would rather 5 Live didn't try to broadcast every match considering they're all on Talksport. The news coverage has been poor so far, as has coverage of other sports such as the T20 cricket. However, if 5 Live has paid for the rights to the Japan match they should broadcast it.

with all due respect, that doesn't make sense... you say you'd rather 5Live didn't try and do every game as they are on talksport but in the next sentence you say that if they've paid for the rites, then they should broadcast it? they pay for the hole tournament so by that logic they should broadcast the whole tournament. I also think 5Live's coverage of other sports has been fine. with the test match on 5LSX, it is doubtful they'd have carried any T20 cricket last night-- in fact, wasn't 5LSX doing rugby? I heard at least one report on 5Live from a T20 match (Leicester V Lancashire) I believe which is pretty much on a par with what they'd usually do.

Thanks for reminding me about that temporary DAB stream in 2010, I'd completely forgotten about that. Think at one point, a France world cup game was on 5Live, and poor old Andy Murray was dismissed to the DAB stream! admitidly, it was France crashing out and Murray was playing a qualifier but still...

Friday 13th June - talkSPORT

World Cup Live with Adrian Durham from Rio de Janeiro (4-11pm) and Mark Saggers from Manaus (midnight-2am)

FIFA World Cup Group A
Mexico v Cameroon - Gary Taphouse and Ray Parlour (5pm commentary)

FIFA World Cup Group B
Spain v Netherlands - Andrew McKenna and Stuart Pearce (8pm commentary), with Jon Norman producing
Chile v Australia - John Anderson and Matt Holland (11pm commentary)

Cricket: First Test Match
England v Sri Lanka - Guy Swindells, with Jack Bannister providing end-of-session summaries

Tennis: AEGON Championships
Queen's Club - Dave Luddy

Golf: The US Open 2014
Pinehurst Resort and Country Club, North Carolina - Bob Bubka

We also heard from Ian Danter reporting from the Vauxhall England Fan's Hub event from Manaus, with him being joined by Chris Kamara at one point, and Ian Abrahams gathering fans reaction from the bars in and around Copacabana Beach regularly between matches during talkSPORT's marathon programme. Mark Saggers took over from Adrian Durham in the presenter's hotseat at half-time in the Chile v Australia game and then presented the final hour of the programme with Jim Proudfoot to review the tournament so far and look ahead to the England v Italy game. They had the obligatory England camp update from Dants but I was also interested to hear a review of the refereeing from Dermot Gallagher, an item which is a staple of the Saturday Football First show with Danter and Alvin Martin during the football season. It sounds like this will be a regular thing and is very welcome indeed.

I listened to talkSPORT's commentary on both of last night's Group B games (on Spain v Netherlands as I much preferred Macca and Pearce to the BBC TV alternative, while I stuck around for Chile v Australia as I was unable to watch the game on TV). The commentary in Salvador did justice to such an excellent game - I've really enjoyed listening to the McKenna and Pearce team during the domestic season and they didn't disappoint last night. Pearce in particular has been a real find - I now feel very silly for doubting that he'd be a good addition to the talkSPORT team! He reads the game well, highlights tactical points you may have missed and is calm and clear in his analysis; he looks at the game in a different, more analytical way than most co-commentators and it makes him very interesting to listen to. It's a shame he'll be going back into the world of management come July 1st, but in two years time it would not surprise me if a television broadcaster with deeper pockets than talkSPORT signs him up for their Euro 2016 coverage - he's an absolute natural as a pundit or co-commentator. As for the later game, John Anderson is a solid commentator and Matt Holland is always well prepared and fair minded in his analysis, so it was another enjoyable listen. I noticed that Anderson made a far bigger deal of the "only UK radio station doing commentary on all 64 games" thing than McKenna did, who I think didn't trot out that line once. Mind you, he barely had time to draw breath in that second half!

At the end of talkSPORT's live coverage last night, Mark Saggers announced today's four commentary teams for the opening matches from Groups C and D. These include a seventh commentator in the talkSPORT line-up!

Colombia v Greece - John Anderson and Alvin Martin
Uruguay v Costa Rica - Gary Taphouse and Ray Parlour
England v Italy - Jim Proudfoot and Stan Collymore
Ivory Coast v Japan - Richard Connelly and Alan Curbishley

For those not familiar with the name, Richard Connelly is one of the most prominent voices on the talkSPORT Live international radio service, which provides commentaries on all 380 Premier League matches per season for listeners outside of the UK and Republic of Ireland. However, he has seldom been heard on talkSPORT UK save for a few match reporting opportunities. Personally I think he is an inspired choice for a game involving the leading African contender in Brazil - he was one of the BBC World Service's main commentators on numerous Africa Cup of Nations tournaments during the 2000s, where he did an excellent job.

I'm delighted that Richard has received this opportunity. I think he's a great commentator, probably my favourite of the talkSPORT Live regulars and I highly rated his work on the World Service too. The Ivory Coast v Japan game is one I'll be listening to so I look forward to hearing him.

In other upcoming commentary appointments, Andrew McKenna and Stuart Pearce mentioned they'd be doing the crucial Spain v Chile game from the Maracana on Wednesday night during their first match last night.

Alan Curbishley really will help people sleep

Interested to know, how is a game done off-tube? Is it literally a commentator and summariser sat in front of a monitor, describing the action?

Yes. Are you expecting something more complicated?

Just a shame that they are not all out in Brazil doing the games!!

Since 2pm, talkSPORT have been broadcasting a discussion programme under their World Cup Live banner with Adrian Durham hosting from their Rio studio alongside Darren Gough (still out there after being his co-host on World Cup Drive prior to the tournament's kick off) and Gabriele Marcotti.

I guess they will be doing three hour build-ups to the 5pm kick-offs on weekend afternoons as there is a gap in their weekend schedule from 2pm onwards and there wouldn't be much point in scheduling a separate two-hour weekend show until the earlier kick-offs end. It's been mentioned that Ray Stubbs is pencilled in to be hosting part of World Cup Live tomorrow, I imagine he'll be hosting a Sunday Scoreboard-style show between 2pm and the first kick-off at 5pm before Durham takes over to host coverage of the later game(s).

Just some notes on how talkSPORT are organising their programming around the World Cup for those interested. The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast will be heading into its second week of being partly broadcast from Rio next week (with Alan and Ian Abrahams live in Rio and the rotating co-hosts working from London), although I think Alan returns to the UK the following week, while Hawksbee & Jacobs will be presenting their 1-4pm afternoon show from Rio over the next two weeks. I don't think Colin Murray is going to be sent out to Brazil for his mid-morning show, which has been renamed World Cup Today for the duration of the tournament. Durham and Gough hosted World Cup Drive from Rio between 4-7pm from Monday to Thursday this week just gone, although their timeslot will be submerged into the World Cup Live timeslot from yesterday until the end of the group stage. Last night and all of next week will see The Sports Bar with Andy Goldstein and Jason Cundy, which is normally talkSPORT's 10pm-1am weeknight slot, shift back to the 2-6am overnight slot following on from live coverage during the first two rounds of group games, before shifting forward to 11pm/midnight-2am on weekday matchdays thereafter.

At the weekends, all of talkSPORT's normal programmes needed for their live club football coverage between August and May (Matchday Live, Sunday Exclusive, Call Collymore etc) are on their close season breaks anyway, as is the Sunday night line-up of The Press Pass, Full Contact and My Sporting Life, so live World Cup coverage has just slotted into their place. From 6-7am on Saturdays, an edit of the World Cup Clash of the Titans show they recorded prior to the tournament is replacing Football League show Up The League, while A Fisherman's Blues remains in this slot on Sundays. On both days the Weekend Sports Breakfast with Georgie Bingham and Micky Quinn remains between 7-11am while The Warm-Up is extended by an hour to be given an 11am-2pm duration.

We have an accurate talkSPORT schedule for their tournament coverage between now and next Saturday on talkSPORT.com, it seems as if Durham and Saggers will be sharing the reigns for their 4pm-2am weekday live coverage between them. I'd guess that it would make sense for Durham to host the earlier leg of their broadcasts given that he usually works the Drive Time slot before handing the baton to Saggers before/during one of the later games as he did last night, except on occasions when Mark is due to be hosting from the stadiums staging earlier games with the "A" commentary team of Jim and Stan - England v Costa Rica will be one such example.

The SBS Radio coverage in Australia is very unique in that it is sourcing commentary from many sources, and in many languages (this is due to SBS's role as Australia's multicultural broadcaster).
SBS Radio are relaying most games in English from 5 Live (on SBS Radio 2 and 4), while the Australian games have SBS producing their own commentary. Interestingly, according to my TV's EPG for SBS Radio, one game this week (Belgium-Algeria) is being relayed from both BBC (on SBS Radio 2 and 4) and Talksport (on SBS Radio 1 and 3).
SBS is also relaying most games with foreign language commentary (on SBS Radio 1 and 3), with some languages (such as Greek and Korean) being broadcast with SBS's own commentary, and other languages being relayed from international broadcasters in the language of a participating team with a significant Australian migrant population. These broadcasters include Band Radio Brazil, HRT Croatia, RNE Spain, Blu Radio Colombia, Radio Oriental Uruguay, FDP Radio USA (Spanish), RFI France, RAI Italy, BHRT Bosnia, SWR Germany, Radio Del Plata Argentina and NHK Japan.
The reason for SBS relaying games on SBS Radio 1/3 and 2/4 is that SBS Radio 1/2 is available on AM/FM radio, while SBS Radio 3/4 are digital only; SBS Radio 1/2 only takes Australian games and the first game each day (at 2am AEST), while SBS Radio 3/4 takes all games.

Mark Chapman has been hosting 5 Live Sport from Rio since midday today. His guests for World Cup discussion at various points have included Joey Barton, Chris Waddle, John Motson, Neil Lennon, John Murray and Graham Taylor.

Sorry talkSport- 5live on top form tonight. Best coverage out of radio and TV IMHO.

Saturday 14th June - talkSPORT

World Cup Live presented by Adrian Durham from Rio de Janeiro (2-7.30pm), Mark Saggers from the Arena da Amazonia (7.30pm-1am), Stan Collymore from the Arena da Amazonia (1-2am) and Russell Hargreaves from London (3-6am)

FIFA World Cup Group C
Colombia v Greece - John Anderson and Alvin Martin (5pm commentary)
Ivory Coast v Japan - Richard Connelly and Alan Curbishley (2am commentary)

FIFA World Cup Group D
Uruguay v Costa Rica - Gary Taphouse and Ray Parlour (8pm commentary)
England v Italy - Jim Proudfoot and Stan Collymore (11pm commentary), with Stuart Pearce providing in-game analysis, Ian Danter at pitchside and Mike Bovill and Dennis Morris producing

Rugby Union: Second Test Match
New Zealand v England - Simon Ward

Cricket: First Test Match
England v Sri Lanka - Guy Swindells, with Jack Bannister providing end-of-session summaries

Tennis: AEGON Championships
Queen's Club - Dave Luddy

Golf: The US Open 2014
Pinehurst Resort and Country Club, North Carolina - Bob Bubka

Additionally, they had Warren Haughton (a regular Saturday evening contributor to Football First) interviewing England fans from the Cafe Football bar in Stratford, London before, at half-time and immediately after the England v Italy match. And I think Ian Abrahams was doing his usual fans vox pops on and around the Copacabana beach.

Here's how talkSPORT's presentation worked: as mentioned earlier, Adrian Durham started the day hosting a World Cup discussion programme from the station's Copacabana studio alongside Darren Gough and Gabriele Marcotti between 2-5pm. Durham then anchored their first live commentary of the day, with him and Alvin Martin reflecting on Colombia v Greece and previewing the England v Italy game until 7.30pm. At this point, Mark Saggers took the reigns from the Arena da Amazonia, the stadium playing host to the England game. Stan Collymore was also heard in the build-up to Uruguay v Costa Rica breaking the England team news a few hours in advance as he usually does. From 10pm onwards it was build-up to the England game all the way, with Stuart Pearce joining Mark, Jim and Stan from talkSPORT's Rio studio to provide analysis of England throughout their coverage of the match. At its conclusion, Stan took over to host a special one-hour edition of Call Collymore (which wasn't billed as such) for England fans reaction between 1-2am before throwing over to Ivory Coast v Japan commentary. Russell Hargreaves hosted during the half-time interval in that one, closed out the coverage and then presented a truncated version of his overnight show Extra Time until 6am. All in all, a bit of a marathon.

As for the England v Italy commentary itself, I was not in a position to watch the match due to work so I listened to the full 90 minutes on talkSPORT. I have to say their commentary was outstanding all round - it was brilliant to hear Jim Proudfoot back on a big England match, I'd forgotten how commanding he is on such nights. He was sharp in his descriptions, conveyed the passion and atmosphere really well and his years covering Serie A shone through in his knowledge of the Italian team. Stan is often criticised for talking over commentators, this didn't happen with Jim tonight who was very much in control of the broadcast. Having Stuart Pearce involved with the commentary, who I have praised on this thread yesterday, was a good move in my opinion - he provided his considered reaction as an additional analyst every ten minutes or so during the game, which I believe is something BBC Radio 5 Live have done with their studio/stadium pundits on England games at major tournaments for a number of years now and I feel having Pearce in this role added a lot to their commentary. As for Ian Danter, he was actually at pitchside as he would be for an international at Wembley and thus contributed a lot more than I expected him to, giving us updates on incidents such as the one involving Gary Lewin. At previous tournaments, I think talkSPORT's England reporters haven't been as close to the action and able to contribute in this way so it was interesting to hear them get this kind of access. A really solid job was done by all, it made for gripping listening.

I also enjoyed Richard Connelly's subsequent commentary on Ivory Coast v Japan. He obviously knew his stuff, particularly about the African side as you'd expect given his background, and got the best out of Alan Curbishley who was better than I was expecting. Out of interest, did Radio 5 Live have a reporter on this match or was it just left for the Up All Night newsreader to update the scoreline on the half hour?