It seems after all that Bauer has dropped football commentaries from its Scottish local radio stations. Not good at all.

BBC Radio Scotland Sportsound, 2/8/15

Presented by Richard Gordon from Tannadice.

Scottish Premiership
Hearts v St Johnstone (12.30pm) - Rob Maclean, Allan Preston and Ryan Stevenson (commentary) with Chick Young pitchside
Dundee Utd v Aberdeen (3.30pm) - Liam McLeod, Willie Miller and Mark Wilson (commentary) with Brian McLaughlin pitchside

Sunday 2nd August - talkSPORT

Mark Saggers presented Sunday Scoreboard from Wembley Stadium alongside Matt Holland and Michael Gray

FA Community Shield
Arsenal v Chelsea - Sam Matterface and Michael Gray (3pm commentary), with Matt Holland providing in-game analysis and Ian Abrahams at pitchside


talkSPORT Live

FA Community Shield
Arsenal v Chelsea - Alex Crook and Paul Mortimer

Blimey! Quite how you expect every casual reader to know which radio stations are covered by which poster is beyond me, especially when it is the first page of a new thread. I'm a fairly regular reader and don't really have a clue which stations are part of this exclusive club, particularly when we've just had a 2 month break. I hope the poster keeps posting.

I agree with those suggesting the BBC could do with another presenter for Euro 2016. I'm not a fan of Overend either really. I hope Chapman and Walker have a combined TV/Radio role again (certainly I think Chapman will be the main presenter with Pougatch on ITV but hope he does some TV too.) I'd have liked Matt Smith to get a dual role too but perhaps Manish/Jason are more likely. It does now list the BBC on Matt'e Twitter though so who knows what that will entail!

I presume that Free Radio in the West Midlands are the latest independent radio station to drop football commentaries judging from the following extract from a BBC press release regarding local football: "In several major cities, including Birmingham and Liverpool, the BBC will be the only local radio station providing commentary of this season’s matches. "
I find it so sad that the formulaic approach to non-BBC local radio seems to have removed virtually all local sports coverage. With the knives out for BBC local radio, I wonder what the future holds.

It would be very disappointing if it is true that Free Radio 80s are ending their football commentaries. However, the BBC have published incorrect statements about BBC Radio's supposed "exclusivity" over football commentaries in relation to their commercial radio counterparts on a few occasions in the past, so I'm going to hope this is another one of those instances.

Looking at it from the Free Radio 80s side, Tom Ross is very active on Twitter and he's not made any mention of changes to their coverage as far as I can see, there's been no mention of any changes to their coverage in the local press as far as I'm aware and the Tom Ross's Goalzone page is still being maintained on the Free Radio website, with its main blurb including: "Join Tom Ross on Free Radio 80s for everything Villa, Baggies, Blues and Wolves – LIVE on 990am, 1017am, 1152am and DAB Digital Radio...Listen every Monday and Friday at 6pm, and every time your team plays." That said, the station frequency details aren't listed beside the four games the teams Free Radio 80s cover as they have consistently been in previous seasons, which along with the ambiguity of that blurb and the appearances of Chris Coles and Mikey Burrows on BBC WM in recent weeks, possibly indicates the BBC's claim might be true - but it's not been confirmed at Free Radio 80s' end if it is.

As I have said about UTV Radio in the past, I find it unfair for IanFergus to lump Free Radio's parent company Orion in with the Global's and Bauer's of this world. Orion is locally owned by a former BRMB staffer in Phil Riley, and while his decision to abandon its FM stations' heritage names was widely criticised at the time, it's fair to say that under his ownership Free Radio produces far more local content - not just in terms of their football coverage but they also have a strong news team and get involved in local charity events - than your typical Capital or Heart does.

What might be happening here could be a return to BRMB's situation in the 2004/05 season, where they withdrew from commentary rights (as most stations then-owned by what was GCap did at the time), but continued with their Monday and Friday football phone-ins and ran an around the grounds updates and music show on Saturdays and whenever else their teams were in action. That would mirror what appears to be happening on Radio City and on Bauer's stations in Scotland - so it wouldn't be a case of Free Radio 80s killing off their football coverage entirely, although the BBC would be correct in saying only they are doing local commentaries (as opposed to coverage).

Going back to one of Connor's posts from the weekend - if this is true, then I wonder if BBC WM's "three big name signings" Adam Bridge alluded to might be three from Pat Heard, Tony 'Bomber' Brown, Kevan Broadhurst and Andy Thompson - Free Radio 80s' co-commentary mainstays over the past few years.

One things for sure, this week's Friday Football Phone-In should prove to be an interesting listen!

I think that press release more than likely is wrong. As The Difference has already pointed out, Last season WM said they were the ONLY station with Live commentary on the west midlands teams and that was not true.

I think that what will most likely happen is Free Radio 80s have a mix of Updates and music. Last season they didn't do any commentary on Villa home games and on any Saturday early or late kick off but, they did do commentary on one of the 3pm games every Saturday.

When Adam Bridge was at West Brom v Walsall last week he did speak to Tony "bomber" Brown in half time so maybe he might be joining WM. On his Twitter bio Chris writes "Freelance sports commentator" so I guess he is not joining WM but, maybe popping up from time to time.

The Goalzone's twitter page (which is also Tom's) has changed the Bio, it now reads "Tom Ross is the only man you need to know when it comes to Midlands Football Hear him on Free Radio 80s - 1152am & DAB. Mon & Fri at 6pm. Sat at 2pm."

Official

http://www.freeradio.co.uk/the-new-s...ree-radio-80s/


Free Radio 80s will no longer be doing live football commentary, as they can no longer afford the rights

I'm guessing that Tom will be live from a ground on a Saturday and he will be their only reporter.

Now that Radio City have pulled out of Liverpool, the club has decided to, er, take over radio commentary.

http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/late...-game-for-free

Really disappointing news this - it very much follows the pattern of costs + changing timeslots = live commentaries not being able to build up an audience to justify the outlay on them. While it's sad Orion are stopping doing commentaries, it's good they are retaining their Monday and Friday phone-ins which I enjoy listening to and are going to provide updates on Saturdays (which hopefully won't be blocked on their webstream).

I disagree with Connor's view that The Goalzone on Saturdays will now just be a case of having Tom at one ground, I imagine they'll have a reporter and perhaps a pundit at the other Saturday games involving their teams as they did the last time they were in this situation, back in 2004/05 (commentaries returned the following year back then - so who knows). It's just it looks unlikely that they'll have any coverage of Sunday or midweek matches - it'll be interesting to see what happens on Monday and Friday night games (of which we have two coming up involving West Midlands' clubs next week) - while they did in 04/05. Back in 04/05, they also carried IRN's updates on the day's other Premier League games, so it'll be interesting to see if they do that again.

Good to see you back posting again Rich, I think it's been a while since you last did. Just a shame about the news you were able to confirm on here!


That's interesting - I was listening on Tuesday night but switched over at half time at Bescot, wish I hadn't now!

If Tony "Bomber" Brown is one of WM's "three big name signings" then that would be a brilliant move on their part - he's probably West Bromwich Albion's most popular living former player, you only have to listen to The Goalzone's phone-ins to hear the esteem he's held in. If he went to do co-commentaries on Baggies games for WM, I'm certain a large proportion of the audience would follow him regardless of the state of Free Radio 80s' offering. He is massively well respected and very good as an analyst, so would be a big boost to WM Sport.

I also think Pat Heard would be a strong signing for BBC WM - he's nowhere near as a big a name (famously he was on the bench in Rotterdam in 1982, so doesn't quite have the status of WM's resident Villa pundit Peter Withe!), but I find him an enjoyable summariser to listen, he's very articulate and has a witty sense of humour. If he doesn't turn up on WM, then for matches when he's not needed by Free Radio 80s I could see him being AVTV's co-commentator with Jack Woodward - on that, during the Walsall v Villa game it was announced 1957 Cup Final legend Peter McParland would be doing co-commentary on their opening PL game v Bournemouth.

I rate Kevan Broadhurst too, and you could imagine him not just being used to analyse Birmingham City but also Walsall as well after his short-lived stint as manager at Bescot. I know his few months with the Saddlers ended in relegation, but I find it hard to think ill of him for that, anyone would have struggled after receiving perhaps the worst set of cards handed to a Midlands manager in my memory following the Paul Merson omnishambles.

Free Radio 80s have had a number of different Wolves co-commentators down the years, so perhaps Andy Thompson would be the odd man out of the "three big name signings" WM are promising, you'd guess he'll still be involved in Wolves Player's commentaries though. I'm guessing Ian Taylor and Matt Murray will retain their roles as Free Radio 80s' respective Monday and Friday phone-in co-hosts, neither were ever that involved in the live coverage due to their other commitments so there's no reason why anything should change with them.

It'll be interesting to see if WM now revert to having ex-pros (rather than presenters) as co-commentators on a consistent basis, as they did when regular live commentaries returned to the station in the early 2000s. I think they changed to the current set-up when Mark Regan joined them from BRMB to succeed Tim Beech as sports editor.

Will try and post when I can, hard these days due to shift work and I can't use my phone when in the train cab

No mention of whats happening on 990 & 1017am then?

Signal 107 Wolverhampton picked up Wolves Commentary Rights for next 3 years.

Judging off this thread, the West Mids has always been probably the best area for local football coverage with lots of options & it's a shame these have been reduced.

Considering Utd and some London clubs have no local radio coverage for league games then they should count themselves lucky it's lasted this long I suppose.

With the Tories determined to reduce the BBC to a bit of unbiased news, Kids TV and the Ceefax girl, BBC local stations may have to reduce their coverage despite it in my opinion being important than local football is covered.

Thanks for highlighting this - here's how the news has been reported on Wolves' official website:


Thinking about Orion's decision not to renew their commentary rights and how UTV Radio now stands as the one major radio group still investing in local sports commentaries did get me wondering about the possibility of such a deal, so while I had an inkling this might happen it's still slightly surprising to have this deal confirmed so soon after Free Radio 80s' formally announced the end of their commentaries.

UTV Radio certainly stands in stark contrast to the samey "formulaic approach" to local commercial radio that IanFergus talks of - in light of this deal and the impending sale of Juice FM in Liverpool to Global, UTV Radio now owns stations in nine towns and cities in England and Wales and has live commentary rights to at least one football or rugby team in every one of them. I don't have similar numbers for the stations UTV Radio own in Ireland, but I believe it's a similar situation there with those channels boasting commentary on local GAA and rugby union teams. This deal also goes against media reports that, in the wake of the launch of UTV Ireland and the impending launches talkSPORT 2, talkRADIO and talkBUSINESS on the Digital 2 DAB platform, UTV Radio were looking to sell off their GB local radio arm.

I've not been able to find any details of who the personnel who'll be involved in Signal 107's Wolves coverage will be, so it'll be interesting to find out who does what at the weekend. I feel it is plausible that they might start to produce and share the Wolves Player's commentaries, which are currently done by Mikey Burrows with co-commentators including Andy Thompson and Jody Craddock, as Free Radio 80s did in the past when they were doing commentary on every Wolves game, that would seem sensible to me.

The last time the station - then called 107.7 The Wolf - held Wolves commentary rights was in 2005/06 (Beacon - now Free Radio Black Country - picked up the rights in 2006/07), Dave Rowe was their presenter and George Andrews and Ray Crowther were their commentary team. Both Dave and George still work for UTV Radio-owned stations, Dave being a West Midlands-based reporter for talkSPORT and George being Signal 1's Stoke City commentator - incidentally I see from their website that Chris Iwelumo will be Signal Sport's regular co-commentator with George on their Potters coverage this season. I know when Signal 1 returned to doing Stoke commentaries from the 2011 FA Cup Final onwards, they rotated using a number of talkSPORT reporters - Rowe, Geoff Peters and Simon Humphreys - as their commentators for about a season before settling on George as their regular lead voice, so I wonder if something like this could happen again.

There's a nice full page story in today's Daily Mail about Tony Incenzo, talkSPORT's West London-based reporter, groundhopper and all-round QPR fanatic, including some nice anecdotes about some of his more unusual trips to watch matches. The article's also on Mail Online, with their version including a lot more pictures and a link to that video of a young Tony appearing on BBC One's Saturday Swopshop after entering the 92 Club as a teenager: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...miest-fan.html

Tony is one of the great characters on sports radio, I always enjoy his contributions to Matchday Live.

BBC Radio Scotland Sportsound, 5/8/15

Presented by Richard Gordon, with Mark Wilson and Chick Young.

UEFA Champions' League 3rd qualifying round, 2nd leg
FK Qarabag v Celtic (5.30pm) - Liam McLeod and Pat Bonner (commentary) with Chris McLaughlin pitchside

I stand by my 'formulaic' comments. There may be exceptions to this rule (and possibly UTV Radio and the smaller stations are exceptions) but I have watched the relentless race towards same-sounding music and bland DJs for the last several years. Independent radio used to be quite individualistic but, as stations have been absorbed into the bigger groups, the individualism was hammered out of them and they have gradually become indistinguishable from each other. Sports coverage was certainly one of the biggest casualties and I wonder if any will survive on Free Radio when Tom Ross decides enough is enough.

Wednesday 5th August - talkSPORT

Drive Time with Adrian Durham and Darren Gough, followed by Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off

UEFA Champions League Third Qualifying Round Second Leg
Qarabag FK v Celtic - Graham Courtney


There's no possibly about it. UTV Radio hold local sports commentary rights in every British town and city that they have a local radio station in, as well as in many Irish ones as well. I'd argue that as a group UTV Radio shows the same level of commitment to local sports coverage that BBC Local Radio does. Surely you'd accept that UTV Radio's approach to local sports coverage (and I'd extend that to local news and general output as well) is a world away from the likes of Global?

I'm also loathe to totally hammer Free Radio 80s for their decision to drop their football commentary rights. It's worth mentioning that it's not as if they've completely abandoned their sports output. They're continuing their Monday and Friday football phone-ins, which for me have long been appointment-to-listen radio, and they're continuing to do around the grounds updates on their teams. It seems to me as if Radio City and Bauer's Scottish radio stations are taking a similar approach. This is considerably different to just cancelling all local sports output entirely, as many GCap/Global-owned stations did 11 years ago, and I think it's worth pointing this out when people trot out generalised blanket criticisms of local commercial radio.

I am happy to concede that UTV Radio is at present very good with its local sports coverage (with talkSPORT, Swansea Sound, Signal and a host of smaller stations). Long may it continue. EMAP/Bauer started well with great coverage in Liverpool, the North-East, South Yorkshire and in Scotland but has quickly reverted to a big fat zero. Let's see how long the finance people will allow UTV Radio to buck the trend.

I can't say I share your cynicism about UTV Radio Ian. Ever since they took over The Wireless Group ten years ago, UTV Radio have continued to invest in sports rights and programmes both nationally and locally - with talkSPORT and their local portfolio maintaining and adding rights over the past decade. As well as them having long-standing commentary agreements with teams like Swansea City and Bradford City on Swansea Sound and Pulse, they've added rights deals in other towns and cities in the years after the 2008 financial crisis. You had Signal 1 picking up Stoke City commentaries four years ago, RadioWave 96.5 picking up Blackpool rights last season and now we have Signal 107's Wolves deal. The Signal 107 deal is significant in so much as it is the first new rights deal UTV Radio have done nationally or locally since the announcement that their bid had won the second national DAB multiplex, meaning they'll be launching three new national DAB stations next year. Many had felt this would signal the end of their investment in their British local stations, but sports-wise that hasn't happened. Clearly it helps UTV Radio's local portfolio to have a national sports-based sister station and I think it would take a real change of emphasis group-wide for anything to change this. I don't see anything letting up without something like that happening.

As for Bauer's sports coverage reverting "to a big fat zero" - I guess you are ignoring the long-running Clyde 1 Superscoreboard that airs for two hours each weeknight and the Saint and Snods programmes on Radio City, not to mention Absolute Radio's Rock 'N' Roll Football Premier League commentaries nationally, as is your wont. They've not pulled the plug on their sports coverage entirely - they just decided they couldn't justify investing in commentary rights anymore. To me, that's a big difference to what Global have done across the board. Personally, after the initial disappointment of them not renewing their commentary deals, I'd rather encourage them to continue broadcasting the sports coverage they can justify than criticise them for not going with what they feel they can't. That's just me, I'm not one for doom and gloom. It will be interesting to see if Absolute renew their Saturday 3pm commentary deal in the 2016-19 Premier League national radio rights auction - I think that will tell us a lot about the group's ambitions when it comes to sports coverage, and will indicate whether we could see a return to local commentary deals on Bauer-owned stations somewhere down the line. Signal 107 returning to Wolves commentaries nearly a decade since they last held them is just the latest of a number of commercial stations to dip their toe back in the football commentary water after a while away.

Additionally:

Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Tim Collins and Mark Ramprakash with Jon Norman at Trent Bridge

International Challenge Cup
Chelsea v Fiorentina - Ian Abrahams

I do hope that you are right, sir. I am just a natural cynic having watched the diminution of non-BBC coverage over the years as the greed by the football authorities has kicked in. All power to UTV Radio (even if I am not a great fan of talkSPORT's style (but one man's meat . . ) ). I was surprised by Bauer's quick retreat from Scotland with regard to live commentaries and I wonder if Central FM are doing commentaries this season. I am away for a few weekends until the end of September so have no real chance of tuning in to the various stations. I am in Warwick on 'business' this weekend so I might be able to catch a few minutes of BBC WM and BBC C&W. Similarly I shall be in Glasgow in mid-September so, if I don't take the opportunity of going to the Davis Cup, I may be able to check up on Radio Clyde etc.