Saturday 22nd October - Today FM

Philip Egan presented Premier League Live, joined by Mark Lawrenson between 2-3pm

Premier League
AFC Bournemouth v Tottenham Hotspur - Adam Lindsay
Arsenal v Middlesbrough - Ian Beach and Gary Breen (3pm commentary)
Burnley v Everton - Alan Tolley
Hull City v Stoke City - Roger Tames
Leicester City v Crystal Palace - Peter Hood
Swansea City v Watford - Ron Jones
West Ham United v Sunderland - Russell Hargreaves
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Grahame Lloyd

Rugby Union: European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 1
Munster v Glasgow Warriors - Ross Lindsay


Newstalk 106-108FM

Ger Gilroy presented Off The Ball alongside Nathan Murphy and Eoin Sheahan

Premier League (as IRN)
AFC Bournemouth v Tottenham Hotspur - Adam Lindsay
Arsenal v Middlesbrough - Andrew Cheal
Burnley v Everton - Adam Dury
Hull City v Stoke City - Al Ross
Leicester City v Crystal Palace - Clive Edwards
Swansea City v Watford - Sam Fleet
West Ham United v Sunderland - Guy Swindells

Rugby Union: European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 1
Munster v Glasgow Warriors - Oisin Langan

Some details I missed from the stations I posted information about yesterday...


It was actually Matt Smith, not Danny Kelly, presenting The Full Time Phone-In with Stuart Pearce. I missed the rugby union match covered by Matchday Live, which was:

Rugby Union: European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 4
Castres v Northampton Saints - Simon Ward


talkSPORT Live's commentators on the late games were Dan Wheeler and Gary O'Reilly on Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion and Dan Windle on Bayern Munchen v Borussia Monchengladbach.


Kind of you to say that, thanks.

Apologies if already answered but why do 5Live have the early game today.
Even Jonathan Overend seemed bemused why they had the commentary.
Just said it would take a legal team to explain why......

BBC Radio Manchester - Sunday 23rd October

Chelsea v Manchester United - Bill Rice - reports
Manchester City v Southampton - Ian Cheeseman and Paul Lake - commentary

IRN
Manchester City v Southampton Peter Smith
Chelsea v Manchester United Nigel Bidmead

BBC Radio London
Chelsea v Man Utd Aaron Paul (who was reporting on Millwall v Fleetwood yesterday for BBC Radio Lancashire)

BBC Radio Solent
Man City v Southampton Adam Blackmore and Dave Merrington (commentary on 96.1 and 103.8FM)

I can't explain it unless Southampton's Europa League involvement comes into it. I don't see how though.

I don't think this situation helps anyone this season. Radio listeners are people of habit that like routine. It's become settled over the last few seasons as to which station will have which games.

BBC Radio Scotland Sportsound, 23/10/16

Presented by Richard Gordon from Hampden Park, with Tom English.

Scottish League Cup Semi-Final
Rangers v Celtic (2.15pm) - Liam McLeod, Billy Dodds and Pat Bonner (commentary) with Chris McLaughlin pitchside

Scottish Premiership
St Johnstone v Dundee (noon) - Paul Mitchell, Allan Preston and Willie Miller (commentary) with Brian McLaughlin pitchside

Jonathan Wall asked on twitter about this his response;

I agree. During previous contracts, if a game was moved from one timeslot to another, whichever station had control over the timeslot the match actually took place in would get to broadcast that fixture. Sometimes talkSPORT did well and sometimes Radio 5 Live did well under this arrangement, I'm not sure if things evened themselves out over the course of a season or three, but the one thing you could say was that it made for reasonably consistent scheduling on both stations.

Now, even those of us on here are stumped as to which games will end up on certain stations and why, so heaven help the casual listener. I happen to think that enabling Saturday 3pm rights holders (primarily 5 Live but potentially talkSPORT 2 as well these days) to broadcast non-UK televised matches moved from that timeslot to one on a Sunday afternoon due to the Europa League makes sense, as does allowing talkSPORT to do commentary on matches shuffled around on League Cup Final Sunday, but aside from that it's all become very confusing and difficult to follow. That in itself can't be a good thing.

I suppose a potentially positive impact of these changes might be if commentaries on Bank Holidays are shared out a bit more evenly. I expect Radio 5 Live to retain control of the majority of the Bank Holiday picks, especially now they have rights to all midweek games, but there are instances where it would make sense to allow talkSPORT to cover matches outside of the 3pm timeslot during these matchrounds. For example, last season either during the Boxing Day and New Year's Day matchround there was at least two games kicking off at 5.30pm, yet neither were on talkSPORT and only one was on BBC National Radio. To me, it would make sense to allow talkSPORT to cover one of those matches in such circumstances.

Sunday 23rd October - talkSPORT

Jim Proudfoot presented Sunday Scoreboard alongside Perry Groves and Charlie Wyett from The Sun, followed by The Full Time Phone-In with Matt Smith and Chris Perry

Premier League
Manchester City v Southampton - Dom McGuinness
Chelsea v Manchester United - Ian Abrahams

Scottish League Cup Semi-Final
Rangers v Celtic - Geoff Peters

Cricket: First Test Match
Bangladesh v England - Jon Norman

American Football: NFL International Series
New York Giants @ Los Angeles Rams (Twickenham) - Will Gavin

Formula 1: United States Grand Prix
Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas - Graham Courtney


talkSPORT Live

Premier League
Manchester City v Southampton - John Anderson and Rufus Brevett
Chelsea v Manchester United - Phil Blacker and Alan McLoughlin

Bundesliga
Red Bull Leipzig v SV Werder Bremen - Joe Shennan
Schalke 04 v Mainz 05 - Kevin Hatchard


talkSPORT 2

La Liga Live presented by Russell Hargreaves (3-5.05pm) and Dan Windle (7-10pm)

La Liga
Sevilla v Atletico Madrid - James Fielden and Matt Lawrence (3.15pm commentary)
Real Madrid v Athletic Bilbao - Olly Wilson and Chris Perry (7.45pm commentary)

talkSPORT 2 also took Will Gavin's updates from Twickenham on the NFL International Series. Earlier, Will presented Sportsday, which included their coverage of the Australian MotoGP (commentary came from their usual international TV feed team).

Next weekend's La Liga commentaries will be Atletico Madrid v Malaga (5.30pm) and Barcelona v Granada (7.45pm) in a Saturday double header, plus Las Palmas v Celta Vigo in the late game on Sunday. talkSPORT 2's Saturday 3pm commentary from the Premier League is Manchester United v Burnley.


Newstalk 106-108FM

Joe Molloy presented Off The Ball alongside Richie McCormack

Premier League
Manchester City v Southampton - Peter Smith (as IRN)
Chelsea v Manchester United - Nathan Murphy and Keith Andrews (4pm commentary)

Rugby Union: European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 4
Montpellier Herault v Leinster - Dave McIntyre and Andrew Dunne (1pm commentary)

Alan Green made a similar quip at the start of the Southampton game

"No... I don't understand the contract either"

I agree it's all a bit odd and not something that was announced at the time the contracts were announced.

I understand when time slots changed due to European games, it seems as the stations now keep the game rather than the time slot but other random ones like yesterday must confuse the casual listeners.

Be interesting to see what games they get at Xmas and also as TD said, some games fall into the usual TS time slots.

5Live & Sports Extra on Tuesday

Liverpool vs Spurs - Conor McNamara & Lawro
Arsenal vs Reading - Ian Brown & Mark Schwarzer (Sports Extra)

5Live on Weds

Man Utd vs Man City - Alan Green and Chris Waddle
West Ham vs Chelsea - Alistair Bruce-Ball and David Pleat (Sports Extra)

BBC Radio Manchester - Monday 24th October

Bury v Bolton Wanderers - Jack Dearden and John McGinlay - commentary

I used this commentary as my Softbank Sportsnavi service (live telecast of all Prem games to iPhones/iPads) only carried it in Japanese. After Stones seemed to have equalised, the comms carried on for quite a while thinking it was 1-1 but kudos for someone at the station for eventually getting in their ear and having them explain straight off why the goal had been ruled out, namely that under the new rule Aguero had attempted to head the ball in on its way to Stonesy.

It's a strange one, it happens again this weekend for the Palace v Liverpool game which is a Saturday 17:30 match. Usually we'd expect that to be on TS, but it's on 5L instead.

When the radio deals were announced there was a cap on the number TS could carry live (28 for each of the two time slots, 56 in total) so it makes sense they can't cover every Saturday 5:30pm game and every Sunday game pre-3:00pm as that would take them over their quota.

I can only assume that if a game selected for live broadcast happens to be from a particular package, then it's a 5L game.

My educated guess would be, these are the games TS can cover live:

Sky - Package C has 28 games kicking off between 1.30pm and 2.15pm on Sundays
BT - Package B has 28 games at tea-time on Saturdays (5.30pm)

However if the games happen to come from these two packages, then it's a 5L game:

BT - Package F has 14 games, a mix of midweek and Saturday games including three first picks
Sky - Package G is a bundle of 14 games on Bank Holidays and other Sunday matches with two first picks

So I would assume Man City v Leicester last Sunday came from Package G and this weekend's match between Palace and Liverpool is from Package F.

Package A (Saturday lunch), Package D (Sunday 4:00pm) and Package E (MNF/FNF) have no impact.

Monday 24th October - 107.4 Tower FM

Paul Higgs presented Tower FM Sport from the studio

League One
Bury v Bolton Wanderers - Chris Price, Tony Kelly and Tom Pickup (7.45pm commentary, also on Wanderers Player)

I listened to a bit of this commentary last night and thought Tower FM, which serves both Bolton and Bury, provided very fair and impartial coverage. While they only have a commentary deal to cover all Bolton matches, and indeed their broadcast was going out on the official Bolton Wanderers website, as they were playing another local club they had a three man commentary team, with Tom Pickup - who I believe is their regular Bury reporter on Saturday afternoons - providing the Shakers angle.

I thought this compared well against other local commercial stations who only commentate on certain (usually bigger) clubs in their area when they cover derbies involving teams they don't have commentary rights to, for example how Free Radio 80s provided their usual Wolves-slanted coverage of their League One derbies against Walsall a few seasons back, and going back a bit further how the then-Gold Birmingham provided Albion-slanted coverage of West Brom v Wolves derbies in the days when Wolves were just outside their patch. It would be interesting to see how other UTV Radio-owned stations would handle such a situation, for example Signal 1 were Stoke City to face Port Vale or Crewe Alexandra or Pulse 2 should Bradford City find themselves up against Huddersfield Town. I hope they'd take a leaf out of Tower's book.

By the way, welcome to the forum King_Betty. Interesting analysis of the Premier League's national radio rights, it got me thinking and you certainly have uncovered something regarding the reduced quotas talkSPORT have in their standalone timeslots under the new contract. In the previous seasons, talkSPORT had rights to 64 games across the two timeslots - so theoretically they are due to do eight fewer commentaries this season. However, now their Saturday 5.30pm package no longer includes Wednesday night matches, which accounted for five of their 65 Premier League commentaries last season. But even beyond those games (and sometimes the number of midweek matchrounds works out at fewer than five), they'd still have to lose a few live games at weekends that they would have been able to cover last season - assuming they have some say in the matter, perhaps they are getting them out of the way early on? Equally if Radio 5 Live have a say in the matter, perhaps they would prefer to take some games earlier in the season when they know their won't be a clash with other sports i.e. they would probably be less keen to pick up Saturday 5.30pm or Sunday pre-3pm games during February and March as they may clash with their Six Nations commentaries.

BBC Radio Scotland Sportsound, 25/10/16

Presented by Richard Gordon from New Douglas Park.

Scottish Premiership
Hamilton Accies v Aberdeen (7.45pm) - Rob Maclean, Derek Ferguson and Jimmy Nicholl (commentary) with Richard Wilson pitchside

Tuesday 25th October - talkSPORT

Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: League Cup Special from Anfield with Stuart Pearce at the Emirates Stadium

EFL Cup Fourth Round
Arsenal v Reading - Ian Abrahams and Stuart Pearce
Bristol City v Hull City - Laurence Mora
Leeds United v Norwich City - Naz Premji
Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur - Simon Humphreys and Mark Saggers, with James Dodd producing
Newcastle United v Preston North End - Graham Courtney

Mark Pougatch hosting

Arsenal v Reading - Mike Williams
Bristol City v Hull - Simon Mann
Leeds v Norwich - Vicky Sparks
Newcastle v Preston - Alistair Yeomans

BBC Newcastle - Tuesday October 25

Newcastle v Preston - Mick Lowes and John Anderson
Studio: Simon Pryde

BBC Radio Manchester - Wed 26th October

Manchester United v Manchester City - Ian Cheeseman, Bill Rice, Fred Eyre and Danny Webber - commentary

Wednesday 26th October - talkSPORT

Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: League Cup Special from Old Trafford alongside Danny Higginbotham

EFL Cup Fourth Round
Manchester United v Manchester City - Sam Matterface and Danny Higginbotham (8pm commentary), with Dom McGuinness at pitchside and James Dodd producing
Southampton v Sunderland - Ian Danter
West Ham United v Chelsea - Ian Abrahams

Going back to last night, talkSPORT didn't take commentary on the penalty shootout at the end of Leeds United v Norwich City during The Sports Bar (as they have often done with League Cup shootouts in previous seasons), they just took an update from Naz Premji after it had concluded.


talkSPORT Live

EFL Cup Fourth Round
Manchester United v Manchester City - Tom Rennie and Kit Symons

Mark Chapman hosting

Southampton v Sunderland - Tony Husband
West Ham v Chelsea - Jonathan Overend


Great work King_Betty re the PL packages. It would seem to make sense from a numbers point of view, though I'm not quite sure why the need to change from previous deals. I can't find specific mention of number of matches for 5 Live slots, only a total of 144, which fits in with the theory.
TV package A (28 matches), D (28), E(28), F (14) & G (14) gives 5 Live 112 matches, leaving 32 for Saturday's at 3pm which seems right to me. If this is the case, I doubt they have any say when they can use the 'extra' weekend matches, indeed I think Phil Wye said in one of his responses they were "allocated" certain matches.

BBC Radio Scotland Sportsound, 26/10/16

Presented by Richard Gordon on 810MW.

All 7.45pm.

Scottish Premiership
Ross County v Celtic - Scott Davie and Pat Bonner (commentary) with Martin Dowden pitchside
Dundee v Partick Thistle - Willie Miller (Paul Mitchell conducting post-match interviews)
Kilmarnock v Hearts - Allan Preston (John Barnes)
Motherwell v Inverness CT - Chick Young (Richard Wilson)