Originally Posted by RadioPhoenix:
“You make some good points but spoil it at the end by claiming I don't have a leg to stand on which is just unnecessary and may I say patronising, it's all about perception I suppose but I think there is a very strong argument to say Villa are WM's most favoured club by a long margin.
At the end of last season they did a special programme on the anniversary of Villa's League Cup win and then relegation, I don't remember any special programming when we went down 2 divisions. This summer there were reports from almost all of Villa's pre-season games including their tour in Austria, no other club got that treatment even when we were being taken over. WM even did a special phone in for Villa's takeover and then for the appointment of the new manager but nothing for Wolves or even the Albion.
I fully understand as a Walsall fan you get the rougher end of the stick than the rest of us, but it's not Wolves getting the star treatment, being shoved on to DAB or Freeview most weeks and let's be honest, they only do that to try and spite Signal.
By the way i'm pretty sure Paul Franks is a Villa fan, he's definitely not Wolves.”
I'm sorry you found some of my wording patronising, that wasn't my intention at all - but I genuinely don't think there is an argument that Wolves receive anything but extensive and highly favourable coverage from BBC WM.
As you say it's all about perception. My perception of listening to WM Sport over 20 + years - rather than basing things on one local derby when a scheduled summariser dropped out late in the day, or one summer when there's clearly been a very recent improvement in Aston Villa coverage - is that Wolves are the one club that has consistently been treated as well as they possibly can be by WM, season in, season out.
Unlike the other four league clubs in this patch, there hasn't been a single period during this time when WM hasn't been able to do commentaries on Wolves matches, even going back to the Around the Grounds days of the late 1990s, when they'd do occasional (mostly second half) Wolves and Walsall commentaries while BRMB had exclusivity over Villa, Birmingham and West Brom. In 2004/05, the year when BRMB pulled out of doing commentaries on Villa, Birmingham and West Brom for one season, yet Signal's predecessor The Wolf continued to commentate on Wolves, WM would prioritise Wolves as their main FM commentary most weeks. Certainly under the sports editorship of Mark Regan your club has done well, the phone-ins seem to me to be dominated by Wolves supporters with the likes of Tonka and Charles Ross appearing regularly.
Regarding the recent improvement in Aston Villa coverage, I suspect their coverage of Villa's tour to Austria was subsidised by Villa as it was simulcast on the club's website. AVFC need an audio service now that the team headed by Jack Woodward have been made redundant and coming to an agreement with the one local station that continues to cover their games makes sense - similar to how Wolves Player links up with Signal 107 on a regular basis. But prior to the end of AVTV as-was, while BBC WM provided commentary on just about every Villa away game, they were only in a position to provide commentary on less than half of their home games. If Villa were WM's favoured club, don't you think they'd have cut back on their coverage of their other clubs in order to win broader rights to games at Villa Park? They didn't, and appear to only have greater access now given that Villa have scaled back their in-house offering, which is why your argument about Villa being their favoured club doesn't stand up as far as I'm concerned.
As for the FM/DAB splits, I think the common practice is that teams that are away from home tend to be on FM with those at home being on other platforms - although when three or four of their clubs from the top two divisions are playing at the same time, West Brom seem to make FM more often than not, which makes sense as their support breaks across the two regional DAB multiplexes in a more pronounced way to the other clubs. It's similar to how BBC Radio Derby tend to keep Burton Albion games on AM, as that frequency travels further and can reach the Brewers' Staffordshire-based supporters in a way that their FM frequency cannot.
The documentary marking the 20th anniversary of Aston Villa's Coca-Cola Cup win will have just been a nice commemorative piece - they aired one about Walsall's 2001 Division Two Play-Off win a while back, but I don't think you'd argue they favour Walsall over the other four clubs! I won't comment on club-related phone-ins as I haven't heard the specific ones you mention, all I will say is that Wolves' takeover and the appointment of Walter Zenga have been discussed extensively on The West Midlands Football Phone-In from the ones I have heard.
As for Paul Franks, he's always kept his loyalty close to his chest but many supporters - mostly Walsall ones admittedly - that I've spoken with have always held the impression that he has a particularly large soft spot for your boys. He certainly sounds at his most enthusiastic and engaged when discussing Wolves and the boardroom goings on at Molineux and at the moment he can't seem to get enough of Zenga and "Big Dadi" Bodvarsson. He waxes lyrical about them every single night on the phone-in!
) so that should say John Hardy and Iwan Roberts were there.
