From: scogpw@thor.cf.ac.uk (Gordon Walker)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.uk
Subject: Re: BBC Sports Coverage
Date: 18 Nov 92 18:59:43 GMT
Organization: University of Wales College at Cardiff
X-Mailer: Cardiff Computing Maths PP Mail Open News Gateway

Argument posted over from rec.sport.soccer 'cos it's becoming more about
tv than football.......(hope it's of interest...!)

In article <1992Nov17.104930.17322@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> dam@dcs.gla.ac.uk writes:
|In article <18507.9211161724@thor.cf.ac.uk> scogpw@thor.cf.ac.uk (Gordon
|Walker) writes:
|>Isn't all this a matter of BBC Scotland's budget and how much they think
|>it should be spent on sport (as opposed to music and news stuff etc)? Down 
|>here in Wales (which doesn't seem to figure much in your arguments! :-) 
|>we always seem to get extra Rugby matches, and our own version of Sportsnight 
|>when something Welsh is on. I can't think BBC Wales would get a
|>bigger budget than BBC Scotland. But on HTV (ITV here) they seem to think 
|>boxing is more worthy of coverage than football (that's when it's useful 
|>to be able to pick up an English signal aswell!).
|
|I think your missing my point, or maybe I didn't put it across as well as I 
|should have. My main complaint relates *nationally* produced programs intended
|for *national* consumption rather than locally produced one's for local
|consumption. What we appear to have at the moment is a locally produced (in
|England) program being transmitted nationally. That's quite different.
|

But surely "nationally produced programs" should cater for the majority
- which unfortunately for you is the English. The BBC also knows that
Scotland, Wales and N.I. can override what it wants (well, I'd guess they
can, can't they?) if they have the resources to do so. How  they
distribute those resources is up to them - just your hard luck that
football doesn't come up high on the list it seems. If BBC Scotland
doesn't have enough money to do it's own thing more, then that's another
problem, not the problem of the programs being predominatly English in
the first place. The Scot's aren't the only one's to suffer too you know
- some of the English regions as are probably as big as Scotland or
Wales (a complete guess here, so apologies if I'm wide of the mark) but
don't have half the chances to air their own programs. Do you think
Geordies would have more affiliation with London or Scotland?!

|
|>I think you should be looking at how BBC Scotland treats sport, not how
|>the BBC treats Scottish sport. How the BBC treats Scotland, Wales and
|>Northern Ireland w.r.t. the amount of local control (and the budget for
|>that) is another matter.
|
|And BBC England? What I am looking at is how the BBC Britain treats British 
|sports. The input of BBC England to sports coverage by BBC Britain is way out
|of proportion and needs its balance redressed. If BBC England wants to put out
|sports programs with a predominantly English bias to England, that's fine, I
|have no objection. The same applies to BBC Wales, BBC Scotland and BBC Northern
|Ireland and their treatment of sports coverage. But when it comes to nationally
|produced programs by BBC Britain then all 4 should have *some* sort of input.
|I can't remember the last time I heard the football league results from
|Northern
|Ireland even being read out on Sportsnight. Don't they play football over
|there?
|
|The trouble is that BBC England *is* BBC Britain.
|

The trouble with England is that it is the majority of Britain. The
trouble with the BBC (or rather one of its many troubles!) would be more 
how much money/scope it gives the regions to overide programs aimed at the 
majority. But if your particular region treats football (or whatever
sport of interest) badly, complain to them not the overall BBC.

And I don't know if they play football in N.I. - afterall they don't
show any football results! :-) (I'd presume they don't haven professional
leagues over there, so that's probably why (if that's a valid
reason!)).
|

|Rab (aka Dave)

Anybody agree with any of this? Anybody interested?! Any chance of you
vaguely agreeing Rab, er, Dave??!

gordon