BBC - Coverage

The BBC coverage of Scottish football is well short of being acceptable.

“Doesn’t bother me” you might say, “I don’t watch or listen to it”. Well maybe you should, just to remind yourself how they perform hopefully see that the good aspects are heavily outweighed by the bad.

Their breadth of coverage is narrow and favours the Old Firm and the SPL in particular. When covering other aspects of football, the lower division clubs in Scotland receive less coverage than they deserve and valuable air time is wasted on non domestic interests which, are well covered by Satellite and other terrestrial channels.

The presentation is unimaginative and repetitive with an over emphasis on pundit opinion that is bereft of any attempt to inform and enhance the quality of the listener’s experience. In both TV and radio coverage there is a predisposition toward the negative that outweighs any positives, and this only fuels negative beliefs that exaggerate the poor quality image of Scottish football.

Not only does TV coverage of Scottish football matches, account for less than the coverage provided for English matches, but some of the limited number of TV slots that need to be dedicated to the Scottish game, also include English content.

Radio coverage is plentiful but exceptionally poor quality. There are some gems like the interview with Neil Doncaster on Winter Shutdown but blink and you’ll miss them. There is absolutely no attempt to attract would be listeners by giving them some advance indication of what the program content will be.

There is no attempt to generate greater interest in their programmes and by extension, Scottish football.

Far from helping Scottish football, it could be argued that the BBC is helping to damage the health of the game right across the divisions. The BBC can become a more positive influence but it must make changes to programme coverage to achieve this. To get them to do this, people across Scotland need to take a close look at what they get for their license fee and take the BBC to task.

But if you can’t force yourself to watch or listen – and who would blame you – here’s a reminder of what is on offer.

Sportscene

As well as being exclusively SPL, the programme is scheduled a late hour with no fixed time slot that serves only to make it more difficult to record as well as being broadcast at a time that is unsuitable for younger viewers.

This programme merits less air time than the time devoted to coverage of English football. This imbalance increases when live coverage of English games are screened on the BBC Scottish channels and increases further still, due to the BBC’s coverage of English only matches on their nationally broadcast channels.

There is also a double standard applied by the BBC in that if you live in Scotland and are interested in English football you can watch it on the BBC, but if you live in England and are interested in Scottish football you can’t watch it on BBC.

Sportscene Results Roundup

This coverage is a poor comparison to the results service of previous years with less focus on match reports and to much ‘Expert’ analysis. Less opinion takes up less air time, leaves more time to report on what actually happened and more time to report on the lower leagues. Extended SPL match reports, not to mention reports on English games, are not necessary as both these needs are well covered in their own TV highlights show.

A fast moving series of summaries delivered with clarity and succinctness aimed at capturing as much of what happened as possible but with a responsible approach taken how the available time is balanced between the main stories is what is needed.

If a clash between air time and coverage becomes unavoidable then some overspill with Radio coverage which picks up where TV leaves off should be provided.

Fans need to know what to expect from this coverage. They need to know when and where to get what they want to hear about their team or their team’s rivals, and at the time when they most want to hear it. For Scottish football, this is prime time peak demand and the BBC need to match this with prime time coverage that sticks to a regular format that fans can depend on.

Off The Ball

At least this programme treats all areas of Scottish football with equal contempt. The programme sets out to entertain with the role of information provision taking second place however, it is simply doing what it says on the tin, albeit favouring the SPL somewhat.

The tendency to poke fun at the game can be a double edged sword and instead of reducing the tensions that arise when they deal with aspects of the game that are bad, the casual banter can sometimes reinforce the negative elements to an unnecessary degree.

Sportsound – Saturday afternoon

Pre Match

The same old mix of pundits engaged in a mutual self admiration and sharing private jokes with the occasional tantrum from one of them, when the others gang up in petty squabbling disagreement.

The time slot is too long between the time that it comes on air and kick-off time, and there is a tendency to drag out the usual banter and match predictions that show the total lack of imagination in programme planning.

When different topics arise they end up as poor quality debate and squabbling between the presenters because of the informal style. This has its place but the programme is crying out for high quality scripted interviews and a schedule of content which the programme should follow each week to allow listeners again to be selective.

Match Coverage

Dreary dull commentary that again paints Scottish football in an equally dreary and dull light.

BBC football commentators could well take some lessons from the late Bill McLaren on how to commentate in a way captures people’s interest because it was informative and left an overall positive impression no matter how the game progressed.

Open All Mics may cover a wide range of matches but could do without the cacophony of commentators talking over one another and over exited interruptions every time there is a near miss.

Scores Roundup

Once upon a time it was possible to flick between TV and radio coverage at this time of day because back in those days things seemed to better co-ordinated so that one media wasn’t reporting on the same story as the other media, at exactly the same time.

TV was a taster for more to come later that evening. Radio picked up what TV didn’t cover and so catered for fans of the lower league clubs. Now there is little thought given to this service because the easy option has been taken to allow air time to a programme requiring even less thought.

You’re Call With Jim Traynor

Surely the front runner to steal Off the Ball’s claim to being “The most petty and ill-informed football show on radio!” dominated by tormented spleen venting on a Old Firm theme. Good for a laugh or a good rant, but only because the Lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum.

Good entertainment and even enjoyable to listen to, but it does not merit the amount of air time it receives, when this air time comes at the expense of wider coverage of Scottish football. The programme should be reduced to one hour with that extra time being allowed for the match report round up, or better still rescheduled for a midweek evening slot on MW to brighten up otherwise dull fare.

Good Morning Scotland

The daily fixation with bad news from rude presenters delivered in the most depressingly negative presentation style imaginable and in the midst of it all, a repetitive bulletin of football snippets, with the offerings all the more meagre when English football news is covered.

Scotland could win the World Cup and it would still sound bad on this show and it has to be questioned if it is healthy for Scottish football to be covered midst all this doom and gloom.

Sports Report

What the morning Sports news should be like if it could omit the tendency to drag out yesterday’s news.

Paper Talk with Jim Traynor

The Glasgow Press Association After Dinner Speakers Club eulogising about their inside track to the Old Firm and the SFA, who think Aberdeen is on the opposite side of the world. Well it is if you constantly go the wrong way round, like they seem intent on doing.

There is a tendency to endlessly drag out some mundane point till they have exhausted everything imaginable that can be said about it. This is no more than a self indulgent debate that does more for their own inflated opinions of themselves that provides mind numbingly bad listening for the average football fan.

The programme serves to illustrate the lack of a wide breadth of coverage that Scottish football merits in the papers. The producer and presenters seem to forget that those people with a vested interest in what is in the papers will go out and buy a paper. If they don’t care they won’t buy.

Scottish football used to sell newspapers. Maybe the lack of coverage and lack of paper sales go hand in hand.

Chic Young’s World Of Football

This is a welcome break from the usual fare but still another easy option for the BBC. The same old presentation style of informal studio chat devalues the presenter’s undeniably vast knowledge of the game and this programme can do more.

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