I hardly think less terrestrial coverage is good news.



This was a lot of people's only viewing of rl and watering it down is bad news I feel.

To be fair to the BBC, I don't know many punters who are that interested in your standard horse race. There's far too much racing and that's down, purely and simply, to the bookies. The standard is often poor and seen by many as a day out rather than a spectacle (draw your own comparisons with a certain code of football).

Quote ="Deano G"I don't know if people have picked up on Channel 4 winning the horse racing rights from the BBC recently. The decision to move wasn't purely down to financial terms. According to press reports there was irritation within the industry that the BBC weren't interested in the bread and butter race meetings. You would think that given they have little sport left on the BBC now they would make an effort with what they had left, but they seem only to care about what they consider glamorous/of interest to an upper middle class London elite (so the 3.15 at Uttoxer or a rugby league cup game aren't worthy of attention). It seems to me that the BBC are interested in Wimbledon, the Six Nations, major athletics tournaments and the MOTD rights package and that's about it now from a sporting point of view. Expect a continuation of poor quality RL coverage and very limited airtime for the sport on the ">BBC.'" But in the grand scheme of BBC cuts we've lost out on very, very little. 1 game less for the 2 earlier rounds and thats it, 2 quarter finals, 2 semis and the final are all still on BBC.

Quote ="Deano G"I don't know if people have picked up on Channel 4 winning the horse racing rights from the BBC recently. The decision to move wasn't purely down to financial terms. According to press reports there was irritation within the industry that the BBC weren't interested in the bread and butter race meetings. You would think that given they have little sport left on the BBC now they would make an effort with what they had left, but they seem only to care about what they consider glamorous/of interest to an upper middle class London elite (so the 3.15 at Uttoxer or a rugby league cup game aren't worthy of attention). It seems to me that the BBC are interested in Wimbledon, the Six Nations, major athletics tournaments and the MOTD rights package and that's about it now from a sporting point of view. Expect a continuation of poor quality RL coverage and very limited airtime for the sport on the ">BBC.'" But in the grand scheme of BBC cuts we've lost out on very, very little. 1 game less for the 2 earlier rounds and thats it, 2 quarter finals, 2 semis and the final are all still on BBC.

Serious question, but in the digital era of television and given the choice of viewing via multimedia platforms, does terrestrial tv really provide the same exposure as in the past? I can understand in the era of 4/5 channels only that casual viewers could be picked up by RL through showing the Challenge Cup on the BBC. However nowadays there is so much choice and things like Sky+ / TiVo have changed viewing habits - people browse channels like the BBC a lot less.

Quote ="giwildgo":1q08b2b6Serious question, but in the digital era of television and given the choice of viewing via multimedia platforms, does terrestrial tv really provide the same exposure as in the past? I can understand in the era of 4/5 channels only that casual viewers could be picked up by RL through showing the Challenge Cup on the BBC. However nowadays there is so much choice and things like Sky+ / TiVo have changed viewing habits - people browse channels like the BBC a lot :1q08b2b6">less.'" are far superior to those on Sky TV. SKy get them in the 100,000s whereas BBC get them in their 1,000,000s. It is essential RL remains on terrestrial TV IMO.

Quote ="giwildgo":1q08b2b6Serious question, but in the digital era of television and given the choice of viewing via multimedia platforms, does terrestrial tv really provide the same exposure as in the past? I can understand in the era of 4/5 channels only that casual viewers could be picked up by RL through showing the Challenge Cup on the BBC. However nowadays there is so much choice and things like Sky+ / TiVo have changed viewing habits - people browse channels like the BBC a lot :1q08b2b6">less.'" are far superior to those on Sky TV. SKy get them in the 100,000s whereas BBC get them in their 1,000,000s. It is essential RL remains on terrestrial TV IMO.

The game has to stay on terrestrial TV, but it has to be well respected by said TV.



Showing the Super League Show in the Northern regions only unless it's 3am, and having little to no advertising is not good enough imo. The Challenge Cup is one of the beebs biggest showpieces apparently yet I rarely see it promoted the way other sports are.