After looking at the TV Guide for Saturday 20th March, I notice that BBC 1 are showing 8 hours of Rugby Union ( which will probably show one or two tries during that time).

I find this a disgrace, Rugby League would never get this sort of coverage.

Yet again the BBC showing there true colours.

Please let the Challenge Cup go to ITV, Channel 4 or Sky after this season.

The BBC are showing two Four Nations matches Live from Australia in the Autumn, one of them not even involving England. I can't ever remember them doing that, not Live anyway. Certainly not in my lifetime.

You can't call the BBC a joke though for being disinterested in Rugby League. I mean the BBC used to be well committed to Rugby League before the game sold almost completly to Sky.

For example in the early 90s BBC Grandstand used to show 6 Challenge Cup Ties, 5 Regal Trophy Ties, the 3 match home test matches series v Australia or New Zealand (plus 1 or 2 tests more if they played France), the Premiership Final and at one point didn't they cover both the county finals as well?

So you were talking at least 15 weeks of coverage on Grandstand, probably actually nearer 20 weeks. This was on top of the 52 matches a season shown on the new Sky Sports (at the time half Live, half Sunday Night delayed).

These days we get 5 weekends of Live Coverage on the BBC, and now rather than being a pinnacle part of the BBC's Sports output, they treat the cup as a token gesture.

But can you blame the BBC for losing interest? As I said the RFL sold more and more to Sky. First the Premiership Finals went to them, then they axed the Regal Trophy altogether and the biggest blunder of all (in hindsight) they gave International Test Matches exclusively to Sky from 1997. Ok the Challenge Cup coverage doubled to two matches per round but that only halves the quality surely?

Most people will agree that Wigan's domination of that period wasn't good for the sport but in terms of tv coverage the exposure in those days was massive.

Why was the 1995 World Cup held here a huge success? Because it was all Live on the BBC and they all their domestic coverage to give constant plugs to it.

Why was the 2000 World Cup a huge failure? Because the majority of the tournament was Live on Sky and all that BBC exposure had gone. As the tournament kicked off in Late October the BBC (who did have some coverage) hadn't shown any Live Rugby League since April! Of course the venue choices played a massive part as well.

Why are the BBC going big on Rugby Union? Because they are showing international matches and they have the rights exclusively. The English RFU are not daft. They know the sport benefits hugely from having test matches on free to air tv. At one time they had sold England's home 5 Nations games (as it was) exclusive to Sky but soon realised they were losing out.

At the end of the day you'll never get big terrestrial coverage back. Grandstand is no more and Saturday Afternoon Sport is centre more around watching the football results come in then anything else. But maybe if the BBC had 16-20 weekends of Rugby League to show, Grandstand may still be on the air!

A perfect example of why the Challenge Cup HAS to stay on terrestrial television.

The BBC and the NHS..

You either hate them or love them.

Both do a good enough job for this country.

You could also argue that moving the Challenge Cup and taking a lot of Rugby League away from the BBC has actually prompted them to go big on the six nations. Because this time of year is when they have would normally been showing crucial Challenge Cup ties.

The best publicity for rugby league would be continued exposure of the dire 6 Nations tournament on BBC.

15-15 with no tries.

Excellent...

I've heard it all now and can't wait for chris Irvine's next blog "rugby league killed grandstand"

France Versus Australia was live on the BBC last Autumn.

I`m sorry decent enough post till I got to bit - the reason that WC was a success had little to do with the BBC who whilst showing several matches live ( mid week ones restricted to BBC Northern channels) did their best to try and hide it away and more or less showed their hand as a RL- hating establishment service they really are ...

wasnt it at the BBC request that the Challenge Cup be moved from May to August?

that was in france not in australia though.

40 million reasons a year would do that to you. 40 million reasons for 15 games over 5 weekends.

And who can forget Steve 'where are you now?' Ryder's opening to the Centenary World Cup, '[iWelcome to a wet, windy and EMPTY Windsor Park[/i'. Gillipollas.

As stated I was refering to show games Live from Australia!




Well thats not the way I saw it. I've never thought the BBC is rugby league hating at all. It's definetly well down the pecking order these days though.

And I know it wasn't full live coverage that year but the point I was making was the quantity of Rugby League the BBC showed in those days in advance of the tournament provided an advert for it at least. Something that didn't happen in 2000.



I can't remember to be honest. It hasn't worked in my view.




I'm not saying the BBC coverage is perfect and I know they wouldn't put league games on in prime time. But if we had given them the four nations exclusively they would have shown all the games.

That was the 2000 World Cup not 1995. Can't excuse Steve Rider's comment but why should the BBC have got enthused about that (it was Ireland v Samoa they were showing) when all the big games were all on Sky? I think they had England v Australia Live later that night on Sky, from bloody twickenham!!

That's because RL never:
1) has three high-profile internationals, all played in front of sold out stadiums, on the same weekend.
2) sells those rights exclusively to the BBC.

It's OK claiming that the BBC is against us but if we aren't providing content of the quality that the BBC wants, it's not the BBC's fault - they aren't there to be the RFL's PR agency.

Remember it being the main event on Grandstand and there had even been a couple of adverts midweek. Whether it was a big game or not, it was unprofessional of him. Steve Ryder later went on to work on ITV's rugby union coverage, make of that what you will.
Do you think many presenters would open say a football FA cup 3rd round tie like that?

If they were doing a Wigan Athletic home match, probably!

Latics in the 4th round would be more difficult.

I know this is hard for a lot of fans to believe, but thousands of people really enjoy rugby union. Rugby league has been waiting for people to get bored and "come to their senses" for a hundred years. Maybe it's time people accepted that union fans genuinely enjoy their game and might even honestly prefer it to rugby league. Each to their own.

I hope that the RFL dont make the same mistake in 2013, every game on the BBC please

There is some truth to what you say, but it's not as if rugby union has always looked as it does now. Some may be more inclined to "come to their senses" now as opposed to a decade ago. Who knows. I think we can safely say that defection will not happen on a large scale, though.

It would, if people approached League with an open mind.
Having once been part of a big union squad, they don't.

And vice versa.