so a bunch of RU 'friendlies' gets more column inches/pages and air time than a WORLD CUP in every paper and on free-to-air and subscription TV...if thats not media bias I don't know what is?

There IS a media bias in this country...end of. FACT. It isn't a level playing field...for many reasons...some self inflicted..most not.

If England win the rugby league World Cup they'll be 2 inches in the rag, half a try and 20 seconds in the news and the queen will send a pack of sherbet lemons, then it'll be written out of history in 10 years.

Did the media make more people tune in to watch the Union friendlies than who bothered to watch the RLWC Quarter final featuring England?
Did the 1.2 million who tuned into SKY for the England v All blacks secretly want to join the 260,000 who watched the SL GF but were kept away by the media?
Do the BBC report a 4,500,000 average across all 15 6 nations games simply to highlight the chasm in public interest or is that again more media bias?
Do the Editors of the UK papers say "sod it" and print less league than union, not caring about the potential loss of sales as a result?
The lead RL story on the BBC is not a good news story......was it the IRB that done it?

If you love union so much why don't you just marry it.

Where did I say I loved anything? Paranoia and insecurity is rife in certain sections of RL fandom!

Sky Sports have made a piece on the semi's, which those of us with balanced views predicted.

It was a good 4 minutes and summed up the tournament very well, not biased one way or the other, just the reality of our sport.

Seems they don't have an agenda after all, available online if anyone wants to see it.

Better not tell him the Ashes have just started!

No doubt it will be Sky shamelessly promoting their own product .....

And that's because relatively few people actually care. Sorry to have to break that to you.

Simple answer...yes....its called publicity.



eh? England didn't play the All Blacks on the night of the Grand Final did they?



If its on..People watch it.....the more you put on...the more they watch it...especially blanket coverage at peak times on BBC 1...backed up with pages and pages of publicity in the broadsheets and tabloids....that isn't rocket science is it.



No actually what they do say is..I don't want any of that northern 3 in my paper....none of them wear the right school tie.



not sure what your point is here? The fact that a badly run club is in administration or the fact that the BBC chose to cover it....both are true. Good news, bad news whatever...just make sure its reported fairly and proportionally.

RL does not get a fair crack at the media circus....thats the choice of the biased people that run the media.

If Sale RU were playing Newcastle RU in the Premiership final at Twickenham on the same day Wigan played Leeds in the challenge cup final...who gets most coverage? Based on what?

Seems a bit quiet media wise this week, the RFL should be twisting the BBC's arm to have a feature on BBC News tomorrow, we need to be plugging this as 'England RL's biggest game for decades' and get a bigger TV audience in.

Hard to care about something when your exposure to it is miniscule.

Quiet on the RL world cup front, but five live were making a massive deal out of Clive Woodwood watching a re run of the 2003 union world cup for the first time and the fact its ten years to the day since England won it.

Jack FM (Bristol) mentioned, during their 0700 news bulletin this morning, that the England RLWC Semi Final squad was due to be annouced today, .

The RLWC twitter account was busy today, highlighting all the advertisements dotted around London and the coverage we'll be getting on talksport etc

Oh ok, so if only people were given the chance to see it then they'd immediately see what they've been missing - the self styled "Greatest Game" - and demand for RLWC tickets would far exceed supply?? I see where we've been going wrong now for 118 years.

Fellas, some of you have got to get a grip. The paranoia you have is unbelievable. The fact is you're fighting battles that aren't being fought anymore....in fact the "other side" aren't even aware there is a war!

WTF


The BBC have given RL a great level of exposure and publicity and yet it's the media's fault that more people tuned in to watch Ireland at Union



As for the rest of your conspiracy theories.... (media types don't all wear Old School Ties any more BTW) the simple facts are that 240,000 attended 3 games at Twickenham over the last 3 weeks....RL fans are getting stiffy's over a few thousand more for 25 games of the RLWC......that has SFA to do with Media Coverage and everything to do with supply and demand!
The Double header this weekend is looking like it wont beat Saracens effort for a stand alone game in the same stadium......adjust your tin-foil hat!

It's hard to understand your point in referencing the sports RL/RU with attendance. At the home of Welsh Rugby Union Wales RL pulled in 45000 v. Italy a few weeks ago. 2 weeks ago at the same venue ,the home of Welsh RU Wales RU pulled in 46000 v Argentina. Does this make the 2Codes equal in Cardiff? Of course not, union is always going to be dominant in the city. The 2 codes are as different nowadays as chalk and cheese both at grass routes level and international level. You believe union is superior, I believe league is superior but I watch union as well and I'm sure you watch league as well. At the end of the day most of the people I know who watch union do not care at all about league attendances just like do not care about union attendances. To make a comparison of the 2 codes and to link that to attendances is just ridiculous. I suggest you shut up, you are sounding stupid, normally you have a sensible opinion, but not this time mate.

an understandably regular mistake that is made on these boards...I think League is ing light years ahead of Union as a sport, but I think the opposite when it comes to the management of the codes.
As for the Media....the media will write/show what is read/watched.....if the public wanted more league, they'd get it. Spoon fed media is a thing of the past for level headed people....the RFU don't give a toss about league now......they have more important things to worry about from within their own sport than to care about League.

Front page of BBC and third down in sport about Chase being dropped. Not too bad seeing as the Ashes started today.

Ha. I was interviewed by them, as were my two Bristolizn friends about what we thought of the USA vCI game. The guy seemed really enthusiastic about it.

Last night the England team management PULLED an interview with Sir Kevin Sinfield that was due to take place on 5 Live this morning

Like we need the publicity.....

Pathetic.

Correct, the management are

Maybe they wanted no distractions?

Maybe they had some team business to attend to?

That is more important.

Before you judge them remeber they won't have just pulled it for sh*ts and giggles.

Get a grip on yourselves.

I'm sure a 5 minute (maximum) phone call would cause so many problems

No, you're right