Late night League on 91Èȱ¬ TWO
If there's one sport I truly grew up with, it was . My grandad was a supporter; and most of the older members of the family had been present at in Bradford for the famous Cup Final replay in 1954 that was watched by more than 100,000 people. As a youngster I spent plenty of time myself at Odsal and Headingley and at many of the smaller grounds around Yorkshire.
These days I have to be impartial about all sports, and we try to balance our coverage budgets with the needs of our sports-loving audiences - so rugby league doesn't get preferential treatment, and I now hugely enjoy an afternoon of too. But sometimes we're accused by rugby league fans of being biased against the sport, so this is an update on some developments which I hope will prove we're serious about the game's future.
First and most important: we've agreed a new deal with the Rugby Football League that will keep the exclusively live on the 91Èȱ¬ up to and including 2011. As part of the new contract, we'll also have the return to terrestrial television of at least one live England international each year - so our rugby league coverage will modestly increase from 2009.
Then this season we'll be experimenting with some better timeslots for the earlier rounds of the Cup. The timings won't be confirmed for a while, but we're hoping to have some kick-offs at 5.30pm - which should attract a much larger television audience.
And we'll continue to show terrestrial highlights of England internationals and of key Super League events like the play-offs - which will be on 91Èȱ¬ ONE and 91Èȱ¬ TWO across the UK. All this will be supplemented by national radio coverage on 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra, along with our news services nationally and locally. 91Èȱ¬ Local Radio rightly devotes a lot of time to rugby league.
Now, I know one of the constant bones of contention has been and the fact that it's only shown on television across the north of England. We're proud of the programme, which we see as an extra service for fans of rugby league on top of the national coverage; and we listened to the people in the rest of the UK who said they wanted to see it by making it available a couple of years ago online on this website. But there's still been a demand for it to be shown on network television too, and I'm pleased to say that from next Sunday it will have a late-night repeat on 91Èȱ¬ TWO.
The showing is late - the slot is after midnight - but we hope it meets two needs. First, people who said they wanted a chance to video or Sky Plus the programme - which they can now do wherever they are; and second there will still be a 'live' viewing audience running well into six figures, and we hope that will attract new converts to the sport.
None of what I've said here is revolutionary, and I know some people will think it doesn't go far enough. Others will quite rightly ask for late night highlights shows for the sports they like - and we're actively looking at the demand for that kind of programming. But I hope this shows we're taking on board some, at least, of what rugby league fans have been telling us, and that they'll see the coverage is moving in the right direction.
