BBC Website reflects sport priorities
Why is the BBC determined to treat some sports with contempt while others are given Rolls-Royce treatment?
The situation was crystallised for me when I went to the www.bbc.co.uk homepage yesterday to discover that the news rundown had been shoved half way down and replaced, unasked for, with a huge Wimbledon section.
I've got nothing against tennis, but it did seem somewhat presumptuous to thrust this upon all the internet visitors without asking.
There has been much made of the Ashes series not being on terrestrial TV this year (which I am outraged about too), with the BBC being one of the stations which could have broadcast this to the nation at large (as opposed to a small number of high-fee paying subscribers).
But when I was really keen to see the Twenty20 highlights on BBC I looked at the schedule and was delighted to see the hour long show was at the excellent slot of 11.35pm - and as I have to be at work at 6.30am most days, I ended up taping it, and watching a day in arrears.
In spite of this ludicrous scheduling they managed around a million viewers for the highlights - and would presumably have done much better had it been earlier.
Given most games finished at around 9pm there's no excuse for not having a show by 9.30pm - after all channel 5 do it for the test matches.
Below: Maria Sharapova at the AEGON Classic in Birmingham recently. The BBC has the crazy notion that viewers would rather watch her than a load of ugly cricketers...
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Ben Hurst
let's be honest Ben, both cricket and tennis are middle-class sports for boring middle-class people. It doesn't matter how much they tinker with the game, cricket will always be a snore-fest. So you couldn't get to watch it, well boo hoo! The later it is on the telly, the better as far as I'm concerned.
As for tennis, thank god Wimbledon only last for two weeks. I'd be quite happy if the BBC didn't spend my heard earned licence fee on it. And the Grand Prix as well, for that matter.
That way, there'd be bigger budgets for Cops on cameras, motorway cops, cops in the sky, Bobbies on the Beat and all those other fantastic police related documentaries that I know you love so much.