TV & Radio coverage of the Championship

I thought I'd create a new thread based on comments made from people before the Huddersfield game, and also by Trotters in the Refereeing post:

It's not just the refs either. The highlights show is shit. Awful commentator, awful camera work/editing and no on-screen graphics to show who's playing, the final score, attendance, nothing.

It really is a shit league on so many levels.


We are so badly served by TV given the following:

What else have Channel 5 got to show - the championship show could go out in shortened form on Saturday if that's what they want, but what's wrong with a 5 hour show on Sundays - it's not like it's knocking quality tv programmes off their slot is it?
Surely there must be some really good presenters out there and anyone is better than the bloke from the pub and the wannabee WAG who host it now. There are loads of pundits who could do an anchor role instead - Jason Roberts/Kevin Kilbane, in fact anyone except those idiots.

But what really gets me is that it's our national sport and yet if you ain't one of the top 6, you are pretty irrelevant in the Prem, and totally irrelevant in the rest of the football pyramid, as far as tv and radio are concerned.

An example last night was that no tv stations carried the match. No radio stations carried the commentary - unless you count the obscure Tyke's Radio or whatever the feed was that Joppe highlighted in his thread. There were no feeds anyewhere as far as I can tell - not even pikey ones free online.

AVTV seem to want nearly 50 quid if you want to just listen to commentary (or £8/month, can't remember).

So basically, as far as I can tell, for people who didn't make the match live - and for various reasons there's plenty of them - outside of an obscure radio feed that was for the opposition anyway, or by watching some curious live diagram thingy in the corner of a Bet 365 screen that graphically represented what was happening, there was pretty much silent running. This cannot surely be right - okay, in 1970 maybe, but really, in 2016. I've come to the conclusion that all this modern technology isn't there to make communication to the masses easier/of a higher quality, it's to make charging for communication to the masses easier.

Also, it's likely that the Championship will get around 10 million people through the turnstiles this season - compare that with some other countries prem divisions and I think we're disgracefully served in this country.

AVTV is the big one; they should show every game. Obviously there are rights issues but even if it's delayed by an hour or two, it should show it.

That aside, I've been really disappointed with Bein Sports. They told me pre-season that although they had secured the rights to the EFL games, they wouldn't show all of them. So I kind of figured that I'd see Villa 2 weeks out of 3.

No.

On the 3 channels they have running on payTV here, during the Huddersfield match they had 2 other sports showing (fair enough too...not everyone wants to see football) but the 3rd channel was running repeats of Euro 16. Fuck that!

And I wasn't gonna get up at 4am to check if the Mobdro app was striking the game either - it seems it wouldn't have if all anyone could find was a radio feed.

I suppose when we were in the top flight we didn't really give a toss about championship football being on TV and I guess with 4 leagues just in the UK, broadcasters have to draw a line somewhere.

But showing repeats of old games, and low priority matches is a waste IMO. My Norwich supporting mate called me to say he couldn't see ANY chsmoinship games being shown. Had to tell him the Norwich/Sheffield game is the only one that I could see that will be broadcast....on Saturday afternoon. WTF?

But as you've says DK, it's not just the broadcasters but the whole presentation. It's so disastrously poor. Is it just a case that no one has realised that there's a genuinely large audience for such games? Have the bright lights of the premier league become so ridiculous that no one in TV gives a shit about lower league football?

So many games, so few channels is a cop out because there's plenty of space if you remove pointless repeats. But even if there wasnt a slot for every game, there's no reason AVTV shouldn't be putting a game on, done superbly with some knowledgeable pundits and guests....even if it was on a delayed broadcast to ensure people are encouraged to get down to VP.