OT: Euros

[Cursitor Doom]

Anyone know why all these group stage matches are all taking place at venues in England? What's that all about? Some of those birds are pretty fit. Not that that's relevant, but you know, just sayin'.

[Jeff Gaines]

A lot of them are pretty gay as well, just saying :-)

[Andy Burns]

[Brian Gaff]

And some don't think it matters at all, as I don't.

Luckily I am not into soccer at all, nor rugby for that matter, or hockey even the latter two seem to be organised brawls. Brian

[Andrew]

[Andrew]

It's the Euros, not the "EU"ros

[Colin Bignell]

My interest is such that I thought the subject line referred to currency.

[The Natural Philosopher]

+1

[Max Demian]

Why do ladies want to play these rough games?

[SteveW]

I just wish that when matches were on, they put them on a dedicated channel, instead of messing up normal TV schedules.

[Colin Bignell]

I watch TV online, so I usually don't even know what the schedules are.

[Robin]

That may be down to your definition of "normal". Ever since the 1950s TV schedules have changed to include major sporting events, the more so when they are held in the UK. Olympics, World Cups (eg football, rugby x 2, cricket), major tennis and golf events,...

[SteveW]

Which made sense when there was little choice of channel, but now such events could easily be on a dedicated channel.

I have experienced, in the past, a series being cut short due to sports fixtures and the last two episodes not being broadcast at all, until a repeat 6 months later; staying up late to watch a particular film, only for a match to overrun and the film be cancelled (despite the match being over before the film start time, me hanging on to watch the film after the discussion about the match and them only announcing that they were cancelling the film when the discussion finished an hour late); multiple times I have recorded a whole series before starting to watch from the beginning, only to find that one episode is missing its last 5 or 10 minutes, due to sports overrunning.

Simply put them on their own channel and don't keep f****ng with what was already printed in the TV guide!

Even when things do run to time, it is still annoying for people that watch a regular programme to find that it has been cancelled for the week, rescheduled for another day or pushed back to after they need to get to bed.

Lots of people don't like or are not interested in sport, why screw up their TV, when we have the facility to put it elsewhere and everyone can be happy?

[Robin]

Pray tell then please:

Who would pay for this channel? Would it be carried on all the Freeview transmitters? How would people learn about it? What would give way to make room for it?

err...'cos lots of people are (a) interested and (b) tolerant?

[Colin Bignell]

The major broadcasters bid for those events, because there is a lot of profit in showing them.

...

You need a more intelligent recorder.

I think it was Sky who, a few years back, managed to get exclusive rights to some major sporting fixtures. That made a lot of people very unhappy, as they didn't have Sky and didn't want to subscribe to it.

[SteveW]

So how does the BBC profit from it?

The recorder is fine - the broadcast companies frequently don't update the EPG on overruns.

Sky is not FTA though.

The BBC has a number of channels that are broadcast nationally, ITV also does, why do they need to mess up the schedules on the two major channels?

[Cursitor Doom]

50 years ago I was vehemently opposed to wimmin playing football and ridiculed the idea. But I have to say, having watched them at it, I've been won over. They're *way* better than the men in this regard. The Lionesses esp are ***way*** better than the England men's team.

[zaq]

But there needs to be a lot more than just one dedicated channel for sport.

See above.

Because even a dedicated sports channel would't be enough with stuff like the olympics.

[Cursitor Doom]

Ah! That would explain it! Thanks, Andy.

[Tim+]

I don’t watch football but I caught a bit of the women’s footy the other day and I have to say, it was 100% real football (but without the play acting). Really rather impressed.

Tim