BBC television has just announced that it will be showing highlights of the Ashes. It’s great news which partly makes up for the fact that all live action, both Test and one-day, is on Sky, thus bypassing more than half the households in Britain. But there’s a crunch question the Beeb haven’t answered yet. When will the highlights go out?
A day’s Test cricket in Australia ends at breakfast time in Britain, which ought to leave plenty of scope for the schedulers. But it’s reported that Sky, who sold the rights on to the BBC, want to keep the highlights to themselves for most of the day.
This summer, the highlights actually got better: Channel Five showed highlights at 7.15-8pm every day of the seven Tests, sometimes even starting when play was still going on. And they did them well, with Mark Nicholas, Simon Hughes, Geoff Boycott, plenty of action and no gimmicks. Boycott, especially, lends himself to highlights, being incisive but repetitive (“my mother could do better than that”).
The BBC need to put their scheduling where their money is. They must give the highlights a fixed slot, at least 40 minutes long, when the kids are still awake. And they must have commentators who can hit the right note for the fringe viewers that only the Ashes can reach.
Posted by: Dave Harris at September 12, 2006 2:23 PM
I quite agree. There's no point in scheduling highlights late at night - the next day's play's about to begin!
The BBC needs to put the highlights on in Prime Time on BBC2 - it's not like the 7-9pm slots programmes can't be moved or delayed a few weeks (the likes of Mastermind, University Challenge are pre-taped anyway).
Come on Auntie - give us cricket fans something to tune into when we get home from work! (and for God's sake show us all the wickets - if there's one thing that Sunset and Vine have screwed up it's that!)
Posted by: Mike at September 12, 2006 2:40 PM
I'll settle for any time on BBC. At least we get to watch something here in Holland.
Posted by: Phil at September 12, 2006 4:02 PM
The BBC say it will be a late-evening slot, and Martin Gough, in the TMS blog, says "the programme is likely to run just before the start of the following day’s play". Not children-friendly, then.
But as Mike said, I'll settle for whatever I can get here in France, and luckily I can get BBC1 and BBC2; and since I don't get C4, five or Sky, this will be the first almost-live cricket I will get to see at home since 1999. So I won't be picky.
Posted by: Conrad at September 13, 2006 12:15 AM
Tim de Lisle seems to be missing the vital point: Sky will have already told the BBC that it can't put the highlights on at prime-time as this would clash with its own schedule. I'd bet on the post-Newsnight 23:20 slot.
Posted by: Tara at September 13, 2006 12:56 AM
Only problem is the boxing day test. Are the BBC really gonna move around their special holiday programming for the cricket?
Channel 5's highlights have been good this summer but could it have bene any worse than channel 4's yesterday at the test?
Posted by: Peter Way at September 15, 2006 4:13 PM
I dont care what time they are on.
At least there will be something to watch.
(For a change) thank you BBC you have done something I want. Now start planning to get live cricket back where it should be - at the BBC when the next cobntarct expires!
Having got that off my chest - lets hope for a sensible 45 minutes before the start of play on BBC 2 just think no adverts!
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Tim de Lisle is a former editor of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, Wisden.com and Wisden Cricket Monthly, where he won an Editor of the Year award in 1999. He is now a cricket columnist for The Times and Cricinfo. A former feature writer on The Daily Telegraph and arts editor of The Independent on Sunday, he writes about rock music for The Mail on Sunday and was shortlisted for Critic of the Year in the British Press Awards 2005. He plays cricket in the park with his children, bowling mediocre offbreaks.
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