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BBC to drop second commentator from 5 Live football coverage?

BBC to drop second commentator from 5 Live football coverage?

Reports suggest the BBC is to drop its 5 Live radio commentators from two to one to save money.

 

The reports suggest the corporation is to ditch the second commentator from the football coverage on 5 Live to save money, not to improve the service.

The Guardian say “It has long been a quirk of the BBC that it sends two commentators to cover a game on Radio 5 Live but only one when it is being broadcast on TV.”

In the past the beeb have said this format has been to make up for the service being audio only, something which isn’t usually required in television as viewers can see for themselves the action as it happens and form their views from the visuals. Two differing attitudes to the game from the two commentators was said to make up this lack of ‘seeing’ the action. However with budgets being slashed this extra texture and objectivity is deemed just too expensive.

“There is no reason why one person cannot commentate for the whole game,” a 5 Live “source” told the newspaper yesterday.

Radio 5 Live insiders have described the use of two commentators to the newspaper as an “anachronism” rather than “audio description enhancement” as plans to cut back are defended.

The BBC’s wild cutting of budgets – to enrage viewers and listeners deliberately for a public backlash in order to prove the government ‘wrong’ to freeze the licence fee – will see BBC Radio 5 Live chop its second commentator for the start of the 2014 season.

The 5 Live network is to have £5 million slashed from its budget as the beeb faces for the first time the fact it can’t get away with lavish spending, and has to now survive like anyone other broadcaster on a limited fund which won’t be increased when the corporation’s costs spiral.

Football coverage on the corporations radio service has already been cut, with a third of live Premier League matches dropped from the BBC as they save money on sports rights. National commercial network TalkSport being one of the beneficiaries of this money saving scale back as matches switch to the UTV (ITV Northern Ireland) owned station. TalkSport only use one commentator with a match summariser, which is also the standard for most local commercial and corporation run radio stations.

Radio 5 Live has used two football commentators since the stations’ launch in 1990. Prior to this the format was used on BBC Radio 2, which aired live football matches within the schedules.

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