Prof. Raymond Boyle
Professor of Communication, Director of the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow. Raymond has researched and published widely in sport and the media and is author and co-author of several books examining the media industries. His most recent book (with Richard Haynes) Streaming the Formula 1 Rivalry: Sport and the Media in the Platform Age (Peter Lang) was published in 2024 and examined the media and the sport of F1.
Email: Raymond.boyle@glasgow.ac.uk
Twitter: @raymondboyle67
Radio has tended to be the outlier in media terms when it comes to coverage of the Olympics in the UK.However, in recent years radio or audio coverage of sport has enjoyed a renaissance, not least as it increasingly does not involve having access to an actual radio. Rather coverage is accessed via a range of platforms including websites, apps and YouTube among others. All you now need is access radio, is a mobile phone.
What is being delivered is audio content of sport. It tends to fall into several categories. Live sports coverage (available only to rights holders), reporting of sports news and results, sometimes as a live form of what we used to call blogging (remember that) or watch along, or more traditional sports comment and discussion type programs. What Umberto Eco called, what back when, sports chatter, often augmented by the fan phone-in (nowadays including texting and WhatsApp voice messages).
Traditionally in the UK, television coverage on the BBC network dominated media coverage of the Olympics, augmented by its rolling news radio station BBC 5Live and its DAB sister station 5Live Sports Extra. While the BBC sports website embedded all this content along with its OTT platform iPlayer.
This Paris Olympics however something different happened. Just as the BBC saw its television coverage and iPlayer access to live events dramatically reduced due to access restrictions related to rights issues, they also had direct competition in the audio/radio space from a rival commercial radio network in the form of TalkSPORT and its DAB sister TalkSPORT 2.
TalkSPORT, originally Talk Radio was launched in 1999, and is now owned by UK News Ltd and is a holder of an independent UK national radio license (with a host of sister commercial radio stations including Times Radio and Virgin Radio). It has slowly been eating into the UK-wide dominance of the BBC in terms of sporting coverage of live events. In the UK, the jewel in the radio crown remains access to live English Premier League football coverage. TalkSPORT has successfully broken into this market ending the BBC radio monopoly of live match commentaries.
This year TalkSPORT extended its ambition to become, for the first time, along with the BBC an official Olympic media partner offering extended coverage of the multisport event across its radio network and platforms. The investment from TalkSPORT to covering the Olympics was extensive. Without the in-built advantage of multi-media coverage enjoyed by the BBC across television, radio and online, TalkSPORT committed to over 250 hours of live coverage, with BBC radio having over 200 hours in comparison. They had eleven commentators covering live Olympic action on their TalkSPORT platforms, augmented by a further eleven reporters from across the Olympic venues as they dedicated the TalkSPORT2 station to the Olympics, while at times moving coverage to their TalkSPORT station, where they carried regular updates from Paris. Big name expert pundits included Sir Steve Redgrave, Dame Kelly Holmes and Tessa Sanderson, while other Olympic legends such as Daley Thompson was a regular contributor across the network.
The BBC across its radio output and through its app BBC Sounds, delivered extensive coverage, with a highly experienced team of commentators and Olympic legends including Victoria Pendleton and Louis Smith. In many ways, given the restrictions on access to live feeds for the BBC in terms of its television coverage, by way of contrast its radio coverage, with its extensive network of reports and resource allowed the BBC to move across and between events and venues in a highly professional manner. To this end BBC radio coverage appeared more dynamic than its often more ponderous television coverage (as presenters filled until they had access to the next live feed). Anchored by among others the excellent broadcaster Mark Chapman, the corporation at times appeared to be slightly more fleet of foot than its rival TalkSPORT in bringing live breaking action updates to it listeners.
The TalkSPORT platforms suffered from that inbuilt commercial disadvantage of being dependent on advertising, with advertising breaks in coverage a real challenge when covering live sporting events. Given it was the first time TalkSPORT had covered the Olympics, its coverage was both slick and insightful. Both they and the BBC unsurprisingly inflected much of their coverage of the Games through the success or otherwise of the Team GB and Northern Ireland participants.
On average BBC 5Live has around 5 million listeners, while TalkSPORT around the 3 million mark. The BBC radio coverage of the Games showcased all that is best about the BBC’s ability to cover a complex multi-sport live events targeted at the UK-wide listenership. TalkSPORT, in a highly professional manner brought and extended radio coverage of the Olympics to a differing radio audience, one more used to a stable diet of football related coverage.
There is little evidence to suggest that losing the audio monopoly of live coverage of the Games, impacted on the BBC’s ability to deliver for its radio audience, but rather being in competition with TalkSPORT helped bring the Games to a wider radio audience. In so doing, both BBC radio and the TalkSPORT platforms reminded us of the ongoing power and importance of live audio coverage of the Games even in this most visual of sporting ages.
