BBC responds to viewer complaints of too much rugby
Thursday, 28 Feb 2008 09:26
BBC responds to audience complaints that excessive amount of rugby was screened on Saturday.
The BBC has responded to audience complaints that an excessive amount of rugby was screened on Saturday February 23rd.
Some 124 viewers contacted the broadcaster to complain about the three Six Nations matches shown on BBC1 at the weekend, with nearly 12 hours of continuous sport shown on the channel.
The marathon broadcast began at 12:10 GMT with Football Focus and finished at 23:40 GMT as Match of the Day ended, with the only non-sporting programmes shown being the news bulletins at 19:00 GMT and 22:00 GMT, an edition of bloopers show Out-Take TV and a National Lottery edition lasting ten minutes.
However, the BBC has said that while it realises some viewers are not sports fans, audience figures indicated that the majority were pleased to see the contests between Wales and Italy; Ireland and Scotland; and the final clash of the day between France and England.
A BBC statement said: "We are sorry that some viewers felt the BBC1 schedule... contained too much sport. Competition for sports rights has intensified enormously in recent years and since the Six Nations tournament came back to the BBC, there has been a picture of growth in audiences watching our coverage of the sport.
"This weekend in particular was very exciting for rugby, with the BBC playing host to three Six Nations matches."
It continued: "We realise that not everyone enjoys watching sport but there is undeniably a large section of our audience who do and as a public service broadcaster, we are obligated to cater for them as and when we can.
"The audience ratings alone justified our decision to show the three matches, with a combined total of 15 million tuning in."