BBC Scotland kicks coverage of Six Nations into touch

Published on Friday 5 February 2010 22:06

A ROW has broken out between the Scottish Rugby Union and BBC Scotland over television coverage of this year's RBS Six Nations.

The Scotsman has learned that, instead of organising its own production team for key matches, as it did in 2006 and 2008, BBC Scotland will leave the coverage to the main network – despite complaints from Scottish viewers.

In the past, BBC Scotland has provided a Scottish opt-out involving former players such as John Beattie, Doddie Weir and David Sole. However, in a bid to cut costs, the station will instead rely on the main coverage from London.

The decision means the build-up to the key games, and the half-time and full-time analysis, will be broadcast from London.

For Scotland's opener against the French at Murrayfield tomorrow, John Inverdale will present the coverage, with former France captain Raphael Ibanez and Scot Andy Nicol analysing the game. Andrew Cotter, who hails from Troon and whose grandfather played for Scotland, will commentate with Jonathan Davies, the former Wales fly-half. Jill Douglas will act as pitchside reporter.

For the Calcutta Cup next month, it will be the English team of Inverdale presenting, Brian Moore commentating alongside Cotter, and Jeremy Guscott in the studio with Nicol.

Beattie will focus on radio coverage, with Bill Johnstone commentating on all Scotland's games – this will be available to BBC Scotland TV viewers by pressing the red button.

In contrast, BBC Wales will take the network coverage of Wales' internationals but provide extra TV programmes on BBC Wales and S4C around the games.

BBC Scotland and the SRU received a number of complaints last November after the BBC network team covered the Scotland v Australia match, which resulted in a historic first Scottish victory in 27 years, and the SRU admitted yesterday that it had hoped BBC Scotland would repeat last year's opt-out.

An spokesman said: "We are disappointed that BBC Scotland is not putting on a presentation. The feedback we had from our supporters during the autumn Tests was that they much prefer a Scottish team providing the coverage.

"We have two huge games coming up against France and England and we would have loved to have had a Scottish presentation, so naturally we're disappointed on behalf of our supporters and Scottish rugby in general that BBC Scotland are not continuing with that."

A BBC Scotland spokesman said: "Occasionally, BBC Scotland has mounted our own presentation team for one game, as was the case two years ago. This year, given the representation within the network on-air team and the current financial climate, it makes sense to go with a single programme offer that works equally well for supporters of both teams."