BoxRec

I don't know all the ins and outs but I know it depends a lot on potential viewing figures. If someone like Joshua can fulfill his potential, could a terrestrial channel get involved?

ITV possibly now the recesssion has thawed. If they can attract advertisers, there could be the possibility next season given that ITV has lost its Champions League rights to BT Sport. It might want to fill the gap with another sport.

BBC? No chance as long as Barbara Slater is in charge of its sports output. She has made it clear that she hates boxing. The only way the Beeb will show any boxing is in the Olympics etc because it comes part of a package and they really can't get out of it. Ratings really mean nothing to the BBC's output. Boxing is a ratings winner on terrestrial TV, but the BBC would rather invest in middle class luvvie sports, despite the figures being low. Remember when they spent a fortune on the Gymnastics World Championships (Barbara Slater is an ex-gymnast)....and nobody watched it.

Wake up call wrote:ITV possibly now the recesssion has thawed. If they can attract advertisers, there could be the possibility next season given that ITV has lost its Champions League rights to BT Sport. It might want to fill the gap with another sport.

BBC? No chance as long as Barbara Slater is in charge of its sports output. She has made it clear that she hates boxing. The only way the Beeb will show any boxing is in the Olympics etc because it comes part of a package and they really can't get out of it. Ratings really mean nothing to the BBC's output. Boxing is a ratings winner on terrestrial TV, but the BBC would rather invest in middle class luvvie sports, despite the figures being low. Remember when they spent a fortune on the Gymnastics World Championships (Barbara Slater is an ex-gymnast)....and nobody watched it.

Makes sense. Shame it has to be that way. Maybe it will be a possibility when her tenure comes to an end.

I hope so, I'd love it.

There's more boxing on tv than ever at the minute, I don't really care if ITV or the BBC come back. It was exciting ten years ago when ITV came back as there wasn't much on, but now who needs them?

Who cares?

We are just unlucky, if this was a golf forum, we would all love the BBC.

Even when they were showing it, outside of grandstand and world of sport - BBC and ITV never treated it with the same respect as they did with golf, football, cricket, snooker (for fucks sakes).

How many times did all of us in the 80's wait up till past midnight to watch sportsnight or midweek sports special to watch any boxing advertised and they would show a round or two to close off the show.

I was abroad when Henry Cooper and Sevvy Ballesteros died around near the same time as each other - who did the BBC give all the coverage - not the British athlete - fornicate them, fornicate ITV.

They were never boxings friend at any time I have been watching it.

Fat Git wrote:Who cares?

We are just unlucky, if this was a golf forum, we would all love the BBC.

Even when they were showing it, outside of grandstand and world of sport - BBC and ITV never treated it with the same respect as they did with golf, football, cricket, snooker (for fucks sakes).

How many times did all of us in the 80's wait up till past midnight to watch sportsnight or midweek sports special to watch any boxing advertised and they would show a round or two to close off the show.

I was abroad when Henry Cooper and Sevvy Ballesteros died around near the same time as each other - who did the BBC give all the coverage - not the British athlete - eff them, eff ITV.

They were never boxings friend at any time I have been watching it.

The BBC did show a fair amount of boxing including delayed broadcast big fights from America around the time Big Aud and the class of 2002 (Froch, Walker, Thirlwall) were around.

C*nts for completely dropping it though; they event dropped the ABAs which would cost them tuppence!

Who the hell put Babara effin slater in charge? It just annoys me as why the eff should I have to pay a tv licence when I watch none of their programming.

Remember the intro. music on BBC when they were showing boxing? I loved it, with snapshots of the fighters at the weigh-in or doing groundwork or whatever. Maybe there's a nostalgia element here but, for me, I have yet to see a better intro. to the boxing on TV. It was sober and gritty but it got you excited as well.

Noxy wrote:Remember the intro. music on BBC when they were showing boxing? I loved it, with snapshots of the fighters at the weigh-in or doing groundwork or whatever. Maybe there's a nostalgia element here but, for me, I have yet to see a better intro. to the boxing on TV. It was sober and gritty but it got you excited as well.

Hybrid - Finished Symphony. Great track!

SNG wrote:There's more boxing on tv than ever at the minute, I don't really care if ITV or the BBC come back. It was exciting ten years ago when ITV came back as there wasn't much on, but now who needs them?

True but allegedly is £10 or £12 a month depending on whether you're on Virgin or Sky and Sky Sports is £ridiculous a month. You get the odd show on other channels but nothing major. On the other hand ITV is free apart from the cost of a tele, surely it would benefit boxing fans if ITV got back involved in a big way?

black panther wrote:

Noxy wrote:Remember the intro. music on BBC when they were showing boxing? I loved it, with snapshots of the fighters at the weigh-in or doing groundwork or whatever. Maybe there's a nostalgia element here but, for me, I have yet to see a better intro. to the boxing on TV. It was sober and gritty but it got you excited as well.

Hybrid - Finished Symphony. Great track!

Aha, so that's what it's called. I didn't know that, cheers

A tape delayed broadcast of Clinton Woods v Rico Hoye in 2005 was the last pro boxing that the BBC broadcast as its own content (it showed Calzaghe v Kessler and Hatton v Mayweather a week late after it did a deal with Setanta and Sky).

Even when the BBC had boxing in the early 2000s, it was rarely live and not often advertised to a wide audience. They broadcast a number of Hennessy and Hobson bills featuring the likes of Woods, Howard Eastman, Audley etc with young Froch and Haye often on undercards, but it was usually shown at like midnight when people already knew the results.

Don't want to sound cheesey but AJ could be the guy as they need a real headline star to lead it as we all know he'll leave Matchroom if he wins a world title. That's a massive long shot, but the people in charge at the moment don't seem interested, although they have started tweeting about boxing more often.

danamba7 wrote:

SNG wrote:There's more boxing on tv than ever at the minute, I don't really care if ITV or the BBC come back. It was exciting ten years ago when ITV came back as there wasn't much on, but now who needs them?

True but allegedly is £10 or £12 a month depending on whether you're on Virgin or Sky and Sky Sports is £ridiculous a month. You get the odd show on other channels but nothing major. On the other hand ITV is free apart from the cost of a tele, surely it would benefit boxing fans if ITV got back involved in a big way?

Well it would from that point of view, but lets be honest, they'll build fighters up only for them to be pinched by SKY for PPV anyway, and then they'll just drop the sport again in few years. I'm happy to pay what I do for BN.

Has anyone managed to get allegedly on a Humax/FreeSat box?

AJ & ITV. Match made in heaven that could be for exposure.

Some interesting comments about the BBC earlier which make a great deal of sense; even the main website hardly bothers to keep abreast of fight gossip/news and is updated almost grudingly - embarassingly, for a major international broadcaster they have not got remotely close to breaking a major domestic boxing story for years - and they binned the lively boxing forum, which must have cost them a pittance, with indecent haste.

Ben Dirs - who writes well - appears to plough a rather lonely, unloved furrow for BBC boxing online; usually just doing fighter profiles, the odd opinion piece and writing obits. Not a real use of his talents IMO.

At the same time you can still enjoy some great/quality boxing on Radio 5 - they cover a decent proportion of the big fights and really well - so the BBC undoubtedly keeps a toe in the water and can't completely despise the sport.

So perhaps the spirit of Carpenter and Lynam still stubbornly endures in the depths of some BBC broom cupboard and will rise again once they have got rid of this rabid anti-boxing hag and the colossal, painful hangover caused by getting duped into bankrolling Audley Harrison for a steaming pile of sod all?

black panther wrote:
The BBC did show a fair amount of boxing including delayed broadcast big fights from America around the time Big Aud and the class of 2002 (Froch, Walker, Thirlwall) were around.

C*nts for completely dropping it though; they event dropped the ABAs which would cost them tuppence!

Who the hell put Babara effin slater in charge? It just annoys me as why the eff should I have to pay a tv licence when I watch none of their programming.

But they have never ever liked boxing - not even back in the 1970's and 80's - did you know the one sporting event that broke the top ten watched shows on TV in 1986 wasn't Maradona's 'Hand of God' match vs England but Barry McGuigan's fight with Danilio Cabrera* - amazingly enough.

The public have always loved boxing, the BBC head honchos have never liked it but they do love golf - it is something a lot of BBC head honchoes love to partake in when they are not commissioning new soap operas - they like to show sports that they themselves like - golf - fornicate the public and what they want.

Steve Bunce wrote a good article once about why satellite TV has been boxings best friend and the 'good old days' of terrestrial TV showing boxing wasn't all that good at all. I didn't agree with him at the time but now I actually do.

* http://www.barb.co.uk/resources/tv-fact ... 1986/top10

Well at least the bbc always keeps showing brilliant sports content such as snooker, gymnastics and skiing on a sunday. I did hear they got outbid by channel 5 for the football league rights which will be alot better as it said channel 5 were planning to stick these on at 9 o clock saturday night, instead of midnight at the minute. I also wouldnt be bothered if match of the day came to an end, the pundits have got worse shearer and phil neville YAWN. As for ITVs sport content when BT take all the european football im not sure what there content will actually be probably just england games.

As others have said with so many other options to watch boxing such as sky, allegedly, even BT have a weekly show, friday night fights and tonite theyve got the world series of boxing on. I dont see the need for anybody wanting it on terrestrial television it will probably only get done badly.

When channel 5 have the boxing on I always feel like id rather have it on allegedly the adverts are awful literallly every 5 minutes. I always end up recording it as you spend most of the time fast forwarding through the adverts.

One point is the profile of the boxers though any which would be on the main 4 stations would have massive names with it going out too so many people but as mentioned by many people moneys more important and thats why nearly all the fighters want to get on sky box office if they had a choice as its the biggest money maker even though its audience is alot smaller than getting on a main stream channel.

It would be wrong to pinpoint Audley (an easy, hittable target) for the BBC's unannounced cold war against pro boxing.....but I genuinely feel that this remains a major influence on their thinking and policy making. There must be some ex-BBC execs out there - now teaching media studies at an obscure Uni - who are paying the price.

They lost their shirts on that farcical deal both financially and when it came their credibility and confidence. Let's face it, Audley got the best deal a mature heavyweight, with an amateur style that needed a lot of work and fights could have ever imagined to land. A million quid to cover your on-the-job-training (and the pupil gets to set the syllabus) was utterly absurd. And it probably resulted in a 'don't touch pro boxing' dictat at the BBC.

The old school method of dealing with a big-time promoter, with a range of fighters to profile and showcase, was ignored and that cost the BBC dearly. The BBC young guns probably did not like geezers like Duff-Barrett-Lawless and all the camel hair coats and tricky contracts; but those guys knew the business and delivered proper value. If a top-line prospect fell down, then they had another good kid up their sleeve and could fill an undercard as well.

Bodyshot3 wrote:It would be wrong to pinpoint Audley (an easy, hittable target) for the BBC's unannounced cold war against pro boxing.....but I genuinely feel that this remains a major influence on their thinking and policy making. There must be some ex-BBC execs out there - now teaching media studies at an obscure Uni - who are paying the price.

They lost their shirts on that farcical deal both financially and when it came their credibility and confidence. Let's face it, Audley got the best deal a mature heavyweight, with an amateur style that needed a lot of work and fights could have ever imagined to land. A million quid to cover your on-the-job-training (and the pupil gets to set the syllabus) was utterly absurd. And it probably resulted in a 'don't touch pro boxing' dictat at the BBC.

The old school method of dealing with a big-time promoter, with a range of fighters to profile and showcase, was ignored and that cost the BBC dearly. The BBC young guns probably did not like geezers like Duff-Barrett-Lawless and all the camel hair coats and tricky contracts; but those guys knew the business and delivered proper value. If a top-line prospect fell down, then they had another good kid up their sleeve and could fill an undercard as well.

Yeah I agree with what you are saying totally. They wasted that money on the biggest hype job in British Boxing there ever has been. They probably will come back at some point somewhere down the line, but not in the short to medium term.

Would love boxing back on ITV, if only just to have their theme tune back again.

Mick Costello is a v good commentator on Five Live. More so when he isn't solely a boxing specialist and does athletics as well.

Would Joshua really leave Eddie if he wins a world strap? I guess the poster meant he would go over to an American?

squared circle wrote:Mick Costello is a v good commentator on Five Live. More so when he isn't solely a boxing specialist and does athletics as well.

Would Joshua really leave Eddie if he wins a world strap? I guess the poster meant he would go over to an American?

AJ promotions bruv

Clint Magnum wrote:Would love boxing back on ITV, if only just to have their theme tune back again.

Altogether now:

Duh, duh, duh, dah dahhhhhh, DUH DUH DUH

*Grabs trumpet

BRAP BRAP BRAAAAP BRA BRA-DA BRA BRAAAAP

BRA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA DAH-DA DA DAHHHH!