The BBC faces competition from a new sports radio station, which is fronted by the broadcaster’s former stars and hopes to emulate the success of Radio 2 rival Boom Radio.
Track Radio, mixing sports discussion with upbeat rock and pop, has hired Mark Pougatch, the former 5 Live presenter who led ITV’s football coverage, to front the drive-time show.
Six Nations rugby specialist Sonja McLaughlan has taken the afternoon slot with Vassos Alexander, Chris Evans’s Radio 2 sports presenter sidekick.
While the BBC Sports department is facing a fresh round of cuts, with staff absorbing the recent decision to axe Football Focus, its former presenters are joining a new radio station masterminded by John Inverdale.
The distinguished broadcaster, who brought audiences rugby, tennis, football and athletics during 30 years at the BBC, has been hired to advise on the “tone” and line-up for the station, backed by investors including former Tory minister Baron Goldsmith.
“Track is doing what no one else is doing,” Inverdale told The i Paper.
“There’s always been a connection between sport and music. Why do so many football teams run out to music? Isn’t it easier not to change channels if one station is doing both?
“It’s the kind of station I would have listened to if it had been there for the past 40 years.”
Track, which began broadcasting this week, has received a good luck message from the founders of Boom Radio, the station which capitalised on Radio 2’s move to appeal to 30-somethings by poaching its older listeners and former DJs.
“Boom said, ‘Here’s a gap, let’s fill it.’ It was an absolute genius move,” Inverdale said. “One of the great things about Boom is, if you like music, you genuinely have no idea what the next record is going to be.”
Liza Tarbuck plea
Inverdale, famed for his seamless anchoring of events ranging from Wimbledon to the 2012 Olympics, will not be reserving a plum on-air slot for himself.
“At the moment there’s no ambition to present a show,” he said.
He has his eye on one much-loved BBC radio star whose departure left listeners bereft. “Liza Tarbuck is utterly brilliant. She’s bookended my Saturdays for seven years. I always left whatever I was doing after a game to listen to her in the car home. How could she leave Radio 2 before the season ended?”
“Can we afford you Liza?” asked Inverdale, who said he would return to the airwaves if Tarbuck wanted to present a “double header” show.
BBC right to axe Football Focus
After 30 years as a frontline presenter, Inverdale accepts the BBC has to make tough decisions to remain relevant, including axeing Football Focus.
“Everything has its day, que sera sera. I was there when they axed Grandstand and the angst at the BBC was like a Royal Family member had died.”
The BBC will increasingly be outbid for sports rights, including this summer’s Commonwealth Games which have gone to TNT Sports, now HBO Max.
“It’s what your priorities are. Say there’s a smart car you want, you probably could afford the car but you’d have to do without something else. Those are the decisions you have to make.”
Bartoli backlash ‘hurt’
Widely admired for his professionalism, Inverdale revealed that Gary Lineker “used to come in and watch my show with a notepad and pen writing down ‘do this, don’t do that’ when he was still playing”.
But the veteran broadcaster regrets that some on-air remarks marred his later BBC years.
Politicians complained to the BBC director-general in 2013 when he suggested that Wimbledon ladies champion Marion Bartoli had needed determination to succeed because she was “never going to be a looker.”
Inverdale, who apologised on-air for the “clumsy” phrasing of his attempt to praise Bartoli’s fighting spirit, said of the social media backlash such mistakes now prompt: “You can say sticks and stones… but of course it hurts. It goes with the territory. It’s the world we live in.”
The 68-year-old added: “The danger with so much broadcasting now is it’s pre-thought. ‘That’s a really good line but I’d better not say that in case it offends somebody.’ There are wider questions about our society and freedom of speech. But you just have to be sanguine and phlegmatic, it’s the way it is.”
AI reports can’t replicate human drama
Inverdale is passionate about the power of live radio over what he called the “sterility” of podcasts. “The [radio] presenter becomes a friend, a confidante,” he said.
He called for caution over the widespread introduction of AI, currently being trialled by the BBC to produce a daily football new audio bulletin.
“Sport is never an exact science. AI can’t do a piece about Cole Palmer’s body language on Monday (the Chelsea player missed a penalty in a 3-1 home defeat by Nottingham Forest), why he almost walked around as if he had his hands in his pockets then sparked into life for the last five minutes.”
Track Radio is still in a start-up phase – it airs weekdays from 7am to 7pm and will not launch a Saturday schedule until it can find a way to be “distinctive” from the alternatives on sport’s busiest day of the week. The station needs advertising and sponsorship to pay its way.
But Inverdale is convinced there is a “gap in the market” Track can fill. His vision is a station where Fifa boss Gianni Infantino submits to a probing interview about whether he truly has “sport in his soul” in between blasts of Bryan Adams.
Sport itself can be always relied upon to provide the raw material. “Did you see Mark Allen miss that black ball in the snooker?” Inverdale asked of the moment that cost the player a place in World Championship final. “That’s drama you can’t create in any other form of life.
“You can say, ‘That was a great Shakespeare play,’ but I’ll have a bet most of the characters are dead by the end. The thing about sport is you just never know until the very last second.”