bbc albion coverage 2012-2013 season

[ifuhatepalacestandup]

Albion fans' fury at BBC blackout

7:36am Monday 25th June 2012 in News By Bill Gardner

THOUSANDS of Albion fans anxious for highlights of their team in action will be left in the dark next season.

An internal BBC email leaked to The Argus has revealed no Albion match reports or previews will be shown on sports bulletins in West Sussex from August.

Instead, viewers in towns including Worthing, Crawley and Haywards Heath will only see highlights from games involving Reading, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and Aldershot.

After the digital switchover in March, households in Brighton and Hove and east of the River Adur now watch BBC South East Today, which will continue to show Albion highlights.




But West Sussex viewers still served by BBC South Today will suffer from the corporation’s decision to scale back Brighton and Hove coverage on the programme.

Outraged Albion fan David Boreham from Haywards Heath described the BBC’s decision as “a joke”.

He said: “They seem to think all Seagulls fans come from Brighton but they couldn’t be more wrong.

“Albion have thousands of licence-paying fans across West Sussex and they are all going to be furious about this.

“This ridiculous decision has been made by people who clearly don’t understand football and don’t understand Sussex.”



The leaked BBC South Today internal email read: “We won’t cover pre-season friendlies of Brighton or Crawley or deliver football previews of those teams.

“They won’t feature in our Monday night goals round up at 18.30. We won’t be going to their weekly press conferences – they are for BBC South East Today staff to cover.

“This is in line with our phased approach to reducing coverage of stories and events in Brighton and Hove and Shoreham.”

Liz Costa, vice chairman of Albion supporters' club, said the move was “outrageous”.

She said: “We have 20 coachloads of fans from West Sussex coming for every game so for the BBC to decide they don’t deserve to see highlights of their team is disgusting.

“So many people are going to be disappointed by this decision.”

A BBC spokeswoman admitted the internal email was genuine and said: “Following the digital switchover in March this year, people in Brighton and Hove and as far west as the River Adur are now served by BBC South East Today. The BBC made this decision so that people living in the Brighton area will see more stories about where they live. This means supporters of Brighton and Hove Albion will see more stories about their club.”


you couldn't make it up

 

[sydney]

and that is part of what is wrong with the game ........it is run by people who don't have a f***ing clue of what the masses want....here endeth the lesson.........kants.

 

[Spiros]

As the amount of coverage we get on South Today has always been a bit on the crap side when compared to Southampton, Pompey, Reading or Bournemouth this is hardly a surprise. Those of us west of the Adur will probably hardly notice the difference

 

[Gazwag]

Coverage this end of the county will be cut in half now that the Charlton have been promoted, we will be back to second or third report again next season

 

[The Large One]

So... no change in coverage. Same as it's always been.

 

[El Presidente]

I'm so outraged I have just thrown a brick through my TV screen and sent Graham Norton the bill.

 

[Easy 10]

Ahh well.

We can still look forward to seeing Pompey shipping goals to Crawley and Bury.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Therefore you could get this situation occurring:

Someone who lives in Lancing near the proposed training ground site potentially won't be able to see news items relating to a major proposed development in the area they live in.

Nightmare.

 

[Deleted member 18477]

Don't watch the news so don't care.

 

[brakespear]

That's alright, Virgin are showing BBC South East as default anyway for me in Worthing.

 

[BBassic]

As the amount of coverage we get on South Today has always been a bit on the crap side when compared to Southampton, Pompey, Reading or Bournemouth this is hardly a surprise. Those of us west of the Adur will probably hardly notice the difference

This. When I lived in Worthing it was so rare to get any Albion news on South Today. It was a pleasant surprise when I moved back into Brighton to see them being covered.

 

[Notters]

This. When I lived in Worthing it was so rare to get any Albion news on South Today. It was a pleasant surprise when I moved back into Brighton to see them being covered.

Weird, I've always found South Today better than South East today in virtually every way.

 

[bognorandy]

I think the problem is we fall in middle of two local BBC areas with neither doing a great job. I just watched both local news to see which was the best and BBC south today had features all be it small on shoreham and crawley yet BBC south east felt more like Kent and didnt have an interest in any of its news. Would anyway explain why last week when fixtures came out the albions fixtures were mentioned behind league one Portsmouth and Bournemouth on south today!

 

[kevo]

It is a shocking decision. It would be interesting to see what would happen if we got in the Premier League - whether BBC South would continue to ignore us... If as the report suggests people in places such as Haywards Heath won't get Albion highlights that is truly outrageous.

 

[ferring seagull]

BBC Soth and Soth East

I am in Ferring, west of Worthing, and have both on my remote.

BBC 1 South is channel 1 and BBC 1 South East is channel 800.

Give it a try !

 

[catfish]

I stopped watching Southampton Toady years ago beacause they treated the Albion as an afterthought.

 

[Barnham Seagull]

Sounds like alot of email complaints need to made!

Also what the hell will they do when Pompey fold?

 

[cloud]

Complaint sent (via BBC website )

 

[drew]

How many of those that are complaining have not checked to see if they can reset their channel order to show BBC South East?

 

[KJP]

Do people actually still watch the local news to get sports highlights? Everything you need is already online before its shown