The problems of "extra" scheduling

The festive vagaries of the sporting schedule have been cruel to Radio 5 Live.  Last night Talksport had its first "dog in the manger" upper hand over BBC, with three exclusive Premiership commentary matches - Chelsea v Bolton, Wigan v Arsenal and Liverpool v Wolverhampton.   5 had to make do with Nottingham Forest v Derby in the Championship - a mid-table clash that ended in a comfortable 5-2 win for the home side. 

It's a reversal from the days when the BBC had all the Premiership rights, and could fire up 5Live Sports Extra to cover "second" matches. It would be interesting to know what sort of audience the fans of six Premier League clubs can drive.

In cricket, learned correspondents more awake than me have complained about poor trailing as the Ashes were retained.   Listeners to Test Match Special on Radio 4 dreaded the Shipping Forecast, at 0050, spoiling their night, and were urged at around 0030 by Jonathan Agnew to re-tune to, as normal, to Radio 5 Live Sports Extra. Unfortunately the commissioning team at 5 had dropped Sports Extra for the momentous night, and assembled a parallel commentary team on 5Live proper, chaired by Mark Pougatch.  There was no mention of this on the tape loop that sustains Sports Extra.   So back to Radio 4 for our listener, where finally Aggers is up to speed with the fact that he should be trailing 5Live - but 0049 comes, the penultimate Aussie wicket falls and the shipping forecast ensues.

So it's back to 5Live for the denouement - and the Pougatch team is in the chair for the final wicket at 0054. The Ashes retained, but not under the Test Match Special banner.  Not quite right.