Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2017

34 Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society twitter: @scloverssociety Charles Runcie, in charge of the BBC’s regional sports service in England until recently, reflects on the rise of ball-by-ball commentary in county cricket on the BBC, and explains how he helped to establish it. “Don’t miss a ball, we broadcast them all”, the proud boast of the BBC in 1957 when it launched  Test Match Special .  For the first time ever, listeners could hear commentary on every ball of Test matches in this country on the BBC, a broadcast luxury afforded to few other sports’ events.  Half a century on, thanks to new technology, but the same determination to bring as much sport to as wide an audience as possible, cricket fans can now hear every ball of every single Yorkshire match.  Live, anytime, anywhere - how did that all happen?  When I got my job in 2002 one thing BBC Local Radio did well then (and now) was reporting county cricket.  There were updates, interviews, commentary on the occasional one-day game or a tour match - but that was it.  The way local radio was set up and budgeted meant I simply couldn’t ask the local stations in England to do more.  However, BBC Radio London had been doing ball-by-ball commentary on all Surrey and Middlesex matches for a couple of years, using the then novel way of ‘via the internet’.   Not many listeners, hard to access technically, and with one person commentating for eight hours a day it could be a hard listen, but it was a start.  Could I get other stations to do the same?   Over the next few years I managed with a bit of financial help and a lot of persuasion to add more BBC local stations to the list.  Warwickshire came on board in 2005, then Sussex, Worcestershire, Essex, and Nottinghamshire all joined in.  By 2012 about 50% of the counties were being done, and as they all played an opposing teams we could claim most but not all games and counties were covered.  We had no northern counties though, leading to regular grumbly emails.  “Why is the BBC discriminating against Yorkshire, Lancashire and Durham?  Southern bias!”, they usually went.  Three things led to the expansion of our coverage.  Firstly, the rise of mobile and tablet devices meant many more people could listen to commentaries.  Secondly Radio 5 Live’s Sports Extra station on digital radio started to simulcast local radio commentary on football matches.  They had plenty of unused airtime during the day, and already did Test match commentary.  Why not rebroadcast more county cricket?  We met the ECB to agree this from 2013 as part of a new BBC Radio contract, with commentary on every match played by the 18 counties via the BBC sports website, mobile and tablet.    2016 marks the fourth year of this service, and it continues to pick up fans not only in the UK but all over the world.  Numbers listening are not  ‘Strictly Come Dancing’  numbers, but a decent match can get upwards of 30,000 “Don’t miss a ball, we broadcast them all” LIVE, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE CHARLES RUNCIE