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Talksport (styled as talkSPORT), owned by UTV Radio, is the world’s largest sports radio station and Global Audio Partner of the Premier League.
Broadcast from London to the United Kingdom, Talksport is the only national radio station broadcasting sport and sports coverage 24 hours a day, having previously dropped 39 hours of non-sports content on 2 April 2012.
Its content includes live coverage of the biggest sports events of the year, exclusive interviews with the leading names in sport and entertainment, phone-ins and discussion.
The station is an official broadcaster of the Premier League, FA Cup, England friendly internationals, Football League, League Cup and Aviva Premiership, as well as broadcasting major Champions League and Europa League games.
In the United Kingdom, Talksport is available on 1053 kHz, 1071 kHz, 1089 kHz, and 1107 kHz, DAB, Sky, Virgin Media, Freeview, on mobile, and online at talksport.com.
Outside of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Talksport broadcasts live commentary of every Premier League match all around the world in multiple languages including English, Spanish and Mandarin.
The station was originally and officially launched as Talk Radio UK on 14 February 1994, with Sean Bolger and Samantha Meah presenting the original Talk Radio Breakfast Show. However the first live broadcast had been Caeser the Geezer's phone-in which aired the previous night. Other presenters on Talk Radio included Jeremy Beadle, Scott Chisholm, Moz Dee, Tommy Boyd, Anna Raeburn, Gary Newbon, Terry Christian, Ronnie Barbour, Jonny Gould, and Dale Winton. Also joining the line-up were Caesar the Geezer and Wild Al Kelly, dubbed as shock jocks.
A year later Talk Radio launched a new breakfast show presented by Paul Ross and Carol McGiffin. Former BBC Radio 1 DJ Simon Bates also joined the station along with James Whale, Ian Collins, and Mike Dickin.
Talk Radio made their first foray into the world of sports radio rights bidding, by purchasing the rights to broadcast the Football League from BBC Radio Five Live for the 1997/98 season. In addition, the station broadcast their first FIFA World Cup from France in 1998, with them bringing in the Sky Sports commentary team of Alan Parry and Andy Gray to commentate on the major matches. Tony Lockwood, Clive Allen, and Dave Roberts covered additional games in France. Talk Radio also acquired up the rights to broadcast Manchester United's matches in the Champions League for the 1998/99 season.
On 12 November 1998 TalkCo Holdings, whose chairman and chief Executive was former Sun Editor Kelvin MacKenzie, purchased Talk Radio.[1] This led to a mass clearout of presenters including Nick Abbot, Anna Raeburn, Tommy Boyd and Peter Deeley, with them putting in place a more sports oriented programming schedule, including The Sportszone with Alan Parry, Gary Newbon, Tony Lockwood, Tom Watt, and former Century Radio sports editor Dave Roberts presenting the weekend edition of The Sports Breakfast.
In late 1999, TalkCo, rebranded as The Wireless Group, announced a relaunch of Talk Radio to become the UK's first national commercial sports radio station called Talksport. The relaunch occurred at midnight on 17 January 2000 and was accompanied by the station moving from Oxford Street to a new studio in Hatfields on the South Bank of the River Thames. Now mainly dedicated to football, the programming lineup was drastically altered, beginning with The Sports Breakfast show, a mid-morning motoring show called The Car Guys, with further sports programming in the afternoon and evening. Almost all the station's talk show presenters were axed at the time, including The Big Boys Breakfast with David Banks and Nick Ferrari, with only James Whale, Ian Collins, and Mike Dickin surviving. To complement their new format, Talksport purchased the rights to broadcast Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle in the UEFA Champions League, the FA Cup, England football internationals, UEFA Cup, England's winter cricket Tours to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and India, British and Irish Lions tours to South Africa and New Zealand, and rights to the Super League, Rugby League World Cup, and World Title Boxing Fights.
The new line-up involved a number of presenters and commentators. They included Alan Brazil, Mark Nicholas, Chris Cowdrey, Geoffrey Boycott, Mike Parry, Peter Shilton, Brian Moore, Brough Scott, Tom Watt, Gary Newbon, Ian Darke, Tony Banks, and Alvin Martin.
Talksport's programming consists of sports talk, live coverage, discussion and phone-in debate 24 hours a day.
The weekday schedule begins with the morning's sports news, debate and reaction on The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast which is co-hosted by guest presenters including Dominic Cork, Ray Parlour and Brian Moore. Colin Murray follows with an in-depth look at the day's sport with interviews and discussion. Hawksbee & Jacobs present through the afternoon with sports gossip, interviews and chat, followed by Drive Time with Adrian Durham and Darren Gough round-up the day's sports news with debate.
Kick Off, hosted by Mark Saggers, then guides listeners through the evening's sporting action with live commentary and discussion. Andy Goldstein, Bobby Gould and Jason Cundy take further phone-calls and debate on The Sports Bar before handing over to the late night team, including Mike Graham and Russell Hargreaves with Extra Time, an overnight sports show with news, interviews and action from around the globe.
On Saturday and Sunday, Talksport has full coverage of the weekend's sport starting with The Weekend Sports Breakfast, followed by the chance to have your say on The Warm Up. Every weekend, you can follow the latest news and scores from around the grounds on Matchday Live and Sunday Exclusive, including live Premier League commentary, followed by a post-match phone-in hosted by Stan Collymore on Call Collymore and The Press Pass on Sundays, a quick-witted analysis of the week's sports stories combined with reaction to all the Premier League action hosted by Ray Stubbs.
Talksport also broadcasts specialist programming, including Football League show Up The League presented by Geoff Peters, long-running fishing-based phone-in, Fisherman's Blues, hosted by Nigel Botherway, Howzat!, a cricket show with Dominic Cork, Fight Club, a monthly boxing programme hosted by Gareth A. Davies, My Sporting Life with Danny Kelly, an in-depth interview with sporting legends, and Full Contact with Brian Moore, a regular rugby-based magazine show focusing on the Aviva Premiership, European Rugby Champions Cup, Six Nations and Super League.
Talksport have a selection of regular presenters and commentators, which include: Adam Catterall, Jack Bannister, Jason Cundy, Jon Richardson, Jim Proudfoot, Mark Saggers, Matt Forde, Matt Smith, Max Rushden, Mike Bovill, Mike Graham, Nat Coombs, Nigel Adderley, Nigel Botherway, Nigel Pearson, Paul Hawksbee, Ray Stubbs, Richard Keys, Rupert Bell, Russell Hargreaves, Sam Delaney, Sam Matterface, and Stan Collymore.
Former professional sportsmen provide expert comment on a variety of the station's programmes, including: Alvin Martin, Andy Gray, Bobby Gould, Danny Higginbotham, Jeff Probyn, Matt Holland, Mike Tindall, Micky Quinn, Michael Gray, Neil Warnock, Perry Groves, Ray Houghton, Ray Parlour, Ray Wilkins, Stewart Robson and Stuart Pearce.
The station also has a team of staff and freelance journalists and reporters bringing listeners the latest news and sport through their bulletins and programmes, including Graham Beecroft.
Currently, Talksport focusses the majority of its live sports coverage on football, but also has exclusive and non-exclusive rights to other sports:
Since its launch, Talksport has (variously) held exclusive or non-exclusive radio rights to the Premier League, Football League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, FA Cup, League Cup, England internationals, Euro 2004, Euro 2012, 2006 World Cup, 2010 World Cup, 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, domestic Twenty20 cricket, 2009 Twenty20 World Cup, England's winter cricket tours to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and India, Aviva Premiership, 2011 Rugby World Cup, 2013 British and Irish Lions tour to Australia, British and Irish Lions tours to South Africa and New Zealand, Super League, Rugby League World Cup, The Open Championship, Ryder Cup, and World Title Boxing fights.
Talksport's original line-up included Alan Brazil, Mark Nicholas, Chris Cowdrey, Geoffrey Boycott, Alan Parry, Peter Shilton, Brian Moore, Brough Scott, Tom Watt, Gary Newbon, Ian Darke, Tony Banks, James Whale, Ian Collins, Derek Hatton, and Mike Dickin.
Other past presenters include: George Galloway and many others.
Scott Taunton was previously the Business Development Director at UTV, responsible for radio and new media. A native of Australia, he has been working in the UK for a decade and took over from Kelvin MacKenzie as Chief Executive of Talksport in July 2005. Liam Fisher is Programme Director, having taken over from Moz Dee in 2013. Neil Sedley is chief engineer and Peter Gee is head of creative.
In a number of areas, particularly in areas where the signal from the main 1089 and 1053 kHz transmitters overlap with each other, Talksport operates a number of filler transmitters on different frequencies:
The 1089 and 1053 kHz frequencies were originally used by BBC Radio 1 between November 1978 and June 1994.
It is also transmitted across the UK on digitally via DAB digital radio, Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat. Talksport is also streamed online; however, due to rights restrictions on live coverage, some live sport commentaries are not available online.
Since August 2011, several shows on Talksport have been available on Sirius XM satellite radio in the US and Canada.
According to the RAJAR audience figures for Q2/2014, Talksport's audience is 3.4 million adults in the UK,[12] which is highest achieved since the station launched as Talk Radio in 1995.
A new station is to launch in 2016 as part of a Sound Digital's successful bid for second national commercial DAB multiplex.[13]
It is claimed Talksport 2 will provide "coverage of a broad range of live sporting action from the UK and around the world along with complementary sports talk programming." These will include cricket, rugby, horse racing and athletics.[14]
The winning bid also proposed the return of Talk Radio, plus new station Talk Business as well as Virgin Radio.[15]
Former Talksport chief executive Kelvin MacKenzie had proposed a rival sports station as part of Listen2Digital’s opposing bid for the second national commercial DAB multiplex.[16]
Talksport is the global audio partner of the Premier League, which enables them to broadcast commentary of every Premier League match outside the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland in several languages including English, Spanish and Mandarin.[17]
Talksport Live also broadcasts selected fixtures in the FA Cup, League Cup and Bundesliga.[18]
In April 2014, Talksport announced plans to launch South Africa’s first 24-hour sports radio station.[19]
The medium wave licence will broadcast to a potential audience of eight million people covering Gauteng province and taking in the commercial and administrative hubs of Johannesburg and Pretoria.
It is claimed Talksport 540AM will be modeled on its sister station in the UK to "deliver first class sports journalism, high quality debate and live match commentary to the South African audience."[19]
Manchester United F.C., Arsenal F.C., Chelsea F.C., England, Liverpool F.C.
Isle of Man, India, Canada, European Union, British Overseas Territories
BBC Radio, BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, Bbc, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 2
India, Canada, United Kingdom, Africa, Australia
Arsenal F.C., Premier League, Manchester United F.C., Cardiff City F.C., Football League Cup
Bbc, Sky Sports, Eurosport, BT Sport, BBC Radio 5 Live
London, BBC Radio 4, Greater Manchester, Manchester, Glasgow
Absolute Radio, Rock Music, Bauer Radio, TalkSPORT, Lbc
BBC Radio, BBC Television, Sky Sports, BT Sport, ITV (TV network)
TalkSPORT, Al Jazeera, Coventry, Bbc, Fox Sports