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Scotsport

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Scotsport
GenreSport
Presented byArthur Montford
Jim White
Jim Delahunt
Grant Stott
Andy Walker
Richie Gray
Country of originScotland
Production
ProducersHenry Eagles,
Andrea Brownlie,
Alastair Hindle
Running time60–90 minutes
(including adverts)
Production companySTV News
Original release
NetworkSTV
(Scottish/Grampian),
ITV Border Scotland
Release18 September 1957 –

22 May 2008
Related
STV Sports Centre
Champions League Live

Scotsport was a Scottish sports television programme, broadcast on STV in northern and central Scotland, as well as on ITV Border in southern Scotland. It was recognised as the world's longest-running sports television magazine.

History

The show began on 18 September 1957,[1] originally known as Sports Desk. The programme changed to the Scotsport title a short time later and the vast majority of its coverage was of football, rather than sport in general, as the name might imply. The football coverage was, in turn, most of the Scottish Premier League. The show also followed Scottish clubs in the UEFA Champions League via live matches and highlights programmes, though was simply branded as Champions League Live. Scotsport's main rival was the long-running BBC Scotland strand Sportscene, fronted by Archie Macpherson and then Dougie Donnelly.

In 1984, Sally McNair joined the show and become the first female television sports journalist in Scotland.

Prior to season 2007–08, Scotsport faced competition for viewers of its SPL coverage. On 18 July 2007, it was announced that the SPL had signed a similar deal with BBC Scotland for non-exclusive television coverage of the league.[2] This didn't affect Scotsport's production, though the programme experienced a reduction in viewer numbers considering its terrestrial coverage of the SPL was no longer exclusive. Scotsport continued in its 10.40pm-11.40pm Monday night slot for the remainder of the 2007–08 season, with Sportscene's SPL offering being shown later in the week on Wednesdays at 10pm on BBC Two Scotland.

On Hogmanay 2007, STV broadcast 50 Years of Scotsport, a programme taking a look back at the shows best moments over the 50 years it had been on air. Featuring colleagues from past and present, one of the show's most recent presenters, Grant Stott presented the Hogmanay special. STV decided to axe the main programme in November 2007, after BBC Scotland won a five-year deal to show SPL highlights. The programme aired for the last time on Thursday 22 May 2008.

A smaller-scale sports magazine show, STV Sports Centre was launched on Friday 5 March 2010.

The Team

Final hosts of Scotsport

Despite being one of the world's longest-running sports television programmes, there had only been five main anchors in 51 years on air, largely due to the 32-year tenure of its first presenter Arthur Montford who departed in 1989. Subsequent main anchors of Scotsport were Jim White, who joined Sky Sports in 1998, Jim Delahunt who later worked for Setanta Sports and finally Grant Stott and Andy Walker. Walker also anchored STV's Champions League coverage.

Scotsport's featured match highlights were commentated on during the final series by Archie Macpherson, Jock Brown, Ian Crocker, Rob MacLean, Ken McRobb and David McKinney.

Spin-Offs

  • From 1979–1984, Sport extra was broadcast on a Friday at 18.25.
  • Between the 1988–89 and 1999–00 seasons, There was a preview programme called Scotsport Extra Time (later renamed simply Extra Time) shown on Friday nights and sometimes on a Saturday afternoons, featuring the weekend football fixtures, interviews from football and other sports including ice hockey, rugby, snooker and golf. Originally Jim White and Hazel Irvine presented it before Hazel moved to BBC Scotland in 1990. Jim White then presented it on his own until moving to Sky in 1998 with Jim Delahunt presented In the final two series on a Saturday lunchtime.
  • During the seasons when Scotsport owned the rights to Scotland's premier Rugby league, live matches and highlights were shown under the Scotsport Rugby Roundup banner.
  • For the years where STV had the highlights rights for both the Scottish Premier League and the First Division, Scotsport was divided into Scotsport First, which went out on Sunday mornings and retained a traditional programme format, and Scotsport SPL, which was known for trying out ideas that hadn't been widely used for sports television programmes before, including multiple presenters and a live studio audience.

Scotsport Fanzone

Scotsport Fanzone was broadcast in the latter half of the 2005–06 season on Thursday nights. This forum-based show encouraged Scottish football fans to have their say on the week's news. Despite not having re-appeared for the 2006–07 season, several sections from the show had been incorporated into the new live Monday night Scotsport.

Scotsport Rugby

Scotsport Rugby Sunday was a short-lived spin-off, specifically focussed on rugby union in Scotland. Richie Gray presented the series, featuring news and highlights, including coverage of Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors, lower league club rugby and women's games.[3]

STV Rugby, an hour-long Magners League highlights show was launched in September 2009, for the 2009–10 season. Sports Centre: Magners League Rugby took over in September 2010.

References

  1. ^ "Scotsport's debut". STV. July 2007. Retrieved 6 July 2007.
  2. ^ "Two new major broadcasting deals for the SPL". Scottish Premier League. July 2007. Retrieved 6 July 2007.
  3. ^ "Scotsport Rugby Sunday". STV. November 2007. Retrieved 11 November 2007.
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