Talksport (styled as talkSPORT), owned by
News Broadcasting, is a
sports radiostation in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The station was originally launched as Talk Radio UK in 1995.
Talksport's content includes live coverage of sporting events, interviews with the leading names in sport and entertainment, phone-ins and discussion. Talksport, alongside
sister station Talksport 2, is an official broadcaster for several sporting contests, including the
Premier League and
English Football League.
In the UK, Talksport is one of the
Independent National Radio licensees, holding the INR3 licence for a speech-based service. It is available on its primary frequency in London, 1089 kHz, as well as 1053 kHz, 1071 kHz, and 1107 kHz,
DAB,
Sky,
Virgin Media,
Freeview, on mobile, and online. Talksport has been available on
Freesat since April 2016. Outside the UK and
Ireland, Talksport broadcasts live commentary of every Premier League match around the world in multiple languages including English, Spanish and Mandarin.
On 25 June 2016,
Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp announced that it was acquiring the parent Wireless Group company for $296 million.[1]
As of December 2023, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 3 million listeners, according to
RAJAR.[2]
After quitting the
Breakfast Show on
BBC Radio 1 FM in April 1995,
Steve Wright joined the station, presenting Steve Wright's Talk Show - a live Saturday morning programme.[3] He was joined on the air by his former posse member and comedy writer Richard Easter, as well as female sidekick Georgey Spanswick.[4] The show was guest-focused and popular at the time, but short-lived, as it moved to
BBC Radio 2 in March 1996 and re-launched as Steve Wright's Saturday Show.[5]
Talk Radio made its first foray into the world of sports radio rights bidding by purchasing from
BBC Radio 5 Live the rights to broadcast
Football League matches for the 1997–98 season. In addition, the station broadcast its first
FIFA World Cup from France in 1998, bringing in the
Sky Sports commentary team of
Alan Parry and
Andy Gray to commentate on the major matches.
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.
Creation of Talksport
On 12 November 1998, TalkCo Holdings – whose chairman and chief executive was
Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun – purchased Talk Radio.[6] This led to a mass clearout of presenters including
Nick Abbot,
Anna Raeburn,
Tommy Boyd and
Peter Deeley, with MacKenzie placing an emphasis on a 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 at Hatfields on the
South Bank of the
River Thames. Now mainly dedicated to sport, the programming lineup was drastically altered, beginning with The Sports Breakfast show; this was followed by 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 its new format, Talksport purchased the rights to broadcast
Manchester United,
Arsenal and
Newcastle United matches 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 & Irish Lions tours to South Africa and New Zealand, and rights to the
Super League,
Rugby League World Cup, and world title
boxing Fights.
Sound Digital's successful bid for second national commercial DAB multiplex in 2016 also saw the return of
Talkradio, as well as
Virgin Radio and the creation of Talksport 2.[7] On 25 June 2016,
Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp announced that it was acquiring the parent Wireless Group company for $296 million.[1] Since June 2020 it has also produced sports bulletins for
Times Radio. In 2022 a televised version of TalkRadio launched on
TV.
Programming history
Talksport and Talksport 2 hold exclusive and non-exclusive rights to various sports [which?] in the UK.
December 2002: Talksport announced plans for the station's first ever music show. An easy listening music show entitled Champagne & Roses with
Gerald Harper, was broadcast each Saturday evening. The show was axed after less than six months.[9]
June 2004: Talksport broadcast their first international football tournament officially.
Euro 2004 from Portugal was broadcast live on Talksport with commentary of various matches, including the final, from
Jim Proudfoot and
Alvin Martin.[10]
June 2006: the station broadcast the 2006 World Cup, with live match commentary of all 64 matches in Germany. Commentary was provided by
Jim Proudfoot, Chris Cooper, Nigel Pearson, Ian Danter, Tim White, and Geoff Peters with punditry from
Alvin Martin,
Rodney Marsh,
Gary Stevens,
Jason Cundy, and
Micky Quinn.[11]
October 2006: Talksport becomes the first national commercial radio broadcaster to win Premier League commentary rights. Talksport wins a package that allows it to broadcast the second choice Saturday afternoon games that kick off at 3pm, with the BBC getting first pick.[13]
April 2009:
Russell Brand and
Noel Gallagher were signed by Talksport to present a one-off football talk show on 19 April 2009.[14] It was only a few months after Brand resigned from
BBC Radio 2 in the wake of the uproar over the "
Sachsgate" affair.
February 2010: Talksport gained more Premier League football in the latest radio bidding wars. Whilst relinquishing their 3pm package to football newcomers
Absolute Radio, they won two packages from
BBC Radio 5 Live. They took over the national radio rights to broadcast the late kick-off every Saturday evening from the Premier League (usually kicking off at 5:30pm), and the early Sunday games (before 3pm). This agreement covered the 2010–11 to 2012–13
Premier League seasons[15]
August 2012: Talksport secure a deal to become an official broadcaster of the
Aviva Premiership.[19] The deal enables Talksport to broadcast live commentary of selected matches throughout the season either on-air or online.
March 2016: Talksport 2 launches, a station dedicated to live sports commentaries and specialist programming.[22]
May 2016: Talksport and Talksport 2 are awarded the right to broadcast three
Premier League UK live audio packages for the next three football seasons, starting with the 2016/17 season.[23]
May 2017: Talksport secures exclusive national radio rights to the
English Football League.[25] It gives them the ability to broadcast up to up 110 EFL fixtures a season for three years until the end of the 2019/2020 season.
Broadcast from
London to the UK, Talksport is the only UK radio station broadcasting sporting discussions and commentaries 24 hours a day, having dropped 39 hours of weekly non-sports content on 2 April 2012.
According to the
RAJAR audience figures as of December 2022, Talksport's audience is around 2.9m listeners per week. Talksport 2 has an audience of around 344,000 listeners per week.[31]
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:
1071 kHz: Nottingham, Newcastle
1107 kHz: Merseyside, West Sussex, South Kent, The Wash, Hampshire
The 1089 and 1053 kHz frequencies were previously used by
BBC Radio 1 between November 1978 and June 1994.
It is also transmitted across the UK
digitally via
DABdigital 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.[citation needed]
During the
2006 FIFA World Cup Talksport was available on Digital Radio DAB in some German cities.[32]
Sister stations
Talksport 2
The new station launched on 15 March 2016 as part of a Sound Digital's successful bid for second national commercial DAB multiplex. The launch date coincided with the opening day of the 2016
Cheltenham Festival. 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.[33]
Talksport 2 is a 24-hour sports station which focuses on a broad range of live sporting action from the UK and around the world and includes rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, football and horse racing, plus US sport. On its first day, Talksport 2 broadcast commentary of India v New Zealand in the
ICC World Twenty20,
Atlético Madrid v
PSV Eindhoven in the
Champions League and
Indian Wells Masters tennis.[34] On 9 June 2020 talkSPORT 2 switched from DAB Mono to DAB+ Stereo to make Room for Times Radio.
It has broadcast specialist programming dedicated to the Football League,
La Liga, European football, horse racing rugby league, rugby union, boxing, cricket, tennis,
NBA, US sport, and golf.[35]
From January 2019, Talksport 2 was re-positioned as a rolling sports news and live sport station.
As of September 2023, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 376,000 listeners, according to
RAJAR.[36]
Talksport International
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
Ireland in several languages including English, Spanish and Mandarin.[37]
Talksport International also broadcasts selected fixtures in the FA Cup, League Cup and provides commentaries for Amazon Music's
Bundesliga coverage.[38]
Other media
Soccer Bet was a short-lived 68-page weekly magazine which Talksport had hoped would appeal to football fans that enjoyed betting on games. It was designed in a smaller A5 format to make it easy for fans to carry and the launch was backed by a £500,000 promotional campaign. Soccer Bet lasted just two months before it was axed in October 2003 due to poor sales.[39]
Talksport TV launched in October 2004 platform broadcasting for six hours a day on the
Sky Digital television platform aiming to catch listeners who had arrived home from work.[40] The service amounted to little more than the simulcasting of TalkSport's broadcasters and pundits presenting the station's Drive Time and Kick Off programmes. The channel closed in 2005 following the takeover of Talksport by
UTV Radio.[41]
Talk Radio was set to return to the airwaves as a station on
DAB digital radio in 2008 after
Ofcom awarded a second
DAB digital radio national commercial multiplex to the
4 Digital Group consortium led by
Channel 4.[42] However, the station never launched after Channel 4 announced that it was abandoning its plans for digital radio stations[43]
Talksport Magazine launched in May 2008 as a weekly online-only digital publication to extend the station's brand beyond the radio.[44] The magazine was integrated into the newly relaunched Talksport website in 2010[45]
Sport was targeted at the affluent male and hand distributed in locations across the country including London mainline and tube stations. It was also available at many hotels, gyms and airports[46]
Books, DVDs, and games
Talksport Road Trip is a
DVD including exclusive footage of the English team and a host of celebrity interviews at the
2006 World Cup released in 2006[47]
Talksport Legends & Anthems is a three-
CD package, released in 2009, featuring 40 tracks by artists such as
The Who,
The Cure,
The Killers,
Stevie Wonder,
Rod Stewart, and
Elton John on two of the discs as well as a bonus CD with out-takes and highlights of Talksport[48]
Ten Years of Talksport is a book describing the station's history. Originally released in 2009, an updated version of the book including two new chapters was released in 2011
The Talksport Book of World Cup Banter – Released in 2010, this is a book of football facts about the
FIFA World Cup[49]
The TalkSport Book of Cricket's Best Ever Sledges features contributions from Talksport presenters
Darren Gough and
Ronnie Irani among others, recounting
'sledging'. Released in 2010[50]
TalkSPORT Clash Of The Titans is a game created by
Mat Dickie (MDickie), It's not available on his download page anymore but can still be downloaded on web.archive.org[51]
Controversies
June 2000: Talksport caused a stir with the BBC, after it was revealed Talksport had been broadcasting its live commentaries of matches at
Euro 2000 from television monitors rather than from each of the stadia, due to the lack of available broadcast rights.[52] Talksport's commentary team included
Alan Parry,
Jim Proudfoot, Mark Tompkins,
Alvin Martin and
Frank Stapleton.
April 2002:
Tommy Boyd and his production team were sacked from Talksport after a call from someone who wanted to shoot the
Royal Family went through on air. Boyd went on record that he "did not share the views" of the caller.[53]
June 2002: Talksport broadcast unofficial coverage of the
2002 World Cup taking place in
Japan and
South Korea. The station flagged up its inability to broadcast live from the stadia, taking out full page advertisements in national newspapers containing the tag line "It's unauthorised. It's unofficial. And it's brilliant."
Jim Proudfoot and
Alvin Martin were Talksport's main commentary team from its studios in London.[54]
February 2003: Talksport received over 200 complaints for giving a platform to the controversial Muslim extremist cleric
Abu Hamza. Hamza and his aides were invited into the station to contribute to a religious debate on The
James Whale Show, alongside other Christian, Jewish, and Muslim delegates. On the night of the live broadcast, 24 February, a mass of protesters gather outside the station's London studios. Despite this, both Whale and head of programming Bill Ridley defended the station for having invited Hamza onto the programme.[9]
March 2004:
Alan Brazil was fired by Talksport when, after spending three days at the
Cheltenham Festival, he subsequently failed to show up to present The Sports Breakfast on Friday 19 March. He was reinstated less than three weeks later.[55]
May 2006: Alan Brazil was reportedly given three months' notice by Talksport after a bust-up with the station's management.[56] Brazil and Talksport management held talks less than two months later, and Brazil signed a new long-term contract with the station.[57]
August 2007:
Mike Mendoza and
Garry Bushell made derogatory comments about
gay people, and the station was subsequently censured by regulator Ofcom.[59] Bushell left soon afterward, when his six-month contract expired.
May 2008: James Whale was dismissed by Talksport after twice urging listeners to vote for
Boris Johnson in the
2008 London mayoral election.[60] The station was subsequently fined £20,000 by Ofcom in December 2008.
November 2008: Controversial presenter
Jon Gaunt was fired for repeatedly calling a local councillor a "
Nazi".[61] Gaunt has since sought legal action for unfair dismissal, but any potential case has yet to go to court.[62] His campaign was backed by
Liberty activist
Shami Chakrabarti, who had previously been one of Gaunt's pet hates.
November 2008: Rod Lucas was dropped by Talksport, and the company stated they had "no plans to use him in the immediate future" after the membership list of the
BNP which was leaked on a
Google blog named him as one of its members.[63] The station clarified that this was not a sacking, for Lucas was only a temporary member of staff. The presenter himself claimed that his membership of the party was part of a covert research project.[64]
February 2011: Talksport hired former
Sky Sports commentators
Andy Gray and
Richard Keys (Gray had also been a pundit for the station) a fortnight after the pair were fired from Sky Sports for being at the centre of a
sexism controversy.[65]
April 2017: Ofcom upheld complaints against Mike Parry and Mike Graham for comments made on their daytime show the previous December, in which they laughed while telling anecdotes about sexual harassment by former colleagues at the Daily Express. Talksport said in its statement that the two presenters were "laughing at the lack of action" against sexual harassment.[66]
August 2021: A caller to The Sports Bar said that Tottenham Hotspur owner
Daniel Levy would not let
Harry Kane leave for free because Levy is Jewish. The remark was not heard on the radio due to a tape delay to avoid offensive callers but was heard on a YouTube simulcast. Talksport apologised and suspended their simulcast until a delay could be enabled.[67]