The BBC has defended its decision not to broadcast the first six hours of the extra day’s play at the Open even though the first pairing of Ryan Fox and Bernhard Langer started their final rounds at 7.45am.
The Open was extended into a fifth day this year for the first time since 1988 after high winds made parts of the course unplayable for much of Saturday, but instead of clearing its schedule on Monday BBC1 stuck with its scheduled programming – Homes Under the Hammer through to Bargain Hunt, while BBC2 served up Victoria Derbyshire and the Daily Politics. Coverage was scheduled to eventually start at 1.45pm on BBC1.
Full coverage was available from the start in the US on ESPN, and the BBC’s decision not to follow suit is somewhat poorly timed given the corporation lost the rights for showing the world’s oldest major to Sky from 2017 earlier this year.
“I don’t usually bitch on here but even the BBC website isn’t live from The Open yet, and there is some sensational scoring already” tweeted the ITV football commentator Clive Tyldesley on Monday morning, and while perhaps it is not a major shock to see an ITV employee take aim at a rival broadcaster, Tyldesley’s criticism was replicated and supported by many others on social media.
Luke Donald, who teed off at 10.50am, three hours before the BBC’s live coverage stared, was among those who also questioned the broadcaster’s decision. “I think this being The Open Championship, you know, you’d love to have coverage all day long, just to watch all kinds of different story lines,” he said.
“Obviously this is a tournament where you can get someone coming up from behind. It’s a very typical links day today, downwind on the front nine and back into the wind on the back nine. It’s two very different kind of golf courses, and just to see that play would have been fun. If you give the viewer the choice, they’d want to see eight, ten hours of coverage.”
Last year at Royal Liverpool, the BBC’s coverage attracted an average of 1.4m viewers, with a 5.5m peak late on the Sunday as Rory McIlroy completed an Open victory for the first time.
“The BBC has brought unprecedented coverage of this year’s Open to the widest possible, free-to-air audience – with extended scheduling across all days of competition, including two extra hours on both Friday and Saturday,” said a corporation statement. “Our key aim today is to fully tell the most important story - who will win the Open - and make the very best use of our resources on this extra day’s play.
“We will be following the leaderboard top 10 from the start of their rounds to their finish plus the continued action from those that started before them – so audiences won’t miss any of the key action as it unfolds.”
