So, from 2017 – if I can still afford Sky TV – I can look forward to four days of adverts interrupted by golf coverage (Sky scoops Open but golf misses the bigger picture, 4 February). One can hardly blame the Royal and Ancient Golf Club for accepting Sky’s bid, most of which will be recouped by advertising revenues, but the government is letting the free-to-air viewer down by not including the Open as a “crown jewel”, particularly now that Britain and Europe are so dominant in international golf.
The BBC has lost so many important sports fixtures in the last decade but is still happy to interrupt an evening’s viewing on a prime channel to show a mediocre football match, even though far more people participate in sports not shown on TV than play football. Is it time that the vast amounts of money being put into BBC3 and its internet successor are directed towards a dedicated sports channel? If not, how come it’s “our BBC”, and where will our future stars get their inspiration from without having to finance pay TV?
Rob Parrish
Starcross, Devon
• It is not just agricultural stories of relevance that current Archers story lines are covering (Archers reflects woes of modern farming, Letters, 6 February). The sale of Brookfield Farm to a property developer, while painful to many listeners, is in fact the reality for many rural communities. Farmers Weekly regularly contains adverts encouraging landowners to contact developers with a view to obtaining planning consent for housing on agricultural land, which greatly increases the land value if permission is granted. The editors of the programme should be congratulated for bringing this reality to the attention of Radio 4 listeners and beyond.
Harry Harrison
London
