[Scratch_Perry]

That's not gonna happen, because Castle is the head honcho at Wimbledon, like John Bartlett was when he was paired up with Dan Maskell back in the 80s.

Don't you mean John Barrett?

As for replacing Andrew Castle with Andrew Cotter, as good as a commentator he is, how many sports do you want him to be the No.1 lead commentator for? He's already the Beeb's top man behind the mic on TV for rugby union, golf and rowing, plus he's the second commentator (behind Steve Cram). Though to be fair, for the first two-named sports, his elevation to No.1 status came about due to the deaths of Eddie Butler and Peter Alliss respectively.

[Brekkie]

He is arguably the best in his field in most sports he covers, and where possible the best commentator should be the lead commentator.

Ultimately on the BBC rugby is 5 matches a year, golf is highlights of a couple of tournaments, rowing is just the Boat Race (I don't think he does it at the Olympics or World Cup/Championships) and athletics is a one week tournament and perhaps the London Diamond League event. He's already doing Wimbledon anyway so doing a couple of higher profile matches isn't going to change his workload significantly.

[dvboy]

It may just be me but it seems an odd decision to prioritise 5 Live commentary of Italy vs Albania over the live tennis from Nottingham on the red button linear channel at 7pm this evening (unless it's raining but they wouldn't know that when putting the schedule together weeks ago)

[Brekkie]

They could at least leave it till 7.55pm.

Is Spain usually referred to as "ESP" in the scorebar - I'm sure it's previously been "SPA" but countries are increasingly being referred to in their home language.

A bit odd ITV aren't airing higglights tonight until after midnight when they've an Alright on the Night and Long Lost Family repeat beforehand.

[dvboy]

They could at least leave it till 7.55pm.

I suspect they probably will leave it until an appropriate point if there is play ongoing.

[RhysJR]

Is Spain usually referred to as "ESP" in the scorebar - I'm sure it's previously been "SPA" but countries are increasingly being referred to in their home language.

I think UK broadcasters have often used SPA, yes. But their official FIFA/IOC code has been ESP (from the French as well as the Spanish) for many a year. The IOC changed from SPA in 1968 according to Wikipedia.

I think Switzerland has been SWI in the past, but used the official code of SUI today.

[dvboy]

Fell off air bang on 18:00 (booking error?) but back within 3 minutes.
Colour bars first then the fault slide.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I think UK broadcasters have often used SPA, yes. But their official FIFA/IOC code has been ESP (from the French as well as the Spanish) for many a year. The IOC changed from SPA in 1968 according to Wikipedia.

I think Switzerland has been SWI in the past, but used the official code of SUI today.

Looks like it's up to each broadcaster. Serbia is SER on the BBC but SRB on Spain's TVE.

[dvboy]

Fell off air bang on 18:00 (booking error?) but back within 3 minutes.
Colour bars first then the fault slide.

I wasn't watching but apparently this happened again today!
Also really poor of them on the red button to leave the final - involving a British player - a whole hour before the Euro 2024 to simulcast the radio build-up with the BBC One pictures.

[RhysJR]

I think UK broadcasters have often used SPA, yes. But their official FIFA/IOC code has been ESP (from the French as well as the Spanish) for many a year. The IOC changed from SPA in 1968 according to Wikipedia.

I think Switzerland has been SWI in the past, but used the official code of SUI today.

A few more example in recent days, with the BBC using ROM rather than ROU for Romania. I think in Euro 2016 I remmber hearing that ROM shouldn't be used because connotations to the Roma people. ITV did use ROU on their online highlights.

Interestingly, both BBC and ITV used SVN for Slovenia. Slovenia is one of the few example were FIFA and the IOC differ on their codes (IOC use SLO rather than SVN, which I'd personally prefer now Slovakia (SVK) also exists).

Today has seen a different form of this, with UEFA having adopted Türkiye and Czechia as the official names for those countries, whilst the BBC, along with most other major international broadcasters and Wikipedia, still use Turkey and Czech Republic.



On a seperate note, it really bugs me, that despite being around for a while, that British commentators (Derek Rae on FIFA aside) still haven't bothered to learn to pronounce Portugal's Pepe (Pep with a silent e) and Bruno Fernandes (Fur-nandsh) correctly. They'r hardly Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.