[RhysJR]

The BBC announces its coverage for Wimbledon.

A surprise to nobody, Clare Balding takes over from Sue Barker as lead host. Isa Guha will continue to present the start of each day's play.

Today at Wimbledon has survived the axe, despite reports to the contrary, and has a new timeslot of 9PM and a new host in Qasa Alom. I believe this will be Alom's debut as a BBC Sport presenter, though he has reported from last year's Commonwealth Games and more. Let's hope the programme actually gets broadcast at all this year.

This also means coverage is now on BBC One until the later time of 9PM.

The only new name I see in the commentary teams is doubles legend Sania Mirza; I can't see any notable absentees but someone might have escaped my mind. Boris Becker unsurprisingly does not return after his time in prison and subsequent deportation. Andrew Cotter is listed second, behind Andrew Castle and ahead of Sam Smith, so would be my favourite to cover the Women's Singles final. Andy Stevenson will replace Clare Balding as the wheelchair singles finals host on the mornings of finals weekend.

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[UTVLifer]

I’m surprised that Today at Wimbledon has staggered on another year - I wonder how many times it’ll actually air this year in its new timeslot

[Brekkie]

That's a pretty big gig to debut with as a BBC Sport presenter for Qasa Alom. I see Clare is now doing Queens next week - is she doing Eastbourne the week after (as she used to) or is that baton passed to someone else?

Hopefully the 9pm handover to BBC2 will mean things are less messy if coverage swaps to BBC1.

I'm guessing it's unlikely they've done anything with the 1pm news to smooth out the coverage then. Now with a 1.30pm start just having a 25 minute bulletin then 5 minute regional news would be sufficient to allow BBC1 to start on Centre at 1.30pm (the match itself rarely starts before 1.40pm) rather than having the farcical situation of BBC2 beginning a Court 1 match then switching to Centre for 25-30 minutes.

[AJB39]

I’m glad that Today at Wimbledon has survived. The 9pm slot also brings it closer to the 9.30pm slot it had up to the mid 2000’s. I’ve heard Qasa Alom present some stand-in slots on BBC Radio Five Live but I’ve not seen him on screen before. For many years the Today at Wimbledon presenter has presented Eastbourne so he may well present it.

[Rdd]

Premier Sports have picked up the Irish rights for Wimbledon, of dubious value given virtually all their customers will also have access to the BBC, but I doubt they paid much. Setanta and eir Sport covered the competition in the past, which was shown by Irish terrestrial TV (RTE first and then TG4) into the 2000s.

[harshy]

Premier Sports have picked up the Irish rights for Wimbledon, of dubious value given virtually all their customers will also have access to the BBC,  but I doubt they paid much. Setanta and eir Sport covered the competition in the past, which was shown by Irish terrestrial TV (RTE first and then TG4) into the 2000s.

Does it show the Wimbledon world feed produced by img and Wimbledon ?

[Rdd]

This is Premier Sports first year, but my recollection is that was exactly what Setanta and eir used to show.

At one point in the distant past there may have been a produced highlights show, mind you.

[RhysJR]

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No expense spared on the background of that promo shot.

In all seriousness though, although he has not featured on the BBC TV coverage of Wimbledon before, it does look like (as mentioned above and by the look of his social media activity) that Qasa is a big follower of tennis. So although not the obvious choice for the role (I would have bet on Rishi Persad or Lee McKenzie who are seasoned BBC Sport and Wimbledon features) he looks like a good choice fot the job.

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I’m glad that Today at Wimbledon has survived. The 9pm slot also brings it closer to the 9.30pm slot it had up to the mid 2000’s. I’ve heard Qasa Alom present some stand-in slots on BBC Radio Five Live but I’ve not seen him on screen before. For many years the Today at Wimbledon presenter has presented Eastbourne so he may well present it.

I think I saw somewhere that Gigi Salmon has been listed to present it.

[qwerty123]

I’m glad that Today at Wimbledon has survived. The 9pm slot also brings it closer to the 9.30pm slot it had up to the mid 2000’s. I’ve heard Qasa Alom present some stand-in slots on BBC Radio Five Live but I’ve not seen him on screen before. For many years the Today at Wimbledon presenter has presented Eastbourne so he may well present it.

He used to present the breakfast opts for Midlands today several years ago. Whilst competent he didn’t exactly stand out amongst any of the other people to have presented regional breakfast bulletins.

[RhysJR]

The Telegraph article below relaying the BBC coverage has this extra nugget of info: Today at Wimbledon will air at 9pm on iPlayer every day regardless of if play is still going, and then will be shown on BBC Two when everything is done. That sounds very sensible indeed if it transpires.

The BBC will maintain their policy of generally staying with any live coverage after 9pm this year, but Today at Wimbledon will now always still run on iPlayer and be screened after play finishes on BBC Two.
www.telegraph.co.uk