Scheduling dilemmas for BBC One and ITV 1 on Saturday

Saturday’s schedule must have been a logistical nightmare for BBC planners and the Pres team.

Both BBC One and ITV 1 had live coverage of the FA Cup Final.

But the BBC had the hardest schedule to pull together.

Had Crystal Palace not scored – or if Manchester City equalised – the game would have gone to extra time and possibly penalties.

All this on a day with a programme start which was absolutely not up for negotiation – the Eurovision Song Contest, of course, begins at precisely 8pm UK time. Indeed until the 80s it was probably the only light entertainment show to be introduced over the clock.

Stuck between the two live events was Doctor Who. This episode – The Interstellar Song Contest – was obviously planned with the day in mind.

But any overrun to the FA Cup would have pushed the Time Lord over to BBC Two – the last thing the programme needed.

All in all, it was the kind of day where schedulers and Presentation have to anticipate a whole range of options. Undoubtedly consideration had to be given to a hypothetical situation where the kickoff had to be delayed too. Imagine if the match was still in progress as events were getting underway in Basel?

The only solution for the regional news was to push it to a mid-afternoon slot. It might have meant tighter deadlines for journalists but there were no realistic alternatives – Scotland and the English regions cannot opt on BBC Two.

However ITV 1 – without the wider complexities of the BBC schedule to consider – simply dropped their regional bulletin altogether.

ITV 1 could have scheduled the bulletin for lunchtime or put it in a mid evening slot.

Did they even consider this?

For the second time in a month, ITV 1 did not schedule a regional news bulletin for reasons of expediency.

I go back to the point I made a few weeks ago.

There is no suggestion that ITV is in breach of licence requirements but the regional news is a key part of its PSB requirement.

If there is no demand for weekend bulletins – a questionable contention – ITV should have the courage to say this, drop them officially and put its resources into enhancing weekday provision.

The spirit of regulatory requirements surely matters as much as the letter of them.

Acknowledgements