Sportscene is a Scottish sports television programme produced by BBC Scotland. Its main anchors are Stuart Cosgrove, David Currie and Jonathan Sutherland present the Saturday Sportscene Results programme. The first part of the programme debates the current Scottisah footballing issues before handing over to the results section of the programme which features the vidiprinter and match reports and the classified results. The programme ends with further football chat and analysis. Previous Sportscene presenters include Archie Macpherson who also commentated, Gordon Hewitt, Hazel Irvine, Jill Douglas, Dougie Donnelly, Dougie Vipond and Rob Maclean, who now anchors Setanta's Live coverage of the SPL.

Although in previous seasons Sportscene provided live coverage of the Scottish Premier League, from the 2007/08 seasons onwards they will broadcast highlights of the league ^[1], whilst still covering much of the rest of Scottish football. Also broadcast are highlights and selected live games of Scotland's international matches, including qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Football Championship, and exclusive live matches in the Scottish League Cup, officially known as the CIS Cup. Sportscene also shares rights to the Scottish Cup with Sky Sports and shows a number of games from the UEFA Cup and qualifiers from the UEFA Champions League that involve Scottish clubs. More recently, Sportscene Live has covered Scotland's 2006 Kirin Cup win and the final of the 2006 Under 19 European Championships, also involving Scotland.

Sportscene is widely recognised in Scotland as the main national sports programme, bringing coverage of Celtic's run to the UEFA Cup Final in the 2002-03 season, Scotland's 2006 Six Nations triumph over England and the finale to the 2002-03 SPL season, where the title was decided on the very last day of the competition, into Scottish homes. Its main commercial competition was STV's Scotsport, until the programme was axed at the end of the 2007/08 season. Scotsport covered mainly highlights of the Scottish Premier League.

History

Sportscene's predecessor was Sportsreel, which was broadcast every Saturday at around 5pm (results and reports) and 10pm (highlights) in the 1960s. By the 1970s a Sportscene format of a 5pm programme as a regional opt-out from Grandstand plus a 10pm show with highlights from 1 English and 1 Scottish league or cup match was established. Sportscene also covered European and International matches, usually highlights but occasionally live coverage. The show was presented by Archie MacPherson with commentary by MacPherson, Alastair Alexander or Peter Thomson.

Commentators & Reporters

The programme's main commentary and reporting team consists of; Paul Mitchell, John Barnes, Scott Davie, Kheredine Idessane, Alasdair Lamont, Rhona McLeod, Liam McLeod, Chris McLaughlin, Jim Spence, Alison Walker and Chick Young.

The Shows

Sportscene set at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay HQ.

• Sportscene Results is broadcast on Saturday afternoons on BBC One Scotland and is presented by Stuart Cosgrove, David Currie and Jonathan Sutherland since 2005 . The show rounds up all of the day's main football scores, whilst debating the major Scottish sports stories of the week. From 1989-2001, It was known as Afternoon Sportscene and previous presenters have included Bill McFarlen, Rob Maclean, Dougie Donnelly and Dougie Vipond. The show normally gives football experts like Pat Nevin and Tony Higgins an opportunity to give their views on the days results and the past week of football.

• Sportscene Live is the name used for all live football matches broadcast by BBC Scotland. Coverage includes both Scottish cup competitions (the Scottish Cup and the Scottish League Cup), Scotland Away Internationals and European matches involving Scottish clubs.

• Sportscene Rugby Special was the title of BBC Scotland's domestic rugby union programming when it held the rights to the Scottish leagues.

• Friday Sportscene was the name of the football preview programme that went out on BBC One Scotland on Friday nights. The programme's format was later moved to Saturday lunchtimes in place of Football Focus but has been absent from the schedules since BBC Scotland lost the live rights to the Scottish Premier League.

• All other football related programming is simple branded as Sportscene. This includes highlights packages and other one-off specials.

Online

Sportscene (Live)'s opening credits

Presentation

The graphics used on Sportscene, and other BBC Sport Scotland programming, differ from the national BBC Sport graphics. Examples include differing styles, everything being separately branded as 'BBC Sport Scotland' and in the case of football, where the rest of the UK uses the red colour scheme, a light blue colour scheme is utilised instead.

In popular culture

The programme is regularly parodied in the Scottish football impressionist show Only an Excuse?. Munchtime Sportscene is a name often used by the programme's makers, presumably a play on the currently rested Lunchtime Sportscene programme.

See also

• BBC Scotland
• BBC Sport

References

1. ↑ BBC Scotland's new SPL coverage deal

External links

cy:Sportscene nl:Sportscene simple:Sportscene