BBC: Olympic Games Coverage

February 18 2022

December 10 2022

We have been looking forward to watching the Winter Olympics in our house. However, because of a recent house move we have had to rely on the coverage from the BBC. Oh dear. This was a mistake, sadly. The BBC coverage was, at times, simply awful. As I write this, a semi final ice hockey match is underway between Sweden and Russia. This is a big deal in our house, a major event. My wife is from Finland where ice hockey is a major sport, like football is in the UK. We realised quite soon that for us to follow the Olympic ice hockey matches we would need to subscribe to Discovery Plus. We simply could not rely on the BBC. And the decision to subscribe to Discovery Plus was heavily influenced by the BBC's devotion to curling. Apparently, according to the BBC, the main winter sport in these 2022 Winter Olympics is curling. While the ice hockey semi-final is happening, the BBC have chosen to broadcast women's curling ON BOTH OF THEIR CHANNELS. The curling is also a semi-final and features Great Britain, so I totally understand why it is being broadcast, but on both of BBC's channels dedicated to the Olympics? That is just plain lazy scheduling by the BBC. I appreciate that the BBC cannot show everything that is happening, and they certainly cannot please everyone, but I do think that the BBC should change the title of its Olympic coverage to something like 'Olympic Curling Championship' to set everyone's expectations up front. This is yet another reason to question and challenge the value of the license fee.