Timeline of rugby league on UK television

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a timeline of the history of rugby league on television in the UK.

  • 1948
    • 1 May – The BBC broadcasts the Rugby League Challenge Cup final for the first time, although this can only be seen in the London area.
  • 1949
    • No events.

1950s

  • 1950
    • No events.
  • 1952
    • The Challenge Cup final is broadcast for a second time, and was the first time it could be seen in the north of England.
  • 1953
    • The Rugby Football League refuse permission to broadcast the Challenge Cup final due to concerns that live coverage had affected the attendance of the previous year's final.[2]
  • 1954
    • No events.
  • 1955
    • October–November – The newly launched ITV creates a rugby league tournament called the Independent Television Floodlit Trophy. Played under floodlights at various London football grounds, the tournament is shown live in the London area only because ITV had not launched in the sport's north of England heartlands. The second halves of the matches are shown live. The competition was a one-off and did not return the following year.
  • 1956
    • No events.
  • 1957
    • No events.
  • 1958
    • 10 May – The BBC broadcasts the Challenge Cup final for the third time and this marks the start of annual coverage of the final.
  • 1959
    • No events.

1960s

  • 1960 to 1964
    • At some unknown point during this period, Grandstand shows coverage of earlier rounds from the Challenge Cup for the first time.
  • 1965
    • 6 October – The first edition of the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy is broadcast, bringing rugby league to television screens on a regular basis for the first time. The competition is designed specifically for television.

1970s

  • No events.

1980s

  • 1980
    • 11 June – A new TV deal is agreed with the BBC, but they no longer hold exclusive rights to rugby league coverage, and any games not shown by the BBC can be offered to Independent Television instead.[3] The BBC2 Floodlit Trophy is also scrapped due to financial cutbacks by the broadcaster.[4]
  • 1982
    • 19 May – For the only time since 1958, the BBC does not show live coverage of the final of the Challenge Cup. It had shown the original game live 18 days earlier but opted to show the replay in highlights form only, as part of that week's edition of Sportsnight.[6]
  • 1983
    • No events.
  • 1984
    • No events.
  • 1985
    • ITV scraps its British rugby league coverage, and no games from the league championship are shown at all on UK television for the next two seasons.[5] A new program, Australian RL Action, is briefly shown, featuring highlights of Australian clubs from the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) competition.[7][8]
  • 1986
    • No events.
  • 1987
    • For a brief period, Yorkshire Television broadcasts a late night rugby league highlights programme called Scrumdown.[5]
  • 1988
    • No events.

1990s

  • 1990
    • 1 April – British Satellite Broadcasting televises its first rugby league match.[10]
    • August – The RFL agrees a deal with British Aerospace for their new TV service, Sportscast, a TV channel shown exclusively in pubs and clubs.[11] The service was short-lived, collapsing 18 months later.[12]
  • 1991
    • No events.
  • 1993
    • No events.
  • 1994
    • No events.
  • 1995
    • 7–28 October – L!VE TV broadcasts many of the matches from the 1995 Rugby League World Cup. It shows many of them exclusively because, apart from the opening game, the BBC does not show any of the games live until the semi-final stage.
  • 1996
    • Following an approach by Rupert Murdoch to British rugby league clubs to form a new Super League, the sport agrees to the proposals, which amongst other things sees the sport move from a winter to a summer season. Consequently, all live league coverage is shown exclusively on Sky Sports.
  • 1997
    • No events.
  • 1998
    • No events.

2000s

  • 2001
    • No events.
  • 2002
    • No events.
  • 2003
    • No events.
  • 2005
    • No events.
  • 2006
    • Manchester local television station Channel M launches a rugby league magazine called Code XIII. Whilst its main focus is on teams playing in the Greater Manchester area, it also touched upon the progress of other teams in the region including Warrington and Widnes. A spin-off series, Code XIII: Grassroots, focused on local amateur rugby league highlights. The programme ran for three seasons, ending in 2008 after management at Channel M decided that they were not willing to go forward with another series that did not contain game action, and that the asking price for buying in the footage was more than Guardian Media Group could afford.
  • 2008
    • February – Having previously only been broadcast as a regional programme, The Super League Show is broadcast nationally for the first time when it is given a Tuesday lunchtime slot on BBC Two.[18]
    • 22 November – Sky Sports' coverage of the Rugby League World Cup ends as the rights for future tournaments move to Premier Sports.
  • 2009
    • 25 September – ESPN brings National Rugby League to the UK when it broadcasts the first Preliminary Final live on 25 September, the second Preliminary Final and on 4 October it shows the Grand Final.[19]

2010s

2020s

References

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