DARLO ON BBC TEES

Earlier in the summer I said we'd update you with BBC Tees' plans for Darlington coverage for this forthcoming season.

As promised, we'll continue to provide coverage of matches home and away, league and cup which though I say it myself, is miles ahead of anyone else who might claim to cover the club. I hope you'll agree that our recent live programme from the Arena v Sunderland, phone-in with Mark Cooper and all-round comprehensive coverage of the club proves we are committed as ever, despite last season's relegation.

So this season you'll be able to receive full, uninterrupted commentary of each match through our website http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees with Ray Simpson. In addition, you will still be able to hear scores updates along with half-time and full-time reports on 95FM and DAB digital radio (on DAB we will have additional reports).

On Saturdays (on all frequencies) we will still have the team news from 2pm, the post-match interview with Mark Cooper after 6pm and if you miss that, the interview will be on the BBC Tees website a few hours after full-time. You'll also be able to hear coverage of the team through the week on BBC Tees Sport, 6-8pm.

On occasions when Darlington are the only local team playing, then we will continue to put the commentary on all frequencies.

We feel this means Darlington commentary will be available to as many listeners as possible as we are allowed to broadcast Conference Premier matches on our website (unlike Football League matches).

As ever, we'd always welcome your feedback and feel free to get in touch - our email address is tees.sport@bbc.co.uk.

On a slightly separate note, I must admit to being very impressed so far with Mark Cooper and his assistant Richard Dryden. Both seem very knowledgeable footballing individuals and good people so lets hope this is a season remembered for the right reasons.

All the best,

James Mountford
BBC Tees Sport

Discuss this story

Visit the forum to add your own comments - the submissions so far are shown below:

BBC_TEES - 26th July 2010 16:42:40

Earlier in the summer I said we'd update you with BBC Tees' plans for Darlington coverage for this forthcoming season.

As promised, we'll continue to provide coverage of matches home and away, league and cup which though I say it myself, is miles ahead of anyone else who might claim to cover the club. I hope you'll agree that our recent live programme from the Arena v Sunderland, phone-in with Mark Cooper and all-round comprehensive coverage of the club proves we are committed as ever, despite last season's relegation.

So this season you'll be able to receive full, uninterrupted commentary of each match through our website http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees with Ray Simpson. In addition, you will still be able to hear scores updates along with half-time and full-time reports on 95FM and DAB digital radio (on DAB we will have additional reports).

On Saturdays (on all frequencies) we will still have the team news from 2pm, the post-match interview with Mark Cooper after 6pm and if you miss that, the interview will be on the BBC Tees website a few hours after full-time. You'll also be able to hear coverage of the team through the week on BBC Tees Sport, 6-8pm.

On occasions when Darlington are the only local team playing, then we will continue to put the commentary on all frequencies.

We feel this means Darlington commentary will be available to as many listeners as possible as we are allowed to broadcast Conference Premier matches on our website (unlike Football League matches).

As ever, we'd always welcome your feedback and feel free to get in touch - our email address is tees.sport@bbc.co.uk.

On a slightly separate note, I must admit to being very impressed so far with Mark Cooper and his assistant Richard Dryden. Both seem very knowledgeable footballing individuals and good people so lets hope this is a season remembered for the right reasons.

All the best,

James Mountford
BBC Tees Sport

aveda - 26th July 2010 16:43:54

Excellent stuff

darlo rick - 26th July 2010 16:51:46

Nice one,thanks pal

Quakerz - 26th July 2010 17:15:41

BBC_TEES wrote:

Earlier in the summer I said we'd update you with BBC Tees' plans for Darlington coverage for this forthcoming season.

As promised, we'll continue to provide coverage of matches home and away, league and cup which though I say it myself, is miles ahead of anyone else who might claim to cover the club. I hope you'll agree that our recent live programme from the Arena v Sunderland, phone-in with Mark Cooper and all-round comprehensive coverage of the club proves we are committed as ever, despite last season's relegation.

So this season you'll be able to receive full, uninterrupted commentary of each match through our website http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees with Ray Simpson. In addition, you will still be able to hear scores updates along with half-time and full-time reports on 95FM and DAB digital radio (on DAB we will have additional reports).

On Saturdays (on all frequencies) we will still have the team news from 2pm, the post-match interview with Mark Cooper after 6pm and if you miss that, the interview will be on the BBC Tees website a few hours after full-time. You'll also be able to hear coverage of the team through the week on BBC Tees Sport, 6-8pm.

On occasions when Darlington are the only local team playing, then we will continue to put the commentary on all frequencies.

We feel this means Darlington commentary will be available to as many listeners as possible as we are allowed to broadcast Conference Premier matches on our website (unlike Football League matches).

As ever, we'd always welcome your feedback and feel free to get in touch - our email address is tees.sport@bbc.co.uk.

On a slightly separate note, I must admit to being very impressed so far with Mark Cooper and his assistant Richard Dryden. Both seem very knowledgeable footballing individuals and good people so lets hope this is a season remembered for the right reasons.

All the best,

James Mountford
BBC Tees Sport

Yes that is great.

However, last season all teams on the PTV official websites, and I mean ALL teams - apart from Darlington - had commentary available through their official websites PROVIDED BY THEIR LOCAL BBC RADIO STATION. This was at a cost of £35 and I basically paid that last season for you to fail me. I want my money back and PTV say the absent commentary is your fault not theirs.

Please don't fob me off with s*** like you have done in the past, eg "no they don't all provide commentary" because they do. Know your facts before trying to fob me off again - every team on the PTV network has commentary provided by their local BBC radio station, that is what the subscriber pays for.

I paid, where was my product?

feethamslad - 26th July 2010 17:32:58

I got my money back - just before the end of the season. Wrote to PTV advising that I considered that their failure to provide match commentary for every match as advertised on 'Quakers World' was a breach of contract. Money in bank account a week later.

Spyman - 26th July 2010 17:34:45

feethamslad wrote:

I got my money back - just before the end of the season. Wrote to PTV advising that I considered that their failure to provide match commentary for every match as advertised on 'Quakers World' was a breach of contract. Money in bank account a week later.

Thanks for telling the rest of us at the time!

Quakerz - 26th July 2010 18:20:38

I know! I just cancelled the subscription and swallowed the loss.

If I remember correctly they phoned me up to offer a month or two free, but the point was that the service was useless to me free or otherwise.

feethamslad - 26th July 2010 18:32:31

Spyman wrote:

feethamslad wrote:

I got my money back - just before the end of the season. Wrote to PTV advising that I considered that their failure to provide match commentary for every match as advertised on 'Quakers World' was a breach of contract. Money in bank account a week later.

Thanks for telling the rest of us at the time!

See: http://www.darlofc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4880

footifan - 26th July 2010 18:54:12

Does that mean I will be able to listen in the colonies ?

Jazz Maverick - 26th July 2010 19:08:35

Will the people who dont live in BBC Tees catchment be able to listen in? Isnt there a syndication issue with listening to sports on local stations, outside of the stations area? Or have I gone insane and made this up?

Quakerz, have you complained through the proper channels? ie. A formal letter of complaint to Tees or the PTV company? You'll likely have more success than ranting on an internet message board. I was in a similar situation with an internet radio company when I worked abroad, promised to have English football commentary, but barely ever worked.

wylam_rangers - 26th July 2010 20:49:42

Jazz Maverick wrote:

Will the people who dont live in BBC Tees catchment be able to listen in? Isnt there a syndication issue with listening to sports on local stations, outside of the stations area? Or have I gone insane and made this up?

Quakerz, have you complained through the proper channels? ie. A formal letter of complaint to Tees or the PTV company? You'll likely have more success than ranting on an internet message board. I was in a similar situation with an internet radio company when I worked abroad, promised to have English football commentary, but barely ever worked.

This should be available worldwide - or at least in countries where the BBC isn't banned. I suggest bookmarking the website early.

I intend to set up a proxy feed for genuine fans who experience technical issues.

Regarding Q world - whilst the commentary last season was a flop you still get access to a lot of video archive and you can use the player thing to listen in to any game/any team on the system. So even though we don't get the best coverage it's still useful.

feethamslad - 26th July 2010 21:12:35

footifan wrote:

Does that mean I will be able to listen in the colonies ?

Probably not unless you go through a UK proxy. My experience of trying to use BBC/Sky over the internet whilst overseas is that you need a UK IP address.

If wylam can get a reliable proxy sorted it will be of great benefit to those overseas.

fat tony - 26th July 2010 21:45:23

feethamslad wrote:

I got my money back - just before the end of the season. Wrote to PTV advising that I considered that their failure to provide match commentary for every match as advertised on 'Quakers World' was a breach of contract. Money in bank account a week later.

What was the email/postal address you sent this letter to? I've asked for a refund and was totally ignored. I'm still a paying customer as well.

Regarding the video content Wylam - is there a way of getting anything before this season? It looks like you can't get it anymore from when the stupid tossers changed it to 'Quakers Player'. One of the few redeeming things of the total sh!tpile service was being able to view highlights going back a few seasons but I can't see how you get it now?

Spyman - 26th July 2010 22:02:29

feethamslad wrote:

Spyman wrote:

feethamslad wrote:

I got my money back - just before the end of the season. Wrote to PTV advising that I considered that their failure to provide match commentary for every match as advertised on 'Quakers World' was a breach of contract. Money in bank account a week later.

Thanks for telling the rest of us at the time!

See: http://www.darlofc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4880

All very well, but you never told us it got you a result a week later!

feethamslad - 26th July 2010 22:19:28

Quote:

See: http://www.darlofc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4880

Quote:

All very well, but you never told us it got you a result a week later!

Apologies for not following up on the result - it was remiss of me (I thought I had posted an update but hadn't - sorry!)

The e mail address I used was: customerservices@performgroup.com

Interestingly, in my communications with performgroup, they put the blame for lack of commentary directly on Radio Tees for failing to provide them with a match commentary.

Performgroup said that the Radio Tees/Darlington situation was unique in that Radio Tees was the only local BBC broadcaster in England that had refused to provide them with a match commentary.

This was confirmed with my discussions with Christine Balford and later Damon Shaw at DFC.

Perhaps James Mountford from Radio Tees would care to comment on this.

However, the contract to supply the match commentary as part of the 'Quakers Player' package was between perform group and me the customer. They had failed to provide this and consequently were in breach of contract.

Quakerz - 26th July 2010 22:32:47

I know this too.

Because I was informed the same.

I have repeatedly challenged Mountford every time he comes on here with his "Radio Tees, the only station that gives a fook about Darlo" posts - initially he fobbed me off and tried telling me that lots of stations won't provide commentaries for their local teams - this is blatantly not true. The facts bear out that they DO cover their local teams.

Radio Tees are only providing commentary now because they don't need the same license anymore and the costs are lower with us being non league. Now they can play the caring radio station role, but as soon as we are back in the league and the costs go up you can forget it.

They were basically too tight to fork out on the insignificant Darlo last year, unlike the other BBC stations who covered their local teams and provided full uninterrupted commentary of their clubs to PTV.

Yes it is appreciated that they are covering us NOW, but you can tune into any conference match on the iplayer. Shame it wasn't the case last season when you could listen to any league match on PTV apart from Darlo!

Spyman - 26th July 2010 22:33:55

Indeed they were, and as they paid out to you (even if it was a couple of months ago), then they've set a precedent, admitted they were in breach, and should pay out to all Darlington subscribers.

I'll be sending them a very similar e-mail to yours tomorrow, and will of course be hoping for the same resolution.

Cheers.

Quakerz - 26th July 2010 22:35:11

Let us know how you get on Spyman.

Spyman - 26th July 2010 22:36:31

Quakerz wrote:

Let us know how you get on Spyman.

I will. I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to these sorts of things, so I will get a resolution.

feethamslad - 26th July 2010 22:40:13

Spyman wrote:

Indeed they were, and as they paid out to you (even if it was a couple of months ago), then they've set a precedent, admitted they were in breach, and should pay out to all Darlington subscribers.

I'll be sending them a very similar e-mail to yours tomorrow, and will of course be hoping for the same resolution.

Cheers.

Good luck!

If you would find it helpful, I still have a screen shot for the advertisement for Quakers Player advertising 'Every Match Live' - I attached this to my complaint to performgroup.

wylam_rangers - 27th July 2010 10:05:12

fat tony wrote:

feethamslad wrote:

I got my money back - just before the end of the season. Wrote to PTV advising that I considered that their failure to provide match commentary for every match as advertised on 'Quakers World' was a breach of contract. Money in bank account a week later.

What was the email/postal address you sent this letter to? I've asked for a refund and was totally ignored. I'm still a paying customer as well.

Regarding the video content Wylam - is there a way of getting anything before this season? It looks like you can't get it anymore from when the stupid tossers changed it to 'Quakers Player'. One of the few redeeming things of the total sh!tpile service was being able to view highlights going back a few seasons but I can't see how you get it now?

You're right that they now only seem to hold 1 season's worth of highlights. I had a look at a couple of other clubs and it seems to be the same there - although teams like Derby/Boro etc have much more other video content including after-match interviews.

aveda - 27th July 2010 10:18:59

Tell you what, why not just piss off the only local radio station who bothers to cover us in any way so that we get absolutely no coverage whatsover, that'll help. You might have a legitimate grouch over your money Q but there's no need to be so arsey.

Hilly - 27th July 2010 10:30:38

aveda wrote:

Tell you what, why not just piss off the only local radio station who bothers to cover us in any way so that we get absolutely no coverage whatsover, that'll help. You might have a legitimate grouch over your money Q but there's no need to be so arsey.

I tend to agree. By all means be arsey and grouchy with Quaker's World after all that's who the contract is with - not BBC Tees.

BBC Tees aren't obliged to provide commentary to Quakers World - if Quakers World knew that they weren't able to provide 'Every Match Live' then they shouldn't be advertising the fact.

Quakerz - 27th July 2010 10:53:13

Hang on a minute, why would PTV advertise this service if they thought half of the radio stations would not provide commentary? They must have had agreements in place, Radio Tees being the one Radio station that stopped providing the commentary.

No, Radio Tees aren't obliged to spend my license fee on commentary for my team and I do understand that we are down the pecking order, and have on numerous occasions backed them up when Darlo fans have complained about their Boro coverage, HOWEVER last season they did the unthinkable, something that no other radio station covering a L2 team did, they pulled the internet coverage.

Now they're coming on with the "we'll provide internet commentary aren't we great?" line, fook off Tees you didn't care last season.

It all boils down to cost and nothing more.

aveda - 27th July 2010 10:56:04

That's bollocks to say they didn't care. The coverage on DAB was still there and was excellent. Do Tees need to spend money covering a club that has very little support ? No, but they do.

Quakerz - 27th July 2010 11:08:01

aveda wrote:

That's bollocks to say they didn't care. The coverage on DAB was still there and was excellent. Do Tees need to spend money covering a club that has very little support ? No, but they do.

Did they provide live and uninterrupted commentary on DAB? I do not have a DAB so do not know.

They did not provide live and uninterrupted internet coverage for every match, like all the other radio stations.

aveda - 27th July 2010 11:12:19

Stop being a whiney girl and accept you support a tinpot club like the rest of us

divas - 27th July 2010 11:14:47

Quakerz wrote:

aveda wrote:

That's bollocks to say they didn't care. The coverage on DAB was still there and was excellent. Do Tees need to spend money covering a club that has very little support ? No, but they do.

Did they provide live and uninterrupted commentary on DAB? I do not have a DAB so do not know.

They did not provide live and uninterrupted internet coverage for every match, like all the other radio stations.

Its a bit of a strange one, as the BBC didnt do any live coverage thru their site for any clubs, but they DO provide the feed to PTV evidently. I'd assume a slice of what PTV earns from subscribers is used to pay the BBC for coverage, but in Darlo's case a deal couldnt be struck for whatever reason.

Ray was doing full match commentaries on DAB so the feed was available, but for whatever reason PTV didnt pick this up for Darlo/weren't allowed by the BBC.

You'd have thought if no deal was in place between Tees & PTV that the commentary would have been made available via the BBC Tees internet site.

Quakerz - 27th July 2010 11:18:34

aveda wrote:

Stop being a whiney girl and accept you support a tinpot club like the rest of us

It is nothing to do with how tinpot our club is, it is principle. The principle being that all of the other tinpot clubs on the PTV network had commentary available to subscribe to, which was provided by their local radio - and Tees wouldn't provide commentary to PTV.

Hilly - 27th July 2010 11:28:00

Quakerz wrote:

aveda wrote:

Stop being a whiney girl and accept you support a tinpot club like the rest of us

It is nothing to do with how tinpot our club is, it is principle. The principle being that all of the other tinpot clubs on the PTV network had commentary available to subscribe to, which was provided by their local radio - and Tees wouldn't provide commentary to PTV.

It might have been a case of the money that Tees wanted - PTV wouldn't agree to, therefore the buck stops firmly at PTV's door.

divas - 27th July 2010 11:36:35

Hilly wrote:

Quakerz wrote:

aveda wrote:

Stop being a whiney girl and accept you support a tinpot club like the rest of us

It is nothing to do with how tinpot our club is, it is principle. The principle being that all of the other tinpot clubs on the PTV network had commentary available to subscribe to, which was provided by their local radio - and Tees wouldn't provide commentary to PTV.

It might have been a case of the money that Tees wanted - PTV wouldn't agree to, therefore the buck stops firmly at PTV's door.

You'd then think that Tees would make the commentary available over the internet if there was no contractual obligation with PTV.

Quakerz - 27th July 2010 11:48:07

The reason Radio companies do not put commentary on the internet, available freely, is because of licensing.

The reason that radio companies DO put NON LEAGUE commentary on the internet, available freely, is because they do not need that license from the football league.

Same with publishing fixture lists really.

OK?

So they only way radio stations can put commentary on the net is to put it on PTV. I'm not sure exactly how that works, presumably PTV own a license and the radio stations pay PTV a fee (which would be cheaper than having a license outright) to air their commentary.

PTV as far as I'm aware do not pay the radio stations, it is up to radio stations how they spend their sporting budgets and if I am correct, then Radio Tees were the only station that was too tight to spend money on internet commentary for Darlo.

I'd be interested to see if they provided it for Hartlepool?

I could be completely wrong and await correction from Mountford or somebody that knows what they are talking about.

divas - 27th July 2010 12:18:31

Quakerz wrote:

The reason Radio companies do not put commentary on the internet, available freely, is because of licensing.

Yes because of the PTV deal (licence) that they bought from the football league - its hardly likely that people would tip up for a paid service if the main selling point was available for free elsewhere on the internet.

BishopQuaker - 27th July 2010 12:42:03

I can't understand why anyone would want to spend money for Quakers World anyway.

Seemed pretty pointless to me

shawry_99 - 27th July 2010 12:47:03

BishopQuaker wrote:

I can't understand why anyone would want to spend money for Quakers World anyway.

Seemed pretty pointless to me

When it used to work, I found it excellent, being able to listen to games when I was on detachment in sunnier climes.

Last year was a big let down, but I just took the hit, however I am tempted to email now and try to recover my money.

Hilly - 27th July 2010 13:16:14

shawry_99 wrote:

BishopQuaker wrote:

I can't understand why anyone would want to spend money for Quakers World anyway.

Seemed pretty pointless to me

Last year was a big let down, but I just took the hit, however I am tempted to email now and try to recover my money.

Especially if they've already set a precedent with feethamslad.

BishopQuaker - 27th July 2010 13:19:02

I wonder how many people actually signed up to it.

shawry_99 - 27th July 2010 13:23:13

BishopQuaker wrote:

I wonder how many people actually signed up to it.

Dont know, but the season before last when it was every game, it seems the Darlo broadcast was always beset with problems that the other games never had, and would often be late starting.

But being able to listen to every game for the small cost it had wasnt a bad investment.

Santino - 27th July 2010 14:14:21

I had a subscription a couple of seasons back, was good for commentary for away games and also highlights and goals from the past several years.

wylam_rangers - 27th July 2010 14:33:33

Quakerz wrote:

aveda wrote:

That's bollocks to say they didn't care. The coverage on DAB was still there and was excellent. Do Tees need to spend money covering a club that has very little support ? No, but they do.

Did they provide live and uninterrupted commentary on DAB? I do not have a DAB so do not know.

They did not provide live and uninterrupted internet coverage for every match, like all the other radio stations.

Rule of thumb was that Boro had FM and Poolies and us shared DAB.
If Boro had no game Poolies moved to FM and we had exclusive DAB or if Poolies had no game, again we had exclusive DAB.
If neither were playing we were on both FM and DAB.
Call it a pecking order if you like.

Quakerz - 27th July 2010 14:37:26

I am asking if Pools commentary was provided through Radio Tees on the PTV web service?

I'm not interested in the DAB element and who shared with who because that is not the subject that we are talking about.

BBC_TEES - 28th July 2010 04:51:28

Hello…

Following on from James's post and the replies I'd just like to clarify some issues.
BBC Tees, along with every other BBC local radio station, is NOT contractually obliged to provide commentaries for PTV websites.
The agreement between the two parties is very clear.
If the radio station in question provides full-match commentary on a match on its radio frequencies then IT IS allowed to provide a feed of that to PTV for use on club websites - this enables us to provide a feed of Middlesbrough games to http://www.mfc.co.uk.
If the station doesn't broadcast full-match commentary then IT IS NOT allowed to provide a feed to PTV - this is why we were unable to provide Darlington matches to Quakers World last season.
The BBC can't provide content which appears exclusively on paid for websites and not on its own services; that is not value for money for licence fee payers.
It's also completely wrong to say that BBC Local Radio provides commentaries to all PTV sites. For example Hartlepool United provide their own commentary and they're not alone in the Football League in doing so.
The price charged for the Quakers World service has absolutely nothing to do with the BBC, which makes no money at all from providing commentaries to the sites, it is done on a good will basis.
The argument put forward which suggests that "They were basically too tight to fork out on the insignificant Darlo last year" is also complete nonsense.
It didn't cost us any less to provide the level of coverage we did last season.
We still had to pay Darlington a fee to cover their games and we still had to pay Ray Simpson to go to cover the games.
We didn't save a penny by not making the games available to PTV.
Again, as I stressed earlier, we are NOT allowed to do that unless we are carrying full-match commentary on BBC Tees at the same time.
I have spoken at length about this matter with both Christine Balford before she left the club and with Damon Shaw subsequently.
They both understood the reasons I gave for not being able to provide a feed of the commentary so something must have been lost in the translation when they put the blame at our door.
I hope this has helped to clear things up.
I don't like doing business through messageboards as all too often untruths are presented as fact but I thought it important to make the above points.

Kind Regards,
Paul Addison,
Sports Editor,
BBC Tees.

Quakerz - 28th July 2010 07:04:12

Paul, thanks for your reply, but if it cost just as much to NOT give us full match commentary, why not just give us full match commentary?

You seem to be saying, unless I misunderstand, that you cannot provide a feed to PTV if you are not giving full match commentary on the station, is this correct?

This didn't seem to to be a problem in the previous 4 or 5 years that I subscribed to PTV and got full match commentary, even though it wasn't available always on the radio (If full match commentary WAS on the radio or web, I would not have needed to subscribe to PTV for commentary would I?)

How come not providing commentary due to the excuses you've put forward only became an issue last season?

Quakerz - 28th July 2010 07:07:10

BBC_TEES wrote:

Hello…

Following on from James's post and the replies I'd just like to clarify some issues.
BBC Tees, along with every other BBC local radio station, is NOT contractually obliged to provide commentaries for PTV websites.
The agreement between the two parties is very clear.
If the radio station in question provides full-match commentary on a match on its radio frequencies then IT IS allowed to provide a feed of that to PTV for use on club websites - this enables us to provide a feed of Middlesbrough games to http://www.mfc.co.uk.
If the station doesn't broadcast full-match commentary then IT IS NOT allowed to provide a feed to PTV - this is why we were unable to provide Darlington matches to Quakers World last season.
The BBC can't provide content which appears exclusively on paid for websites and not on its own services; that is not value for money for licence fee payers.
It's also completely wrong to say that BBC Local Radio provides commentaries to all PTV sites. For example Hartlepool United provide their own commentary and they're not alone in the Football League in doing so.
The price charged for the Quakers World service has absolutely nothing to do with the BBC, which makes no money at all from providing commentaries to the sites, it is done on a good will basis.
The argument put forward which suggests that "They were basically too tight to fork out on the insignificant Darlo last year" is also complete nonsense.
It didn't cost us any less to provide the level of coverage we did last season.
We still had to pay Darlington a fee to cover their games and we still had to pay Ray Simpson to go to cover the games.
We didn't save a penny by not making the games available to PTV.
Again, as I stressed earlier, we are NOT allowed to do that unless we are carrying full-match commentary on BBC Tees at the same time.
I have spoken at length about this matter with both Christine Balford before she left the club and with Damon Shaw subsequently.
They both understood the reasons I gave for not being able to provide a feed of the commentary so something must have been lost in the translation when they put the blame at our door.
I hope this has helped to clear things up.
I don't like doing business through messageboards as all too often untruths are presented as fact but I thought it important to make the above points.

Kind Regards,
Paul Addison,
Sports Editor,
BBC Tees.

PS Christine Balford and Damon Shaw did not blame Radio Tees, PTV did when Darlo fans were asking them why the commentary they had subscribed to was not available.

BillinghamPoolie - 28th July 2010 09:12:19

Full match commentary on all Pools matches is provided on Pools World, or Pools Player as it is now known, in house with Media Manager Mark Simpson and usually one of the injured/out of favour players chipping in with comments. But on the odd occasion when Mark has not been available, or there has been a problem with their communications, then the inestimable Ivan Ash's BBC coverage is fed out to us Poolies. I'm fairly certain this didn't always occur only if BBC Tees were already doing full match commentary. Because, as all your fans know, a full coverage of either of our matches on local radio is rarer than hen's teeth.

wylam_rangers - 28th July 2010 09:41:48

I wonder if Martin Walker - the all singing/dancing media guru - intends to correct this for the coming season. He seems to be using the website regularly now.

Quakerz - 28th July 2010 09:43:16

Intends to correct what?

wylam_rangers - 28th July 2010 09:48:25

Quakerz wrote:

Intends to correct what?

The absence of commentary on the Q player. See above - poolies do most of it in-house via their media manager. Kev Luff mentioned that was an option last year but we didn't have the infrastructure in place.

Quakerz - 28th July 2010 09:52:53

As long as we are a non league team there is no need to set up commentary on Quakers player as you can listen on the BBC.

The problems will arise again if and when we get into the league.

feethamslad - 9th August 2010 08:58:01

The information on the provision of commentary by Radio Tees looks good. However, if past experience is anything to go by, it's likely that BBC commentary over the internet will be blocked for listeners with anything other than a UK IP address.

As I'm overseas quite often, Quakers Player is still my only option. Despite my problems last season as documented earlier in this thread, I'm willing to give them another go.

I e mailed the 'customerservices' address on Quakers Player with the following:

Quote:

08/08/10: Last season the Darlington commentary either failed or was not provided on numerous occasions. Please can you advise if this situation has now been rectified prior to me signing up for the 2010-11 season?

and I've received the following (very prompt!) reply:

Quote:

08/08/10: Thank you for contacting us, The service is improved this year, there should be no problems with the commentaries. Kind Regards, Web Support

I would be most grateful if anyone who had subscribed to Quakers Player for this season would let me know whether or not the commentary service does work this Saturday before I commit to subscribing.

Many thanks.

Quakerz - 9th August 2010 09:04:13

As a guess I'd say it will do this season because PTV will get the feed from Radio Tees who are providing web commentary this year. The problem last year was that there wasn't a live web feed thanks to Radio Tees and their unconvincing excuses.

MKDarlo - 9th August 2010 12:40:50

BBC_TEES wrote:

Earlier in the summer I said we'd update you with BBC Tees' plans for Darlington coverage for this forthcoming season.

As promised, we'll continue to provide coverage of matches home and away, league and cup which though I say it myself, is miles ahead of anyone else who might claim to cover the club. I hope you'll agree that our recent live programme from the Arena v Sunderland, phone-in with Mark Cooper and all-round comprehensive coverage of the club proves we are committed as ever, despite last season's relegation.

So this season you'll be able to receive full, uninterrupted commentary of each match through our website http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees with Ray Simpson. In addition, you will still be able to hear scores updates along with half-time and full-time reports on 95FM and DAB digital radio (on DAB we will have additional reports).

On Saturdays (on all frequencies) we will still have the team news from 2pm, the post-match interview with Mark Cooper after 6pm and if you miss that, the interview will be on the BBC Tees website a few hours after full-time. You'll also be able to hear coverage of the team through the week on BBC Tees Sport, 6-8pm.

On occasions when Darlington are the only local team playing, then we will continue to put the commentary on all frequencies.

We feel this means Darlington commentary will be available to as many listeners as possible as we are allowed to broadcast Conference Premier matches on our website (unlike Football League matches).

As ever, we'd always welcome your feedback and feel free to get in touch - our email address is tees.sport@bbc.co.uk.

On a slightly separate note, I must admit to being very impressed so far with Mark Cooper and his assistant Richard Dryden. Both seem very knowledgeable footballing individuals and good people so lets hope this is a season remembered for the right reasons.

All the best,

James Mountford
BBC Tees Sport

This seems like a very good service and will be very warmly accepted down here in
MK - last season I couldnt go to many games becuase of my financial woe and I have to say the DAB service was very good even if we had to share it with out "friends" from Hartlepool - lets be honest the BBC are the only people who bother to cover us in any depth and lets not forget they could just say sod them lets concentrate on Boro and a bit of Pools, we dont want or need to know about Darlo

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