Not Very Sporting

I wasn't aware that my TV licence fee funded a free-to-air sports channel.  But from tomorrow evening that's what BBC 1 effectively becomes for the duration of the Commonwealth Games.  Curiously, I always thought that the BBC's flagship TV channel was supposed to be a general entertainment channel offering a mix of factual, fictional and entertainment programming for the widest possible audience.  But not, it seems, when the BBC has secured the rights to what it deems a major sporting event.  I wouldn't mind, but the schedules have barely returned to some semblance of normality following the World cup and Wimbledon - and at least neither of those events took up the entire schedules of the BBC's main channel.  Moreover, it's just under two years since those of us not especially interested in sports had to put up with the London Olympics completely taking over the BBC.  At least it could be argued that the 2012 Olympics were a major event which engendered national interest.  The same certainly can't be said of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, despite the BBC's efforts to convince us otherwise, with the likes of the One Show being broadcast live from Glasgow, with the presenters surrounded by cheering crowds, apparently enraptured by the imminent arrival of the Games.  Well, maybe in Glasgow, the host city, they're celebrating, but most people outside of the old Empire's second city are even aware that the Commonwealth Games are happening.  They'll have a rude awakening when they try to tune in for EastEnders on BBC1 on Thursday and find some people running around and jumping instead.

It wouldn't be so bad if the BBC were offering any kind of alternative to their blanket coverage - three hours a night of BBC3 are annexed in addition to the main channel for Commonwealth Games coverage - and moving EastEnders and Holby City to BBC2 for the duration doesn't constitute an alternative schedule for those not interested in the sports.  I know that there are other, non-BBC channels which will retain their usual schedules for the duration, but that isn't the point.  I don't pay a TV licence fee for them.  This is a matter of principle, (the fact is that I don't even watch that much of BBC 1's prime time schedules most days), in that I feel that by indulging in this kind of blanket coverage of a single event, the BBC is failing in its obligations to the majority of its licence payers.  Trust me, the majority of us don't want a diet non-stop sport - if we did, we'd get a subscription to Sky Sports or BT Sport.  I wouldn't mind, but no other genre of programming gets this kind of treatment from the BBC. Hell, I like science fiction, but I can imagine the backlash if the BBC dedicated its main TV channel to broadcasting nothing but classic science fiction for eleven days.  Or even spent an entire weekend showing every minute of the annual World Science Fiction Convention.  Yes, I know, I'm being incredibly irritable, but the sort of assumption - everyone loves watching sport - the BBC is making is the sort of idiocy which really annoys me, just like their assumption that we all need to be force fed high art in the form of opera or theatre or whatever.  Anyway, I'm going to stop moaning, for now, and brace myself for eleven days of trying to avoid the Commonwealth Games.