Complain to the BBC

I am writing to complain about the level of coverage the BBC gives the sport of hockey.

Each year we are subjected to many hours of coverage of football, recently increased due to there now being both Match of the Day and the Football League Show at the weekends, and doubtless will see even more this year with the world cup in South Africa.

We also see many hours of rugby, cricket, athletics, snooker and even darts as well as some coverage of other sports.

Currently the Winter Olympics are being covered in depth as are summer Olympics and Commonwealth Games when they are on. This is to be expected and is greatly welcomed by anyone interested in sport generally.

However, last summer England's men's hockey team won the EuroHockey Nations by beating world and Olympic champions Germany yet there was barely a sniff of this on the BBC news, let alone any actual match coverage on TV, and even on the website it was well hidden.

This month sees the start of the 2010 men's hockey world cup with England ranked 6th in the world (England's men's football team are currently ranked 9th) yet I am given to understand there will be no coverage on the BBC. I have been reliably informed by the FIH that the licence for showing the world cup was not expensive and they are puzzled as to why no channels have picked it up.

By comparison we have seen a stream of Ice Hockey, a very minor sport in this country, coverage at the Olympics including such titanic encounters as Belarus vs Sweden and Latvia vs Slovakia.

When hockey coverage does make it onto the BBC, such as at the Olympics, it is usually hidden away on the red button channels 3 or 4 which are not available on Freeview. Even then the coverage of a key GB women's match did not begin at the start of the match as the BBC felt that two foreign men playing a non-crucial badminton match was more important.

Hockey is the second largest team sport in the world by number of players yet the BBC's sports website has it listed under 'Other sport' whilst the front page carries links for: Football and World Cup football (surely one link would suffice), Olympics and Vancouver 2010 (again surely one link would cover both), Rugby Union and Rugby League (perhaps just Rugby would cover it) as well as other sports that would have to be considered minor.

Whilst I applaud the BBC for showing so much sport the lack of coverage given to hockey is unacceptable given its size and standing in this country and the world.

Yours sincerely,

I understand that you are very disappointed with the coverage that the BBC gives to hockey. You feel the BBC inaccurately believes that hockey is a minority sport.

While we try to provide a wide range of sports across our television output that will be of interest to every section of our audience, there will inevitably be times, hopefully rare, when what is on offer does not meet your own particular interests.

The sporting calendar and the success or otherwise of our bids for rights to coverage determines what will inevitably be an erratic schedule of sport.

Nevertheless, the BBC always appreciates feedback from our viewers in order to improve our schedules. Therefore, I'd like to say I've registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

All feedback we receive, whether positive or negative, is always valued.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact the BBC with your concerns.

Regards

BBC Complaints