JohnMc

When Border was taken over by Granada it lost a lot of its local identity. News programmes were broadcast from Tyne Tees in Newcastle for example. But they do currently produce a daily news and current affairs programme from Carlisle and have a local advertising office there as well. It's not the same station it once was though, a similar thing is happening to Ulster TV too. It's progress, apparently...

I'm lost by this argument. Should BBC Alba only cover the Lewis and Harris local league then? I've lost count of the posts on here complaining about commentary and summarisers, I'd have thought ones you can't understand would be a welcome relief!

Border TV was bought by Granada TV, the Manchester based ITV franchise nearly 20 years ago now, they in turn merged with Carlton consolidating the ownership of all ITV regional franchises with the exception of STV and Grampian TV. Border TV has most definitely not been replaced by BBC Alba. If someone lives in the Border TV broadcast region that's the ITV channel they'll get. Your X Factors, your Coronation Streets and your local regional news will all be broadcast, free to air, on Border TV. BBC Alba is a digital only channel, it's available on Freeview as well as the other digital and satellite broadcasters, but it doesn't replace anyone's ITV channel Gonzo, you're mistaken on that. In my opinion funding something like BBC Alba, and minority language broadcasting, is exactly what the BBC budget should be spent on. I don't think the BBC should be spending licence fees on chasing Saturday night ratings, they should leave that to the many commercial channels. I mean we can discuss whether a specific Gaelic language TV channel can stem the drop in speakers or whether that requires other governmental involvement, but I'm puzzled why we should criticise it for showing lower league Scottish football, that's being ignored by all other broadcasters currently.

I read that there is some editorial attempt at providing balance in the Question Time audience, so someone from Scotland who openly supports UKIP is more likely to get a ticket as there are fewer applicants from that political persuasion applying up here. Hence the same person appearing more than once. I suspect Stuart Cosgrove already knew that, and if he didn't it wouldn't be hard to find out, he's fairly well connected in media and Question Time is produced in Glasgow. I can't watch Question Time, it makes me want to emigrate. I forgot to turn on the tranny last night, how was last night's gutsy, plucky performance from wee Celtic heralded by the great and the good?

Sanjeev Kholi can be funny and is actually, believe it or not, quite a decent guy, but I'm not sure Benburb social club is his natural habitat.

The "second highest weekly reach" statement is disingenuous. The only commercial stations that can possibly compete on 'reach' are Talksport and Classic FM and neither of those stations produces Scotland only content. Their commercial competitors, such as Clyde, Forth, Capital etc are regional stations and so have a much lower potential reach to begin with. Radio Scotland massively underperforms, taking only 6.7% of its potential audience. A station like Clyde 1 reaches 14% as a comparison. BBC Radio Ulster, the equivalent BBC station in Northern Ireland, has 19.9% of audience share in their market. The problem I have with BBC Scotland is its disproportionate influence on Scottish football. By holding exclusive radio rights and TV highlights it has a monopoly for anyone without access to BT or Sky TV. If Radio Scotland continue to refuse to cover Rangers equally they should be forced to allow other stations to provide a coverage.

One light moment in this is the embedded Tweets at the bottom of the article. One is from the Chris McLaughlin parody account.

The difference between the Morelos and Lennon coverage proves my point I feel. It's the media that shout 'sectarianism' at supporters criticising Lennon, the media don't criticise him, he gets a complete bye from our media to behave in any way he wants. When supporters, rightly, pull him and them up the bigotry accusation is levelled. White, Irish Lennon doesn't get called a devil, an animal or a nut job by our media. The difference here is it's the media who are demonising Morelos, who are cheerleading his transformation from the most exciting prospect in our league to something that crept out of Dante's circles of hell. I've no real issue with opposition supporters hating Morelos, that just proves he's doing his job and makes me love him even more. The media should be much fairer though, and they simply aren't and that a disgrace.

I heard a fair bit of that programme too. That annoying question aside I quite enjoyed it, the Ross County and ICT guys came across well and, at times, spoke a lot of sense particularly regarding young players. Plus every time I hear the Roos County owner McGregor speak I'm more convinced he's really a bluenose. One thing that did come over fairly clearly was that everyone there has Morelos rightly receiving a red card. No dissenting voices on that, only McGregor saying he hadn't seen it and couldn't comment.

Okay, let's say it's not about his colour for a moment. One of this morning's papers describes Morelos as a "devil" and another as a "nut job" in their back page headlines. I'm sorry, but if national paper had described Neil Lennon as a 'devil' or a 'nut job' there would have been questions in parliament about it. If it's not about his race and it's not about his nationality then why isn't young Scott McKenna being described as a devil and a nut job? After all he was also sent off last night and not for the first time this season. As I said above Lewis Ferguson also seems to be getting judged by different standards. I'm unsure wether this is a case of straightforward racism because of his colour or, more likely, racism around his nationality and background. Funny looking South American who doesn't speak much English, hey lets start with the comedy Manuel stuff, stick in a few narcos/cartel jibes and, oh look, he doesn't like getting intimidated by big defenders, must be a typical Latin hothead, let's throw that in too. It's lazy, racist bullshit and we should be calling it out every time it's used. The story of last night's match wasn't Morelos being sent off, it was his total dominance of the Aberdeen defence up until that point. Last night was a great advertisement for our league. It was competitive, exciting, fast, it had moments of brilliance and moments of farce.

I actually thought Jack had a great match, quietly effective in the first 80 minutes then making lung bursting runs to break up play, peg Aberdeen back and indeed for the 4th goal in the last 10 plus injury time. Anyway, see when Lewis Ferguson (young, white and Scottish) put his boot, deliberately, into Allan McGregor this was, rightly, described as retribution. Fair enough. So where are the headlines today describing the young man as an animal, a hot head or indeed a devil? I mean Morelos (young, black and Columbian) was sent off at Pittodrie on the first match of the season it was for attempted retribution, wasn't it? I'm not sure what it is about the two players that could be clouding the media's view on this. Two very similar incidents, although Morelos of course didn't actually make any contact with his kick while Ferguson could have ended McGregor's season.

This was a Tweet this morning. Again, it's cryptic, but heavily suggesting Rangers are preventing some sort resumption of normal service.

I noticed earlier that Graeme Speirs is suggesting BBC Scotland have changed their stance on this. I'd post the Tweet but I'm buggered if I know how too!

Condolences Graham, I hope you and your family are managing at this difficult time.

I For all they've lost Stewart and he was an important player for them I was still impressed with their January signings. Alex Bruce should be more than capable at SPFL level, the young lad from Liverpool seems to be rated very highly and Mulumbu was one of their best players last season, getting him back is a good bit of business. I wouldn't discount them just yet, they'll beat most sides particularly at home.

Clarke's talking about refs and Rangers because that means he doesn't need to explain how his side lost to Hearts on Friday.

I did the Football Aid Rangers charity match towards the end of that season. We got a 'training session' at Auchenhowie as an extra surprise, Bobby Russell and a couple of the youth coaches putting a diverse mixture of supporters through a really enjoyable couple of hours on the pitches followed by a tour of the facility. In the 1st team dressing room there was a noticeboard. On it there was a memo from McLeish to all the players warning them that it was compulsory to eat lunch together after training. It had come to his attention that some players were sloping off straight after training and that they were a team and there was a league to win and he expected everyone to be focussed on that. We all read it and all had the same opinion; nae chance. Couldn't see Celtic slipping up. A further reminder that I know very little about football.

Well he's got Tav clear on the right for a flighted pass, Halliday is pulling away from his man onto the left, Jack can come short for a quick pass to feet and back to Worrell again to create space in behind him, McAuley can come to him either taking the pass or drawing the attacker creating even more space for Tav and of course McGregor is clear behind him. He had options, he just wanted too much time and took none of them.

Yes, money and reputation will always hold a huge appeal I agree, but maybe some will think twice as it's not like smaller EPL sides, far less German ones, are paying YTS salaries. I've certainly not judged Gilmour as a player, just his choice of club to join. There will always be outliers however Chelsea in particular are terrible at promoting young players into their first team. Indeed Chelsea's entire youth set up seems to be geared to create players to sell to smaller clubs and generate income, rather than create players to play for Chelsea. Fair enough if that is their strategy, but it's a cold, heartless one and goes against my views on what football is about. That said so much of modern football appals me that my transformation into Victor Meldrew is almost complete.

Our system nullified our full backs last night. Tav in particular really missed Candeias and so we missed our right flank. I was surprised Dafoe started, I assumed he'd be a player we used from the bench, either to replace Morelos after he'd ran himself ragged or to change formation for the last 15 mins if we're chasing a goal. Kilmarnock played well though, their number 8 was the best player on the pitch I thought, he controlled the midfield and the tempo of the match. Jones had an outstanding spell in the second half, I was really impressed by him having previously been a bit meh about him. I do think though that it was just one of those nights. We gifted them the first and the second, although from 25 yards I don't think he should be able to score, but they didn't create much apart from that whereas their keeper had a couple of good saves and we'd one off the post and a penalty claim that on another day would have been given. It's frustrating and we really didn't work hard enough or smart enough, but let's not overreact, there's still a long way to go and other teams will drop points at Rugby Park too.

With the recent trend of young English players leaving Man City for first team football elsewhere, I wonder if the English super-rich clubs might start to find it harder to attract the Billy Gilmours of this world. If someone like Ruben Loftus Cheek, an established England international, can't get into the Chelsea first team, what message does that send to the youth coming through below him? I thought Gilmour was badly advised at the time and nothing I've seen since has changed my mind. He'd have been much better off either staying with us or moving to Southampton or Everton or a side with a track record of promoting and nurturing youth, he'd still have been handsomely rewarded.

Great preview 26th, bravo. Tonight will be first away match of the season and my first trip to Rugby Park in a very long time. Hope the match is as good as the preview.

Bump.

It's strange signing as by all accounts Stewart didn't do all that well their last season. Maybe Aberdeen just want to weaken Kilmarnock in case they pip them to third...

The thought of one of our players helping Dundee Utd get promoted just sticks in my craw, as someone else said I'd rather we gave him to Ayr, Ross County or ICT, and if Hardie is going out on loan again give them him too. Dundee Utd's self inflicted spell in purgatory has often been the only moment of light relief in the last few seasons. I was reading and interview with their new American owner this week, I do so hope he turns out to be a charlatan intent on asset stripping and selling their ground to Tesco.