SCRUM V SHOWS PULLED BY BBC WALES DESPITE FULL LIST OF WELSH REGIONAL MATCHES

BBC Wales are not broadcasting episodes of Scrum V during the fallow weekends of the Six Nations, despite full fixture lists in the URC involving the Welsh regions.

The weekly magazine programme, hosted by Lauren Jenkins and boasting on-air talent such as Tom Shanklin and Jonathan Davies, has been broadcasting round-up shows on each of the Sundays following Wales' opening Six Nations fixtures with Scotland and England, as well as a show the Sunday prior to the tournament starting.

There will also be a show this Sunday, reacting to Wales' clash with Ireland in Dublin. However, both of the fallow weekends during this year's Six Nations will pass by without the programme being broadcast.

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Despite a full round of United Rugby Championship action featuring all four Welsh sides last weekend, no highlights show was broadcast by the channel.

There are also no plans to broadcast a highlights programme next weekend, despite Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets all having matches, with a feeling that the channel are perhaps cutting back on their coverage.

Next Friday's clash between Ospreys and Edinburgh will be televised by BBC Wales, just as the Friday night game between Scarlets and Munster was last week.

Since 2021, BBC Wales have held the rights for 18 live Friday night matches - one per round in the URC - as well as highlights for their Sunday show. The return to terrestrial TV came after a couple of years of the league being exclusively on a subscription channel.

Even when Viaplay - then known as Premier Sports - held the exclusive live broadcast rights, BBC Wales still retained the rights to the highlights.

While no specific reason was given for the lack of programmes on these weekends when asked, a spokesperson for BBC Wales said: “Scrum V is taking a break on Sunday the 18th February and 3rd March in line with the Six Nations weekends.

"Scrum V will be back this Sunday with the Six Nations Special featuring guests Rhys Priestland, James Hook and Alex Cuthbert and expert analysis from Sean Holley on the Ireland v Wales game. Highlights of the URC matches featuring Welsh clubs are available on BBC Wales Sport Online”

It should be noted that there have been other occasions this year when Scrum V has not been broadcast. Prior to the start of the Six Nations, there were a number of Sundays without an episode - due to the BBC not having rights for Champions Cup or Challenge Cup highlights.

The fact that the festive derbies, which the BBC do have highlights rights for as part of the URC, fell on weekdays this season would also have resulted in no Sunday show being broadcast.

However, these two Six Nations fallow weekends are different, given the action took place on the weekend and was readily available for the BBC to broadcast on a Sunday, as it normally would. This is understood to be the only changes of this nature to the Scrum V schedule so far.

Any Ospreys fans looking to watch back the highlights of their dramatic win over Ulster would have been left disappointed with coverage of the Welsh Open snooker instead being broadcast.

Next week, Gregg Wallace's Inside the Factory and the World Indoor Athletics Championship will be shown in Scrum V's usual 6pm timeslot.

2024-02-23T17:18:34Z dg43tfdfdgfd