One of the defining elements of Welsh culture is our passion around sport.
BBC Wales Sport is at the heart of portraying global events and moments of national significance – and long may it continue.
We deliver news of triumphs and tribulations to millions of people each week - whether online, on radio or television, at home or abroad. Four in ten adults use at least one of these platforms monthly.
We gather the nation together around key events like the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. Incredibly, the Six Nations rugby tournament reaches 69% of the entire population in Wales, while the TV audience for Welsh internationals sometimes exceeding one million viewers. That’s why we’re fighting so hard to retain the broadcasting rights to the Six Nations amid stiff competition from other broadcasters.
And, we also help you catch-up with things like the Welsh football teams Euro qualifying campaign; Swansea City’s progress in the Premier League; Cardiff City’s travails in the Championship and Wrexham’s FA Trophy agony. There’s also superstar, Gareth Bale at Real Madrid and mountain biker Manon Carpenter’s defence of her World Championship title.
This weekend the spotlight falls on our rugby regions who compete in the Guinness Pro12 Judgement Day at the Millennium Stadium which is live on BBC Two Wales, S4C, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and bbc.co.uk/sportwales.
The challenges regional rugby faces are well documented in terms of money and budgets and the competition from France and England. The new chairman of the WRU, Gareth Davies has appealed to the public to rally around the event on the back of a fantastic Six Nations. The event is on target to break attendance records – hopefully beating the Millennium Stadium figure for the 2009 Heineken Cup semi-final between Cardiff Blues and Leicester Tigers.
Derbies are always a feisty affair but World Cup year has added extra spice. The Dragons will want to bounce back from their European hammering against Edinburgh. The Scarlets are fighting to finish in the top six to qualify for Champions Cup rugby, while the Ospreys are again flying the flag for Wales in the Pro 12. They deserve great credit for being consistently the best of the regions, with an outstanding talent production line.
Technically, it’s an engineering and logistical challenge to broadcast – one that we meet each week of the season – but with the excitement of two successive games to bring to our audiences. First up is The Blues v Ospreys on BBC Two Wales @ 2.15pm followed by The Dragons v Sacrlets on S4C @ 4.30pm. It has the makings of a fantastic event. We’re very much looking forward to it.
Our television viewers will see Hawkeye in action on a BBC Wales outside broadcast for the first time – adding another dimension to our already extensive match coverage, which even includes a camera on the referee’s chest!
Specific planning for the occasion started months ago as soon as the WRU and the Pro12 announced the date and kick off times.
While we are regular visitors to the Millennium Stadium for international rugby, the two-match format, with the second match kicking off only thirty minutes or so after the opener has ended, means that our presentation, commentary, production and engineering teams have an even busier day in front of them than normal. Their expertise is amongst the best in the world.
In fact, our technical team will have spent the whole day before Judgement Day itself putting all of our equipment in place and testing everything so that we are ready to go with our final checks on Saturday morning.
Equipment such as cameras and microphones will be placed in all parts of the stadium – and some where we would not normally go, like high on the roof, giving a birds-eye view of the stadium.
Our programmes on BBC Wales and S4C will be on for almost five hours, but our work doesn’t stop when the closing pictures end on S4C’s broadcast at 6.45pm. Those cameras and microphones don’t make their own way down from the gantry - it will be late into the night before everything is back in our trucks and returned to our base in Llandaff.
But that’s all part of the job, and we know how privileged we are to bring the top sporting occasions to the BBC Wales audiences.
Have I mentioned that you can watch all the highlights on Scrum V on Sunday teatime….?!
