The BBC has snubbed a world record attempt by Olympic golden girl Keely Hodgkinson on its main terrestrial channels in favour of showing a film it aired as recently in October 2024 and a repeat of Flog It!
It had been hoped inside athletics circles that the BBC would grant prime time to Hodgkinson’s attempt on the 800m world indoor record on Saturday – especially after she attracted 9.1m viewers when winning gold in Paris and went on to win the Sports Personality of the Year award in December.
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However when she attempts the record at 4.30pm on Saturday, BBC1 will be showing the weekly football results round-up show, Final Score, while BBC2 will show the film Mr Malcolm’s List before switching to Flog It, a show that was discontinued in May 2020.
What makes the decision more surprising is that the BBC has actually acquired the TV rights to the Keely Klassic, a new event in Birmingham where Hodgkinson will headline and attempt to break a record that has stood for 23 years. However it has decided to relegate it to its iPlayer streaming platform.
While some viewers may enjoy the sight of seeing the Flog It! team searching for collectibles at London Zoo again, athletics insiders are privately stunned at the decision. Some have pointed out that showing Hodgkinson’s attempt at the start of Final Score, for instance, would have attracted hundreds of thousands of casual fans to the sport.
It is not as if Hodgkinson is not a major star either. Last year after the Paris Olympics, the BBC published a press release that stated: “Keely Hodgkinson’s gold medal in the women’s 800m final was the most watched event with 9.1million viewers on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.” The BBC showed the majority of the 14 Diamond League events on BBC2 last year as well.
Several other British female Olympic stars including the 1500m bronze medallist, Georgia Bell, will also be competing in Birmingham and shunting the event to the BBC iPlayer risks raises questions regarding the corporation’s commitment to promoting women’s sport. In the BBC’s Royal Charter there is also a requirement to “broaden sports coverage, to better support sports which currently receive less broadcast coverage”.
A BBC source said that the corporation had to make difficult decisions every day and not everything could be broadcast on linear TV. They added that the Keely Klassic would be available on BBC iPlayer, making it easily accessible to a huge digital audience across the UK.
