The BBC are to screen MotoGP next weekend behind the Red Button, schedules reveal. I will be honest and say that I’m incredibly unimpressed with this one, especially in their last season of coverage before handing to BT Sport next season. They normally move the Assen race around a bit, but that in my view is fair game as that does clash with Wimbledon and tends to clash with Qualifying for the British Grand Prix in Formula 1. The Saturday schedules are as follows:

Saturday 14th September 2013
BBC One
13:00 – Live Athletics: Great City Games
14:30 to 16:30 – Triathlon: World Championship Series

BBC Two
12:45 – Caribbean Food Made Easy (R)
13:15 – University Challenge (R)
13:45 to 15:40 – EastEnders Omnibus (R)

On BBC Two, repeats take priority over MotoGP. Whether this is a case of they don’t want sport on two BBC channels at the same time, I don’t know. The Sunday schedule is as follows:

Sunday 15th September 2013
BBC One
09:30 – Live Athletics: Great North Run
13:30 – Sunday Politics
14:45 – Bargain Hunt (R)
15:30 to 16:15 – Flog It! (R)

BBC Two
12:15 – Sailing: America’s Cup Highlights
13:00 – Live Triathlon: World Series Final
15:45 – EastEnders Omnibus (R)
16:45 – Athletics: Great North Run Highlights
17:30 to 18:30 – Rugby League: Super League Play Offs

If you drawn a list of sporting priorities at the BBC, you can see from the above where MotoGP falls. Now, of course, they may have took the MotoGP decision based on the fact that they are not screening it live next year. Of course, they did bid for MotoGP next year, but BT Sport out bid them considerably. But it is a thoroughly disappointing decision, especially considering the level of coverage from Silverstone. It is difficult to see what else they could have done, unfortunately something had to give. Sunday Politics I believe has to be on BBC One because of the regional opt-outs which cannot be served on BBC Two.

Furthermore, looking at the schedules, I cannot see any repeat airing for the MotoGP on BBC One or BBC Two, or BBC Three for that matter later on Sunday or Monday. As with Qatar earlier this year, don’t expect British Eurosport to screen it live, either.

Update on September 12th – It turns out that BBC are repeating it on on BBC Two, in the early hours of Monday morning at 00:15 (England/NI), 00:30 (Wales) and 00:45 (Scotland). Thanks to @scott_gamer for the tip.

BBC Radio 5 Live have announced their scheduling plans for the British round of the MotoGP World Championship. The station, which normally does not cover the championship, will be covering the weekend’s events.

As revealed in May, Jennie Gow will be presenting the coverage alongside Tommy Hill, whilst Harry Stafford will be alongside Gow on the Friday. On the TV side of things, there will be an extra half an hour of build-up and an extra half an hour of reaction on race day. Disappointingly though, only qualifying will be live on BBC One (as it has been for the majority of the year), the race coverage is still on BBC Two. It would have been nice to have given it the BBC One Sunday slot, in my view.

Here are their coverage plans:

Thursday 29th August
20:30 to 21:30 – Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Friday 30th August
09:00 to 12:15 – Practice (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)

Sunday 1st September
13:00 to 14:00 – MotoGP Race (BBC Radio 5 Live)

I don’t know if BBC Radio covering it is a precursor to potentially covering the series next year when TV coverage moves to BT Sport next year, but time will tell.