h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, sport interrupts the viewing pleasures of us non-sports fans. I recall a particular time in the mid '90s where BBC2 didn't show Star Trek (then one of my favourite programmes) due to cricket running overtime I believe. A little give and take is required, and a little comeback. Of course, in these days of 5 million dedicated sports channels this should be becoming less of a problem, especially as (for us Brits) Sky has most of the sport (well, cricket anyway) rather than the BBC, but 'tis not always the case (Live 8 coverage doesn't switch channels at the correct time due to extented tennis coverage, for example?) Time the Beeb got it's own sports channel.

N.B. this will probably make little sense to Americans, but I suppose you get the point!

i think the difference is that live sports is only ever once live sports. you can re run just about anything else and the only consequence to the viewer is that they don't get what they want when they want. a replay of a sporting event is never the same.

Yes, but then, isn't Live 8 live only once? Then again, not showing the sport until later spoils the excitement of waiting to see what the result is, whilst for Live 8, as long as they got plenty of signitures for the petition in good time, it wouldn't matter if it got repeated. Other music events I suppose probably woudn't matter.

The real problem is that sport seems to be so much of a big thing to many people. There is only so much to be gained from people pointlessly running around throwing/kicking/whacking balls/pucks/shuttlecocks from one to another in order to score a goal or whatever. Especially if your man or team never wins, which in the case of England it rarely does.