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

What? More long-lived than The Archers' theme tune? Surely not

That's not a TV theme

Hmm... When did News at Ten start? That can't be far behind Sportsnight if Sportsnight is still running and still using the same music.

We're not just talking TV themes though are we??? I thought it was radio as well - so long as it's BBC of course.

Mind you, I don't think the Archers could be termed 'sporting' by any stretch of the imagination.

I enjoyed the entry btw Stu

Half a mo - what about the music they use over the closing credits for Wimbledon? It's some kind of military march.

Y'know, a little bit of research will get you the name of the Pot Black rag, and its composer, and a bit more will get you the date that Sportsnight started

I think if you look on the BBC website - at that link I gave earlier - you'll be able to discover a lot of the answers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/titles/grandstand.shtml

There's a slightly longer clip of that somewhere on the BBC website cos I remember seeing Coleman stroll into shot.

Hokey cokey, I've made some of those recommendations.

I think I've described the cricket/Test Match Special theme quite well - used for TV coverage until they lost the rights, and still used for TMS.

Added a section on Sportsnight. How does it look?

Also added a sentence about the closing theme for Wimbledon.

Having problems getting information on the different Olympics themes. I think this might be pushing it a little!

The Olympics thing was only a suggestion.

I would suggest moving the Superstars section to either just before or following the Sportsnight section, since both are programs not sports in themselves. Actually, thinking about it, there are quite a few of these, aren't there? MOTD and Grandstand too. Maybe not then.

Also, is there any info on the music used by the Beeb for non-Wimbledon tennis coverage? It's definietly a different tune.

And a good one at that! The problem is with a lot of these (Olympics themes and other programs in general) is lack of info. Some have none, some only have the composer and track title, which isn't really enough.

I'll take a look at the order, definitely could be better.

I'll have a look for the tennis theme.

Thanks!

News at Ten - first broadcast 3 July, 1967.

Actually, thanks to BBC Archives, here's a bit more info.


Grandstand - first broadcast 11 October, 1958.

Match of the Day - first broadcast 22 August, 1964 (Liverpool v Arsenal, Liverpool won, 3-2)

Snooker - "and was played by Radio One's Chris Moyles." Are you saying he played the theme on his show, or are you making the slightly less easy-to-believe claim that he was the musician responsible? If it's the latter, it might be a claim worth backing up.

Ski Sunday, first tx: 15 January, 1978

first tx. of "SUPERSTARS" (BBC-1) 19 November, 1975

Sportsnight, first tx - 12 September, 1968

London Marathon - The bit about Ron Goodwin needs to be in the past tense; he died on 8 January 2003. Do you have any idea if he wrote the music for the very first London marathon, which would have been the one staged on 29 March, 1981?

Make sure all the TV show titles are in italics, by the way

You still at work, Jimster?

Yep. It's 20 minutes to go before hometime

Boo, hiss...

Yeah, I think it would be a good idea to separate the entry into sports shows like Grandstand, Sportsnight etc, and themes for specific sports like Pot Black, Ski Sunday, Formula One.

You say the ITV F1 theme is by the musician Jamiroquai, but the musician is Jay Kay (or however he spells it), the band is Jamiroquai...

Think I've all those changes made now. Not happy with the titles of the headers though, any suggestions?

Shouldn't MotD and Ski Sunday be under the first one?

You could change the second header to "Sporting Coverage" I suppose. Maybe you could explain in the intro about there being specialised shows *reporting* sports news, and general sports coverage.

Also, you don't really need this bit now it's been structured differently "Whilst not a sport in itself,". (Can't remember what it was about, sorry).