Sportscall
Contents |
Host
Danny Baker (1990-1993)
Dominik Diamond (1993-2000)
Jamie Theakston (regular stand-in)
Broadcast
BBC Radio 5, 2 September 1990 to 25 March 1994
BBC Radio Five Live, 1994 to 2000 (independent production in final years)
Synopsis
Sportscall was originally created as a cheap piece of radio to fill the gap between Radio 5's Saturday morning children's programes and the afternoon's sports commentaries. Items included the phone-in quiz, alphabet quiz, archive quiz and sudden death quiz. It soon emerged that listeners weren't tuning in for the games - topics such as "name the year" / "what happened next" / "who am I describing" were familiar to viewers of A Question of Sport. No, people were tuning in because the presenter, Danny Baker, was making the show entertainment, even for people who didn't really like sport.
In 1991, Baker was given an after-match phone-in show, 606, and became Radio 5's breakfast presenter in 1992. He moved to Radio 1 in late 1993, creating a vacancy for the lunchtime sports quiz. Dominik Diamond turned out to be the presenter to continue in Baker's footsteps. Already a familiar voice from Gamesmaster, Diamond expanded the programme's range, making it as much a commentary on the week's sports news as a phone-in quiz.
Diamond hosted a spin-off show, Newscall, which was not renewed after a four-week broadcast pilot in 1994. He remained with the original programme until it came to a natural end in 2000.
