One answer could be internet radio. One site, rfl affiliated and well advertised, every club broadcasting their games.

That is our hope that clubs will take notice of it and start schemes themselves and hopefully the RFL will take notice of well and assist other clubs in getting it up and running. A long way to go just yet though!

Come on lets support the RFL on this one. Rugby League needs all the positive media exposure it can get get so do your bit and keep Rugby League on our local radio stations. Also write to your local MP and ask for their support.

These BBC proposals have been around for months. I'm surprised it has taken the RFL so long to become active on it.
BBC Manc lost the ability to broadcast soccer and rugby when it ditched its medium waveband. BBC Merseyside still has mw, can and does go with commentaries on both sports. Whether the mw will continue we shall see.

Do please use the links provided to gain info and advise them of your thoughts. Also write to your local MP. If he/she are in a RL town then they will probably be on the case already.
I wrote to my MP months ago and she has sent me three updates to the present date. She contacted the Sec of State, Hunt, and his no2 Ed Vaizie (sp). Although I'm not living in a RL area she has been excellent.

Our friend Ray French address the All Party RL Parliamentary Committee and informed them in no uncertain terms what the BBC proposals would mean to local radio sport and Rugby League. Those MP's apparently had the head of BBC Radio Sport in front of them last week and absolutely toasted him. The Beeb are looking for around £5m of cuts from local radio out of a total budget of something like £2bn. They can find that amout elsewhere easily.
Please lobby the Beeb and write to your MP, it will make a difference.

Good idea - a modest levy on every club in SL could easily provide sufficient funding; it'd be like a modern version of the old pirate radio stations, except legal and better quality. Stick it to the man!

Why? Some people like to just pay their money and watch their team. Not everyone has the time or inclination to campaign and fight for justice, if they did they would probably enter politics.

Or become a superhero, like I did.

We'd end up with more coverage than we currently have, albeit in a less traditional form. Harder to advertise but much more dedicated coverage with no farting about for football scores and union coverage and better quality sound.

I have no idea of the viability of this by the way. Just, if we lose radio coverage completely this sounds like an ideal answer and would be worth discussion.

Would it be a first for british sport?

Very happy with the sports coverage here in East Yorkshire. Radio Humberside do their best to get all three pro clubs on the radio on a weekend. Both FM and MW have seperate games on if the two clubs are playing at the same time (home and away games) and get a good lengthy phone in (drivell usually but still RL airtime!) to listen to on your way home. Interviews after the game with players and coaches also highlighting local amateur events/games and charity events...etc like the Radford boxing match and Steve Prescott's challenges.

It would be a grave shame if this was to be lost in any way to our local area. One of the only places where RL has been the primary sport for so long. Until recently football has been a mute subject and if City hadn't gotten in to the top flight I doubt many people would know Hull for anything other than it's rugby league teams (if they'd heard of it at all!!!).

I hope the RFL and BBC can come to some agreements and keep sport, especially RL, on air for years to come. If not then the RFL need to look at possible avenues to having a commercial RL radio station.

www.therfl.co.uk/localradioreview A bit more here. All us fans of Rugby League need to get involved for the sake of the game.

www.therfl.co.uk/localradioreview A bit more here. All us fans of Rugby League need to get involved for the sake of the game.

Would it really? Is BBC local radio RL coverage a massive loss to the game?

That's a genuine question by the way - I listen to a lot of radio but never, ever listen to BBC local radio; when I need to catch a game on the fly, I listen to Yorkshire Radio through WunderRadio on my iPhone, but that's rare. As such, I have no idea what, if anything, the Beeb's local output adds to the RL community.

I like Chris Dalton's idea - if the mountain won't come to Mohammed and all that shiznizzle.

Yes it would be. It is biased beyond belief and I would like to see (hear) that changed to more neutral reporting as currently there is more talking going on when a non-Hull side is in possession while they talk about something that happened in 1983! However no matter what day or time a team is playing or where they are in the world the coverage is aired sometimes on both MW and FM.

Usually football would take over but they are only given FM if all three clubs clash while the rugby generally takes MW and shares the coverage.

I am not saying this happens all over, as has been pointed out in other areas coverage is not top of the priority list and not everywhere has a sports talk hour most if not every night which is predominantly RL related.

So yes the reporting can be better but for the amount of coverage we get on Radio Humberside I don't think any other station could rival it in this area. It is also probably the most listened to show barring the morning show while people are driving to work!

To suggest that less media coverage of the sport is not an issue is plainly ridiculous. Most people will only hear or see rugby league through the BBC, and most of that will be through local radio coverage. I'm not talking of die-hard fans but of regular people who don't follow a club but have at least a passing interest in rugby league and so watch the cup games on BBC. They retain that passing interest through local radio with reports, updates and live match coverage. If that is lost their passing interest will wane and so does the likelihood of them doing anything else with the sport.

When the regional editions of newspapers were scrapped I bet people said it would be no great loss to rugby league, yet it has been a disaster for RL. And no amount of League Express or League Weekly made up for that blow.
This is something which RL should fight tooth and nail against.

Radio Humberside plans to drop it's medium wave frequency