An MP is backing a campaign the monthly Newmarket Extra for the BBC to restore Saturday racing results to Radio Five Live – on road safety grounds, writes Jon Slattery.
The newspaper has reported that Newmarket MP Richard Spring will take its campaign to acting BBC director general Mark Byford.
Spring will not only argue on behalf of racing fans, claims the paper, but will also take up the case of a constituent who almost crashed his car after being startled by Five Live’s excitable “goal clips” commentaries, which have replaced the racing results.
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The unnamed constituent is quoted in the paper as stating: “I was driving to watch a match at Norwich and was happily listening to the gentle voice of Jimmy Armfield previewing one of the afternoon’s games when suddenly my ears were assaulted by the screeching tones of Alan Green announcing a goal scored in the previous week.
“I was so startled the car swerved. I consider myself lucky not to have been involved in an accident.”
Newmarket Extra publisher Philip Osborn said: “Racing fans have been complaining about the absence of results on most Saturdays ever since they were dropped.
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“The complaints have been ignored so far but we hope the BBC will think again now that an important road safety issue has emerged.
“The BBC told us that the results had been dropped a couple of years ago because they were now available on teletext and the internet. But the real reason is that they are pandering to the dumbing-down whims of directors, who think it’s clever to load programmes with playbacks.”
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