What is Sports Report?
Sports Report is the BBC’s Saturday sports programme, first broadcast on the Light Programme on 3 January 1948 and carried since 1994 by BBC Radio 5 Live, at 17:00 in the football season. Its signature tune, Hubert Bath’s “Out of the Blue”, has opened it since the first edition. Presented since 2016 by Mark Chapman.[1]
What does it cover?
The day’s football and other sport — reports, interviews and results. In August 2022 the BBC shortened it from an hour to 25 minutes to make room for a 17:30 Premier League commentary and dropped the reading of the classified results, a decision it defended after some 250 complaints and criticism from the Football Supporters’ Association; no reinstatement has been reported.[1] [2] [3]
What is its reach and standing?
No programme-level audience is published; 5 Live’s weekly reach was 5.5 million in RAJAR’s second quarter of 2026. Standing is longevity: the BBC calls it the longest-running sports radio programme in the world, a claim relayed rather than independently measured.[1] [4]
Since when?
3 January 1948; Light Programme, then Network Three, Radio 3, Radio 2, Radio 5 and, from 1994, 5 Live.[1]
Why does it matter in sport?
Because for three-quarters of a century it was where British sport’s Saturday was read out, and it remains the BBC’s flagship live sports round-up. It is on this site as a broadcast institution, not as a citation source for individual results.[1] [2]
References
- Wikipedia — Sports Report (background: 1948, stations, presenter). Accessed September 2026.
- FourFourTwo — BBC stands by decision to remove classified results, Aug 2022. Accessed September 2026.
- Football365 — BBC axes the classified results. Accessed September 2026.
- Adam Bowie — RAJAR Q2 2026 summary. Accessed September 2026.