iFollow/Beyond Radio/Radio Lancashire?

[Keith]

Last night's game was commentated on by Derek Quinn as part of his Radio Lancashire feed. No Dave Salmon or 'Beyond Radio'. Obviously, Derek made no mention of 'Beyond Radio', which is entirely understandable, but does anyone know what's going on? Is it something as simple as Dave Salmon is isolating due to COVID or something like that, so Radio Lancs stepped in at zero notice to provide cover, and much appreciated commentary, or something else? My dad is unable to attend games now, and doesn't listen to evening games, but listens to 'Beyond Radio' commentary on Saturdays, will it be back to normal at the weekend?

[Freez]

Simple, they didn’t have enough ISDN lines working to accommodate all the Wigan and national press. So Lancs we’re doing full comms anyway so they took the IFollow feed.

[Keith]

So the game was still broadcast live on 'Beyond Radio'?

[Dave Salmon]

Hello!

Hope everybody is doing ok!

So, on Tuesday, there was a problem getting a working ISDN line for Wigan's iFollow (they don't actually use iFollow, but their version of it). Me, Quinny, numerous club staff tried all sorts, nothing doing. They were stranded. As Freez will I'm sure agree, turning up to an away game with no way of operating isn't a great place to be.

The commentary on Beyond is broadcast via a fancy 5G hub on a split feed (partly in case there isn't an ISDN line available for whatever reason). So we thought the fairest thing to do was to give over our working ISDN line to Wigan, and that's what we did, and they were grateful. That meant our iFollow had a very familiar voice, and our visitors were happy. We did our usual full commentary with Matt and I on Beyond on FM & DAB+ (check out the highlights and much more on the podcast )

All back to usual iFollow service on Saturday.

Huge cheers to Quinny and BBC Lancs for stepping in at literally a few minute's notice.

We've been privileged to do every single game so far this season, and will be doing every one to come. I've been really fortunate not to test positive for Covid so far this season, so finger's crossed I can stay clear until the end of April ('quick, somebody cough on him!' )

[Keith]

We did our usual full commentary with Matt and I on Beyond on FM & DAB+ (check out the highlights and much more on the podcast )

Thanks for the clarification Dave. I've literally just bought my dad a DAB radio and tuned it in to Beyond, so he can listen to games on Saturdays. He kept knocking his FM radio off station, so the new one is 'locked on' (well, only one 'pre-set' so he just presses a button if he loses it). He's only used it once so far, so I'm glad to hear it will continue.

[Dave Salmon]

We did our usual full commentary with Matt and I on Beyond on FM & DAB+ (check out the highlights and much more on the podcast )

Thanks for the clarification Dave. I've literally just bought my dad a DAB radio and tuned it in to Beyond, so he can listen to games on Saturdays. He kept knocking his FM radio off station, so the new one is 'locked on' (well, only one 'pre-set' so he just presses a button if he loses it). He's only used it once so far, so I'm glad to hear it will continue.

Cheers Keith (and Dad!). The DAB roll out has significantly widened our reach. Around half a million people can now access commentary of every game for free. That's not too shabby!