{"id":2239,"date":"2025-06-03T16:10:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T15:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sidelinesmag.co.uk\/?p=2239"},"modified":"2025-06-03T16:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T15:10:05","slug":"behind-the-mic-how-is-a-sport-radio-show-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jusmedia.co.uk\/sidelines\/2025\/06\/03\/behind-the-mic-how-is-a-sport-radio-show-made\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the mic: how is a sport radio show made?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anyone can talk about sport for an hour, right? Wrong. Gaz Drinkwater, presenter of BBC Radio Manchester\u2019s Total Sport, explains the work that goes into covering all the action from one of the UK\u2019s biggest sporting hubs.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does a day in your life look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focusing specifically on my BBC work, usually it\u2019s keeping across all the sports stories, putting any sports ideas for the show into a Teams chat. Then I’d get into the office for around three o’clock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That gives us about three hours preparing for the show, making sure we’ve got some sort of structure in place, but also leaving a bit of wiggle room in case there’s going to be any breaking news before or when we are on air. Then we\u2019re live from 6 til 7pm!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You have an hour to fill every night from Monday to Friday – how do you put together the show?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, with sport it’s ongoing all the time, so in many ways you’re always keeping an eye on what sports stories are around – I’m interested anyway, so I\u2019m keeping across all the stories throughout the day and evening. We’ll send each other ideas and stories that have come up and how we can potentially cover them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For certain stories – let’s say the Manchester City charges or Manchester United’s financial problems – we’ll often look at an expert for that, because we’re sports fans, we’re not necessarily financial experts, so we’d get someone who is an expert in that field to come on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main bulk of our show is fans. In the modern world, people are less likely to call into phone-in shows, so the best way to encourage engagement is to have a bank of fans who are willing to come on and willing to chat. We set a few of them up before the show, get them on the show, and then usually that will drive interaction and other people will call in and text in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously there\u2019s yourself and your co-presenter Emily Brobyn – but how many people work on putting together the show?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the day, the whole sports team puts stories in. The station has sports bulletins throughout the afternoon and throughout the morning, so there’ll be a lot in place already. But if there’s a specific idea for the show, then that will be planned throughout the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s quite a big team that works on it – the whole sports team will give a little bit towards it. But during our working hours from about 3pm until 7pm, it’s usually just three people who will take the main bulk of it. We have a producer, and then we have myself and Emily as the two presenters, who also produce little bits and put little bits together in preparation for the show.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\ud83c\udfa7 It's another busy night on Total Sport…

\ud83d\udcfb @BBCRadioManc<\/a>
\ud83d\udd55 6PM
\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f @Radio_Gaz<\/a>
\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f @kippaxgirlemily<\/a>

\ud83d\udcf1 Listen live: https:\/\/t.co\/1Nh3TqpLaw<\/a>#ManCity<\/a> #stockportcounty<\/a> #SalfordCity<\/a> #bbcfootball<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/w6YksBBiwg<\/a><\/p>— BBC Sport Manchester (@BBCRMsport) April 24, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>