Talksport - Creation of Talksport

Creation of Talksport

On 12 November 1998 TalkCo Holdings, whose Chairman and Chief Executive was former Sun Editor Kelvin MacKenzie, purchased Talk Radio. This led to a mass clearout of presenters including Nick Abbot, Anna Raeburn, Tommy Boyd and Peter Deeley, with them putting in place a more sports oriented programming schedule, including The Sportszone with Alan Parry, Gary Newbon, Tony Lockwood, Tom Watt, and former Century Radio sports editor Dave Roberts presenting the weekend edition of The Sports Breakfast.

In late 1999, TalkCo, rebranded as The Wireless Group, announced a relaunch of Talk Radio to become the UK's first national commercial sports radio station called Talksport. The relaunch occurred at midnight on 17 January 2000 and was accompanied by the station moving from Oxford Street to a new studio in Hatfields on the South Bank of the River Thames. Now mainly dedicated to football, the programming lineup was drastically altered, beginning with The Sports Breakfast show, a mid-morning motoring show called The Car Guys, with further sports programming in the afternoon and evening. Almost all the station's talk show presenters were axed at the time, including The Big Boys Breakfast with David Banks and Nick Ferrari, with only Whale, Collins, and Mike Dickin surviving. To complement their new format, Talksport purchased the rights to broadcast Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle in the UEFA Champions League, the FA Cup, England football internationals, UEFA Cup, England's Winter cricket Tours to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and India, British and Irish Lions tours to South Africa and New Zealand, and rights to the Super League, Rugby League World Cup, and World Title Boxing Fights.

The new line-up involved a number of presenters and commentators. They included Alan Brazil, Mark Nicholas, Chris Cowdrey, Geoffrey Boycott, Mike Parry, Peter Shilton, Brian Moore, Brough Scott, Tom Watt, Gary Newbon, Ian Darke, Tony Banks, and Alvin Martin.