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Voices of Sport: The brilliant female broadcasters who have reached the top in a male-dominated industry
In January, we profiled Helen Rollason, the first female presenter of Grandstand, in our special series about famous broadcasters. This week, as Voices of Sport commemorates International Women’s Day, we focus on four more female broadcasters that have defied the odds in an industry that was at one time totally dominated by males.
Clare Balding: One of the most famous faces on British television
If you’re a fairly regular television viewer in Britain, there’s no way you will have missed Clare Balding over the past five years. She really has been here, there and everywhere.
It’s hardly a surprise everyone wants to hire her. Balding is a fabulous operator. Always in command of her subject, she is authoritative, passionate and personable. Like so many other broadcasters in this series, she makes the difficult job of presenting on live television look very easy.
Balding was a leading amateur flat jockey growing up. Her first love will always be horse racing. Her father Ian was a leading trainer, as was her uncle Toby. Her younger brother, Andrew, is also heavily involved with the sport as a trainer.
Soon after university, Balding moved into broadcasting. She became a trainee for BBC National Radio, working on a number of stations. Her jobs included reading the sports news on the Radio One breakfast show, then presented by Chris Evans. It wasn’t long before she moved over to television, introducing highlights of Royal Ascot in 1995. She has split her time between the two mediums ever since.
I well remember the 5 Live coverage of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and Balding presenting from the equestrian events. It’s a tribute to her that it already felt like she had been in broadcasting for many years.
In 1997 she became the BBC’s lead horse racing presenter following the retirement of Julian Wilson. She formed quite a double act with effervescent former jockey Willie Carson.
Later she became the main presenter for the BBC’s rugby league coverage. It was a sport she openly admitted to knowing little about, but typically she threw herself into the role with a real joie de vivre and became very popular with rugby league fans.
By this time, no big event was complete without Balding as part of the BBC line-up. She has been on their TV team for the last five Olympics, up to the 2016 Games in Rio. She has also been at four Winter Olympics and three Commonwealth Games.
It’s possible that her most recognisable role has been presenting coverage from the Paralympic Games. She did so for the BBC in Athens and Beijing, and then Channel 4 in London and Rio. Her enthusiasm and sheer joy at covering the event can only have helped to increase its profile.
It was presenting the swimming during the London Olympics that seemed to take Balding to a new level. A memorable turn from Bert le Clos, the father of Olympic champion Chad, certainly did her cause no harm. She seemed to go from sports broadcaster to national celebrity after that famous summer.
We’d be here for ever if we listed all her roles since. But they include moving to Channel 4 to present their racing coverage, before they lost the rights to ITV. She is one of the presenters for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year and has her own weekend radio programme, Good Morning Sunday, on Radio 2. On top of all that, she presents The Clare Balding Show, where she interviews leading sports stars. The programme airs on both BT Sport and BBC2.
At times, it almost feels like Balding pretty much is television these days. It seems there’s no end to her domination of the airwaves.
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Sue Barker: The mainstay of major BBC events for two decades
Sue Barker has been a major part of big sporting events on television for more than 20 years. The former tennis champion has of course become synonymous with two weeks at Wimbledon in high summer, but has also been present at a number of Olympic Games and other big events, including the World Athletics Championships and Grand National.
Many more mature readers will remember Barker as first and foremost a tennis player. Her brilliant career included a grand slam victory, with the Briton beating Czechoslovakia’s Renata Tomanova in Paris to claim the 1976 French Open title. Barker also reached semi-finals at both Wimbledon and the Australian Open.
After she retired in 1984, Barker moved into broadcasting. She became a commentator and reporter for Channel 7 in Australia, before presenting tennis coverage for the satellite company British Sky Broadcasting.
It wasn’t long before the BBC came calling, and she joined their Wimbledon coverage in 1993. She soon became the face of tennis for the corporation, hosting coverage of the Australian Open and French Open, as well as other major events like the Davis Cup.
She was regarded as such a safe pair of hands that she started appearing pretty much everywhere. Barker became a regular at Olympics of the summer and winter variety. Many viewers will recall her double act with Steve Rider, who I wrote about in this series last September, at the Sydney Games of 2000.
When Des Lynam stepped down from Grandstand, Barker was the main presenter at Aintree on Grand National day for a decade, and also fronted coverage of the Derby at Epsom.
Probably the biggest event ever covered by the BBC was the 2012 London Olympics, and Barker was one of the main presenters. To this day, she still chairs the BBC’s long-running quiz programme A Question of Sport, a job she has had since taking over from the great David Coleman in the late 1990s.
There have also been occasions when the BBC have wanted Barker for events away from sport, such as the wedding of Prince Edward to Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999.
Hazel Irvine: The versatile presenter now synonymous with snooker on television
Hazel Irvine has become a very familiar face and voice for sports fans around the country. Whether it’s the Olympic Games, summer and winter, major golf tournaments or big snooker events, she is our regular companion.
Viewers everywhere have always naturally warmed to the engaging Scot, who has been the same authoritative and charming character throughout her life in front of the camera.
Irvine has always loved sport and she competed in golf, netball and athletics at the University of St Andrews. She began her broadcasting career in radio, before moving to STV in 1988. She worked as a continuity announcer, before presenting and reporting on sports.
She quickly made such a name for herself, and was part of ITV’s 1988 Olympics coverage. This remains the last time the Games was shown on any free to air British TV channel other than the BBC. Irvine also reported from the Scotland camp at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.
It was always the BBC that covered the most sport in those days however, and it was no surprise when Irvine switched channels in 1990. She became a presenter on Sportscene, the Scottish equivalent of Match of the Day.
Three years later came one of her biggest broadcasting moments, when she became the youngest ever presenter of Grandstand. Helen Rollason had paved the way when she became the first female to present the programme in 1990, and it was no surprise to see Irvine follow behind her.
It’s been a case of bigger and better for Irvine ever since. She presented for the BBC at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and has been involved with coverage of every Games since, up until the 2016 showpiece in Rio. In 2008 and 2012, she was one of the commentators for the opening and closing ceremonies in Beijing and London.
She spent some time presenting Ski Sunday, has often been seen fronting the sports bulletins on the BBC’s evening news programmes and has been a regular reporter at other major events like the London Marathon.
But despite all those roles, it’s probably presenting golf and snooker coverage on the BBC that viewers now associate her most. Irvine already worked on plenty of golf on the BBC, and when Gary Lineker stepped down from fronting coverage of the Masters and The Open in 2010, she took over the two majors too.
Presenting golf isn’t easy, especially at the Masters where there are breaks in play to cater for adverts on American television, but Irvine makes it look very natural with her smooth and measured style.
The most number of TV hours for Irvine in any given year come through her presenting snooker coverage. The BBC still show the biggest three events in the game – the World Championship, UK Championship and Masters.
The Crucible marathon, which which will be with us again next month, has over recent decades become one of the highlights of the sporting year. Irvine is here, there and everywhere during the fortnight. Most of the coverage now is presented from the Winter Gardens, next to the Crucible, before Irvine moves into a studio in the hallowed arena for the closing stages.
The task that viewers probably most associate her with is interviewing both runner-up and winner after a big final, a job that used to fall to David Vine. It’s a job she does with typical charm.
Irvine will be on our screens regularly later this spring, firstly at Augusta for the Masters and then the snooker in Sheffield. That’s good news for viewers, as she is right up there as one of our very best broadcasters.
Jacqui Oatley: The first female commentator on Match of the Day
Jacqui Oatley has become a well-known face and voice for football fans everywhere. She is well liked and respected by viewers for her natural authority and easy-going charm.
Oatley has always loved sport. After sustaining a disclocated knee cap and ruptured ligaments while playing amateur football, her days of competing were over and she turned her attention to broadcasting.
She first worked in hospital radio while studying, and later joined BBC Radio Leeds as a sports reporter. Oatley also worked as a news reporter with BBC WM, and covered sport for BBC London. She was making a name for herself and joined 5 Live in 2003.
Two years later, she became the first woman to commentate on a football match on British network radio, when she covered England games at the 2005 Women’s European Championship.
In 2007 Oatley broke more ground when she became the first female to commentate on a game for Match of the Day, the BBC’s flagship Saturday night football programme. She attracted a lot of attention that weekend when she commentated on the 1-1 draw between Fulham and Blackburn at Craven Cottage.
Thankfully, a decade later, we tend to only talk about the qualities of reporters and commentators, not their gender.
Oatley has had a host of roles over the years, including presenting sports bulletins on the BBC News Channel, commentating on football at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and reporting on the British women’s football team at the London Games four years later.
She was the main face for the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada on the BBC, an event that captivated millions of television viewers as England came within a whisker of reaching the final. She also presented Match of the Day for the first time that year.
Oatley has also done a lot of work for ITV in recent times, including being in the chair for the channel’s FA Cup highlights in 2014, and presenting Africa Cup of Nations coverage a year later.
It hasn’t only been football for Oatley either. She has been seen regularly at darts events for ITV recently and among the other sports she has worked on are golf, tennis and rugby league.
A fine all-rounder and a truly top broadcaster. It’s pretty much a guarantee that the excellent Oatley will be on a television set near you very soon.
