I’ve had a response through from the BBC regarding the BBC Red Button scheduling over the weekend, which saw MotoGP qualifying and support races not broadcast live on Freeview, in favour of Masters Golf.

“We understand Moto GP fans who use Freeview would like to see qualifying and support races. However we are often faced with tough choices when there is a busy sport schedule and as there was not capacity for us to show every part of this weekend’s MotoGP we chose to stay with The Masters live play before coverage on BBC network began. Instead we showed the full race live on BBC Three, while on the Freeview red button service we offered a replay of the qualifying from 1200-1730, with the 125/Moto2 races being replayed from 1900-2330 on Monday, 12 April. Live video coverage of all MotoGP weekends is also available on the BBC Sport website along with a full replay of the 125/Moto 2 races from every round on BBC iPlayer. We did also take steps to alert viewers that live coverage would be unavailable on Freeview and this was highlighted in all our listings well in advance of the event: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/5345480.stm.”

I’ll try to interpret that.

Masters Golf started on the Freeview Red Button at 6.15pm, before the BBC Two coverage started at 6.55pm. So Masters Golf justifiably took priority over the 125cc race, which started at 6pm.

The BBC then stayed with the Masters Golf, when it could have switched the Freeview Red Button to Qatar for the first ever Moto2 race, since the golf was by that time on BBC Two. That decision is what I don’t think has been justified. Presumably it’s not that simple to switch the Freeview Red Button stream mid-broadcast, or it wasn’t deemed worthwhile.

So there we go. A response, of sorts.