More than 20 million UK viewers tuned in to watch the final of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. In stark contrast there is barely a trace of the early World Cups in Ö÷²¥´óÐã Genome's television and radio listings.

The first football World Cup was held in 1930. It was a humble affair, which didn’t get an outing on radio or TV in the UK. Scotland and England were invited but did not accept; a Radio Times article previewing the 1954 tournament suggested this was because they did not believe the opposition sides were good enough. After follow-up tournaments in 1934 and 1938, the contest was abandoned during World War Two.

The 1950 World Cup was held in Brazil and England participated for the first time. It was still a . Italy travelled to the tournament by boat, but the two-week voyage wasn’t particularly conducive to maintaining athletic fitness. Out of condition, they immediately lost their first game to Sweden and were effectively out of the tournament.

Coverage was very limited and the front page of Radio Times that week focused on tennis, with no mention of the tournament. Sporadic  from games was all that was available on radio. Competing in their first World Cup, England had the nickname “Kings of Football” and were one of the favourites, having beaten Portugal 10–0 in Lisbon two weeks before the tournament. However, they were knocked out in the first round group stage, thanks to a 1-0 loss against a semi-professional US side, in one of the in the tournament's history.

Held in Switzerland, the 1954 tournament saw television coverage on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã for the first time via the recently installed Eurovision network, which allowed television signals to be relayed across Europe. This only worked for tournaments held in Europe, however, and ahead of the 1962 tournament Ö÷²¥´óÐã reporter Kenneth Wolstenholme wrote a Radio Times article about the difficulties of broadcasting matches from Chile and the aspiration to get them to air within 48 hours of the match concluding.

Four years later, Wolstenholme and fellow commentator Brian Moore wrote a seven-page preview of the major sides before the 1966 tournament hosted in England. Later on in the edition, an article previewing the comprehensive Ö÷²¥´óÐã reporting of the upcoming tournament stated: “A feast of soccer on television is offered to Ö÷²¥´óÐã-1 viewers during the World Cup,” and promised more than 50 hours of coverage. England went on to win the tournament, with Wolstenholme providing one of the most famous moments in the history of sports broadcasting with his commentary on the final England goal.

England’s World Cup win earlier in the day dominated the news report that evening but it was a good day to bury bad news with the script showing that the second story on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Service that evening was a report about the government freezing wages.

Although many people were still watching in black and white, the  was the first to be broadcast on colour television and you can watch Carlos Alberto’s famous goal as Brazil beat Italy in the final here. It was also the last World Cup to feature Pele, celebrated as one of the greatest players of all time. The Brazilian features in numerous Ö÷²¥´óÐã Genome listings and his “extraordinary life” was the subject of a Ö÷²¥´óÐã Two  in 2002.

Scotland have played in eight World Cups and, although they have never progressed beyond the first round, one of their greatest World Cup moments was captured in 1978 when they beat Holland with a superb goal from Archie Gemmill, described by commentator David Coleman here.

Coverage of the World Cup is on the government mandated "protected" list, meaning it must be shown on free-to-air terrestrial television. Throughout most of the competition’s history, Ö÷²¥´óÐã and ITV have jointly covered the tournament on UK television but the unpredictable nature of the competition means the allocation of matches happens at short notice. This can be a problem for Radio Times, which has to print the broadcasters’ alternative TV schedules for match days.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã didn’t show England’s 1998 second-round match against Argentina, so instead broadcast their including Celebrity Ready, Steady, Cook and One Foot in the Grave. The football fans were more likely than Victor Meldrew to be exclaiming disbelief that night. A red card for David Beckham and a missed penalty from David Batty saw England get knocked out and a certain eight-year-old boy cry himself to sleep.

World Cup coverage in the 21st Century has seen more technological breakthroughs, with  shown in high-definition for the first time, a decision Ofcom credited with giving to the sales of HD-ready TV sets. There has also been an increase in the coverage of women’s football on television; in 2007 the Ö÷²¥´óÐã broadcast the with Gabby Logan presenting all England games live.

Coverage continues to evolve. The 2018 tournament sees fans able to watch in Ultra HD and virtual reality for the first time, through the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Sport's VR 2018 World Cup app - an even more interactive way for viewers to enjoy the euphoria or heartbreak of a penalty shoot-out. There's a lot to look forward to over the next month.

Tuesday 6 February 2018 marks the 60th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, when a plane carrying Manchester United players crashed while attempting to take off from Munich-Riem airport in Germany.

There were 23 fatalities in the crash and team manager Matt Busby was severely injured. Busby spent months in hospital and was so badly hurt that he was , but he recovered and attended that year's . 

The tragedy occurred at 3.04pm and the script (pictured below) for that night's News bulletin broadcast on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Light Programme showed that 23 passengers initially survived. Co-pilot Ken Rayment and star player later died in hospital.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã has made a about the crash in the past 60 years, including , a drama documentary retelling the story in 2006.

In 2008, to mark the 50th anniversary of the disaster, on Ö÷²¥´óÐã One followed survivor and former Manchester United player Harry Gregg as he returned to the scene of the crash for the first time. The former goalkeeper met the son of a pregnant woman whom he had pulled from the wreckage to safety in 1958.

Darts was first broadcast on radio before becoming a regular in the television schedules, enjoying its heyday in the 1980s. Here are some of the 180 reasons for the success of darts programming.

Traditionally seen as a working-class pub sport, darts has at times appealed to the upper echelons -  Elizabeth enjoyed a darts demonstration in 1937. The sport was occasionally covered on radio -  from 1937 shows a tournament from Belfast was the first darts match to be broadcast in Northern Ireland, while a match involving Joe Hitchcock was covered on in 1946. Darts was even used for a 1936 test television transmission of a match between   and , who would both go on to be prominent presenters in the early days of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Television. Listings weren’t printed for those early television test transmissions, but televised darts did make it into the billings for a  featuring a team of Ö÷²¥´óÐã employees.

One of the driving forces in darts was Sid Waddell. The son of a Northumberland miner, Waddell had an intellect that saw him read modern history at St John’s College Cambridge, before going on to become a television producer for ITV local news. Following the success of the News of the World Darts Championship on television, Waddell launched ITV's The Indoor League in 1972, which featured various pub games including darts and was presented by ex-cricketer Fred Trueman. had been described by Leslie Kettley as “a blunt Yorkshireman who speaks his mind” in a 1964 Radio Times article. He reinvented himself as a television presenter following his retirement from cricket and memorably fronted the programme while holding a pint of bitter.

Waddell later moved to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã and was chosen to commentate World Professional Darts Championships in 1978. Alongside , Waddell was the Ö÷²¥´óÐã’s main darts commentator for the next 16 years. He was famed for his colourful and creative . After Eric Bristow won one of his numerous world titles Waddell exclaimed, “When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer... Bristow's only 27.”

It wasn’t just Waddell’s rich and vibrant commentary that helped darts explode in popularity and turn players like Jocky Wilson, Cliff Lazarenko and John Lowe into household names. For the first World Championships Ö÷²¥´óÐã producer introduced split-screen technology to the sport. This allowed the viewer to watch the drama of where the darts landed as well as the tension or ecstasy on the players face as they reacted to their throw. Two players who were able to capitalise most on this were Bobby George and Eric Bristow. The two showmen clashed in the 1980 World Championship final in front of an at Jollees nightclub in Stoke, broadcast on . Bristow won the tournament and for the next few years. Bristow was so dominant that when he lost the 1983 final to then  it was seen as one of the biggest upsets in the history of the sport and became the inspiration for a . Always outspoken and opinionated, following his retirement from the playing the sport Bristow went into punditry but lost his role with Sky Sports in 2016 after heavily criticised posts on Twitter about football abuse victims.

With darts now in the mainstream, there were plenty of opportunities for top players with big personalities. No-one exemplified this more than losing 1980 finalist, the charismatic Bobby George. George was one of the first to combine darting prowess with entertainment. To get the crowd on-side he dressed up to walk on stage and played bedecked in jewellery. He continued to be one of the biggest personalities in darts long after he retired and, wearing a necklace made of wedding rings, he was a crucial part of throughout the 00s.

At the start of the 90s the Ö÷²¥´óÐã scaled back its own coverage and was only showing one tournament a year. It was this lack of coverage that eventually led to the sport splitting in two but before that there was a crossroads match in as Phil Taylor beat his mentor Eric Bristow. Taylor went on to dominate the sport for the next two decades with that year’s tournament also notable for Paul Lim becoming the first player to hit a perfect 9-dart finish during the World Darts Championship. You can watch the .

With the Ö÷²¥´óÐã only covering one tournament a year the lack of television coverage led to less prize money and decreased exposure for players. The players blamed the British Darts Organisation (BDO) for this and a breakaway group of 16 formed what is now known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), whose tournaments were broadcast on Sky Sports. The breakaway group of players included all former world champions, bar one.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã continued to show the BDO version of the World Championships and in 2005 viewers were able to see every dart thrown live at the BDO World Championship for the first time. This was the first year that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã introduced on its red button service. Prior to this, coverage had to fit within the schedules and when matches overran viewers waited for the to see the winning arrow. In January 2016 the BDO World Championships was shown on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã for the final time with Channel 4 and BT Sport taking over the rights for subsequent tournaments.

Women's darts has made the occasional appearance in the listings over the years. You can view these late 1930s listings, in which Nellie Foxwell represented darts in about female sport a year after the was broadcast. Maureen Flowers was the leading player of her generation and appears from the 70s and 80s. Female darts has received greatly increasing coverage in recent times with  and 10x world champion  appearing in the listings. Deta Hedman also appeared in pro-celebrity charity darts programme partnering Richard Osman in the first series and Jon Richardson in the second.

In recent years the Ö÷²¥´óÐã has shown the PDC’s , broadcast on the channel since the summer of 2016. The sport is thriving and still enjoyed by a broad range of people. Stephen Fry is known to be a fan and the Queen’s granddaughter Zara Phillips was spotted in 2012. Darts also made a return to the radio a couple of years ago with Ö÷²¥´óÐã 5 Live broadcasting the PDC World Darts Championship final on New Year’s Day 2014.

As the Ashes series begins in Brisbane, we look at some of the people who have brought cricket to Ö÷²¥´óÐã TV and radio. 

From instructional  and  in the early years of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, to  on both television and radio, the Ö÷²¥´óÐã listings show how much coverage of cricket has changed over the decades. 

A quintessentially British sport, cricket traces its origins back hundreds of years. The sport was once banned for interfering with archery practice, according to a 1933 Radio Times article. But cricket has won in the long term - there are only 204 references to  in Ö÷²¥´óÐã Genome, while . The schedules are more interested in boundaries than in bullseyes...

John Arlott was one of the original voices of cricket on Ö÷²¥´óÐã radio. He spent a number of years as in his native Hampshire before moving into broadcasting: a radio address to King George VI he made on behalf of the police on VE Day 1945 helped him make the transition.

Arlott's broadcasting career straddled his passions of  and cricket, which he often allowed to overlap. Cricket was the inspiration for this 1945 listing of , while his cricket commentaries were known for being , but he wasn’t unnecessarily florid with his language. Writing in The Nightwatchman magazine, journalist Simon Barnes described “reticence and understatement as aspects of Arlott’s talents”.

Arlott was one of the commentators on Test Match Special when it launched in 1957 on the Third Programme, and remained on the team until the centenary Ashes Test match of 1980. His retirement led to a number of tribute programmes, and in a 2003 edition of , long-time colleague Henry Blofeld recalled his experiences working with Arlott.

Blofeld’s on Test Match Special was in 1972, and apart from a couple of years spent at Sky, he was a crucial part of Test Match Special until  2017. When "Blowers" started on TMS it was broadcast on Radio 3, but it has had a number of homes in its 60-year history. In the mid-90s the programme moved to Radio 4 long wave, and since 2002 it has been broadcast uninterrupted on digital station Ö÷²¥´óÐã 5 Live Sports Extra. Having reached "60 not out", it feels the responsible cricketing thing to do is to go for the century.

Cricketer Rachael Heyhoe Flint - a contemporary of Blofeld's - was a champion for greater coverage of women’s cricket in the second half of the 20th Century. She organised the first in 1973 (two years before the first men's equivalent) which received some coverage on . In 1983  looked at her "one-woman campaign to put women's cricket on the map" and alongside Brian Johnston she discussed cricket on  in 1993. 

Heyhoe Flint was preceded by Marjorie Pollard, a hockey player who was an advocate for women's cricket in the early years of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã. A consummate sportswoman, she is believed to be the first person to play . In 1937 Pollard provided commentary for the first ever to be played in this country, two years after a special edition of  in which she made the case for women’s cricket. 

Coverage of Women’s cricket is now much more of a fixture on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã with Test Match Special covering every ball of the 2017 Women’s Ashes. A Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 5 live programme in October 2017 debated whether 2017 had been women's cricket's greatest year. On-air, Ebony Rainford-Brent and Alison Mitchell are regularly heard in the Ö÷²¥´óÐã commentary box.

It is nearly 80 years since Test match cricket was first broadcast on Ö÷²¥´óÐã television, although an early listing gave little fanfare with just in Radio Times. It was an important time for sport on television, as Wimbledon also made its in 1937. Coverage was far removed from what we are now used to, there could be no highlight packages or replays interwoven into . In the post-war years live cricket became a regular feature on television with future radio stalwart Brian Johnston presenting a look back at  before a test against India in 1946. , known affectionately as Johnners, became the Ö÷²¥´óÐã’s first in 1963. Test cricket was first shown in colour in 1968.

Cricket gave the Ö÷²¥´óÐã television lots of schedule-filling content and home Test matches remained exclusively  until 1999, when Channel 4 . Channel 4 continued to show live cricket until the end of the 2005 Ashes victory over Australia. But after cricket was of "crown jewels" sporting events reserved for terrestrial TV, Sky acquired the rights in 2006, from which point live test cricket has not been available on terrestrial TV. In the intervening years, the Ö÷²¥´óÐã has shown highlights from some  and an away Ashes series .

As I approach stumps at the end of this blog, the story of cricket on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã is far from over. In recent seasons the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Sport website has broadcast live commentary of every match in . Since 2016 the Ö÷²¥´óÐã have shown match clips and highlights online, and live cricket will also from 2020.

The World Snooker Championship comes to a conclusion this weekend at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. So it seems a fitting moment to take a look at the history of how snooker has been covered on television.

Snooker was covered a handful of times in the , and later gained a foothold in black and white and 60s. But it wasn't until the late-1960s that snooker got its big break. Then-controller of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Two, Sir David Attenborough, was eager to find a format to showcase the ground-breaking invention of colour TV. , and broadcaster “whispering” Ted Lowe came up with an idea for a new show - Pot Black.

Pot Black's format changed over time (it ran annually from 1969 with sporadic tournaments thereafter) but the original series consisted of eight players, playing in a one-frame knockout tournament. The debut episode was broadcast on , a couple of days after Neil Armstrong . One small step for man and a giant leap in the history of snooker.

Alongside commentator Clive Everton, Ted Lowe went on to become the voice of the sport. However, it was Jack Karnehm who, in 1983, produced the most famous moment in snooker commentary history, by uttering the immortal line “” as Canada's Cliff “The Grinder” Thorburn lined up the final black before sinking to his knees, having completed the first maximum 147 at the World Championship.

Nicknames have longed played a big role in the marketing of snooker. Winner of the first Pot Black final, Ray Reardon (he went on to win six world titles), was known affectionately as “Dracula” due to his sharp-toothed grin. While many nicknames reflected a player’s style of play ( and Ronnie “The Rocket” O'Sullivan are famed for their fast approach to the sport) Steve Davis acquired the ironic title of “interesting”. Davis dominated snooker for much of the 80s, playing in a methodical style that many considered boring in comparison to the risk-taking Alex “The Hurricane” Higgins. In later years Davis reclaimed the nickname “interesting” (it is the title of his autobiography), showing he was a man of many parts with his move from sport to broadcasting - even  Festival in 2016. 

While Davis was undeniably the champion player of the 80s, the people’s champion was Alex Higgins. A complex character with a volatile personality, Higgins was a key player in the snooker revolution, as it moved from smoke-filled rooms at the back of pubs to prime-time Ö÷²¥´óÐã television. When Higgins won the World title for the first time in 1972 it wasn’t televised and the prize money for winning was reportedly just £400. Ten years later when he won his second title, the winner’s cheque had rocketed to £25,000.

In 1982 Higgins won his second world title, his clearance when trailing 15 frames to 14 in a first to 16 frame against Jimmy White is widely regarded as one of the finest in history. Higgins beat Ray Reardon in the final. With tears of joy rolling down his face he beckoned his wife and baby daughter from the crowd to celebrate with him. Although now ubiquitous across all sports, Higgins was the first sportsman to do such a thing – another indication of his unconventional style. It was the last time that the snooker-player won a World Title.

It was Dennis Taylor who was involved in quite possibly the greatest World Snooker Championship moment, in the 1985 black ball final. The schedule from 28 April 1985 shows that a dramatisation of  should have gone out at 22:10 that night, but it wasn’t to be. The snooker continued until 12:30am (18.5 million viewers watched - still a record audience for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Two and for any UK programme broadcast after midnight), and the genial Taylor with his upside-down glasses eventually  to beat Steve Davis and bring the marathon to a close.

The following year Taylor, Davis and a number of other players converted success on the table to success in the charts, and although the likes of Willie Thorne and Terry Griffiths seemed unlikely pop stars (more associated with break building than break dancing), such was snooker’s appeal at the time that for a few weeks in May 1986 (including an appearance on ). The Matchroom Mob (Steve Davis, Dennis Taylor, Willie Thorne, Terry Griffiths and Tony Meo) provided backing vocals to Chaz and Dave’s hit Snooker Loopy (hitting a chart high of six, and coming above Marvin Gaye with I heard it through the Grapevine and The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry in the charts). Perhaps the players involved were right to stick to their day jobs, but they were probably better at singing than the average 1980s pop-star was at long-potting...

Stephen Hendry, who won seven world titles in 10 years, including four consecutively, dominated snooker in the 1990s. Hendry’s ruthless dedication to winning often saw him come up against Jimmy White in finals. White is a six-time world champion finalist and widely considered to be the best player never to win the tournament. Four of White’s world final losses were at the hands of Hendry with the closest and final one when Hendry won a final frame decider. Immediately after the match when David Vine handed White the microphone a few feet from the trophy that had eluded him once more “The Whirlwind” uttered possibly the biggest understatement in the history of snooker on television “He’s beginning to annoy me”. White has never reached another final but did beat Hendry in the first round of .

A change of century saw a new generation of players rising to the top of the sport. John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan have both enjoyed considerable success, with O’Sullivan taking over the crowd-favourite tag from Alex Higgins and Jimmy White before him. In recent years the game has grown massively in China and across Asia.

In China, 250 million people watched the 2016 final featuring Ding Junhui (making the 18.5 million staying up to watch Denis Taylor’s 1985 win look insignificant in comparison). Who knows what Ted Lowe would have to whisper about that?

The greatest show on Earth has come to an end, with glory for Team GB and thousands of hours of Ö÷²¥´óÐã coverage in the bag.

But there weren't always wall-to-wall, multi-channel broadcasts of the Olympic Games. In the early days of radio, there were only scant references to the event. In 1928, there was no live coverage and a sense that Great Britain was only going to compete after in a talk from a former sportsman.

In 1936, the opening ceremony of the Berlin games was for a "description of the scene". But it wasn't until the first post-war Olympics in London that coverage of the games really came into its own.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã was the host broadcaster and the event was televised for the first time. The Radio Times reflected this great occasion by creating its first Olympic front cover (above).

The home advantage was short-lived, however. For the Helsinki and Melbourne Olympics in the 1950s, television was in its infancy in the host nations, so it was back to quite limited radio coverage. An Australian games with its vast time difference and distance meant that UK listeners made do with recordings.

But the lull would not last long...

The Rome Olympics in 1960 saw coverage on Ö÷²¥´óÐã radio and TV reach a new level, with a striking cover for the Radio Times and a magazine packed with side panels and schedules to guide viewers. With another distant games from Tokyo four years later, recorded Olympic action was flown over the Pole by jet in an era when satellite technology wasn't yet the norm.

The 1968 Olympics from Mexico City was another watershed for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã. It coincided with the advent of colour (initially on Ö÷²¥´óÐã2) and the Radio Times cover mirrored this. The magazine even changed its regular title font for the occasion. This was a growing era of satellite broadcasts and schedules which dealt with a time difference similar to Rio 2016.

From the 1970s onwards, blanket coverage of the Olympic Games emerged. Radio Times covers switched from striking design to the sports personality, with the likes of Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim and homegrown superstars like Daley Thompson, Sir Steve Redgrave and Sally Gunnell (pictured).

A notable absence from the line-up of Olympics covers is Moscow in 1980, which was beset by a boycott led by the US. Great Britain attended but stayed away from the opening ceremony, while the Olympic flag was raised for gold medal winners.

So Tokyo 2020 beckons. How will the games be covered? More wall-to-wall coverage or a dedicated Olympics channel? Let us know your thoughts on games past and future.

The broadcasting and televising of the London 1948 Olympiad, which started on July 29 with the was described by Radio Times as "the biggest operation of its kind that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã has ever undertaken." Viewers were able to watch the main events at Wembley live - which included the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, the athletics, the boxing, the swimming, the diving, the football, the hockey and the riding, while Television Newsreel cameras captured highlights of other sports.

Outside Broadcast Manager Ian Orr-Ewing described the difficulty of selecting commentators for the TV broadcast: "Regular viewers will understand that television commentary demands a technique different from that which has been established for sound broadcasting; a television commentator is not merely describing what he can, see but is explaining the picture in the light of his expert knowledge of the subject."

You can watch this clip of the Olympic Newsreel which reports on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã operation at Wembley Stadium: