The "Inevitable" Demise of Ski Sunday? Skiing's Big World Cup and Even Bigger Female Athlete Problem ...
With the sudden loss of one of the only outlets for skiing on free-to-air TV, Henry asks is it was inevitable or if there are bigger problems in play ...
I will preface this article by saying that I rarely watched Ski Sunday – and I am aware that I am exactly the reason why the BBC has chosen to end the show after 49 years.
Changing media tastes are impacting just how people are watching TV, and therefore just what people are watching. Over the past few days since the BBC announced it was ending Ski Sunday, I have been inundated on social media by a shared sense of grief and mourning that has overcome anyone who has seemingly any association with British Skiing.
Which has driven home to me the idea that Ski Sunday stood for something bigger than just a TV show, its loss is a Big Deal, and it's something we should fight for.
Amidst this changing media landscape I've seen the demise of the show described as inevitable, just as it was for other magazine shows such as Football Focus which ended quietly after the 2025/26 football season. It is true, the magazine format seems inevitably doomed, with short form content now the go-to for more and more, particularly, younger people, and therefore of greater interest to traditional broadcasters.
I would push back against this idea that it was inevitable, instead to argue that it was inevitable without change; without recognising that British skiing, and in particular its coverage of it, has a serious World Cup problem.
What do I mean by this?
Ski Sunday provided the only free-to-air coverage of competitive snowsports in the UK, focusing primarily on the Alpine World Cup. Fair enough, this is the pinnacle of snowsports, some of the earliest forms of ski racing first codified in the early 1920s, the Formula 1 or Wimbledon Championships of the sport. Some of the races featured year in and year out draw crowds of tens of thousands to the finish line as they cheer on national heroes down the slopes of Hahnenkammm’s Streif (Kitzbühel), the Lauberhorn in Wengen, or Val d’Isere’s Face.
Ski Sunday partially acted as a Match of the Day for these events, with the full races broadcast on paid TV such as Eurosport and latterly TNT. Alongside just showcasing the racing, it brought inspiration for going skiing and simply the awe that comes from seeing the dramatic scenery of snowclad mountain ranges.
The problem is, British media more generally has not evolved to showcase the wider world of snowsports. Since the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, British athletes have won around 125 medals at the highest levels of global competition – this includes all forms of snowsports, from telemark and alpine to freestyle and parasports. Only three of these were on the FIS Alpine World Cup circuit – Dave Ryding claiming two silvers and bronze in 2022 and 2023, with his gold in Kitzbuhel (Britain's only Alpine World Cup gold) falling outside my reference window by a matter of weeks – with a further three only in alpine skiing more generally (Zak Carrick-Smith at Youth Olympics and Europa Cup).
The other 119 medals include Olympic gold medals, World Cup Crystal Globes, World Championships and X-Games gold medals, alongside countless other medal colours over these four years. This has also been a female revolution, with Zoe Atkin (freestyle skiing), Mia Brookes (freestyle snowboarding), Kirsty Muir (freestyle skiing), Charlotte Banks (snowboard cross), Menna Fitzpatrick (paraskiing) and Jaz Taylor (Telemark) claiming an astonishing 92 between them. It has, in short, been one of the most successful eras for British snowsports since … well, since we invented the damn thing.
But you won’t have seen much of this on any form of TV in this country. The Olympics is the only platform that many of these athletes get to show off their talents to the masses, and in turn grow all forms of snowsports in this country, creating dreams for youngsters – and adults, admittedly – up and down the country for a few brief weeks every few years, before retreating out of the spotlight once more.
And this is going to be even more of an issue going forward, as the national governing body, GB Snowsports, is denied a record pot of funding for seemingly unknown reasons for this Olympic cycle.
The BBC never had a Ski Sunday problem; skiing has a media problem, or perhaps the other way round. But the BBC’s failure to adapt to this changing environment is what has made the demise of an institution an “inevitability”.
Afterword
Since first penning this piece in the last week, both presenters Ed Leigh and Chemmy Alcott have announced new projects following in the traditions of Ski Sunday. It will be very interesting to watch and see what they get right moving forwards ...
