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Finally, I think I can rightfully compare myself to the likes of Faye White, Nicole Cook and Kath Grainger. After long periods of determined preparation, I sacrificed time with my friends and family to ensure that when the big moment came I was ready.... only to be denied my moment in the spotlight by a media who had other things to talk about.

It was quite ironic really – A national radio station asked me to do a 15 minute interview just after 11pm to talk about the lack of media profile for women's sport - only for me to end up with 30 seconds at 11.55! 

In order that my preparation doesn’t go to waste though I thought we should put it up here and see what other people thought about what I might have said if I had the chance!

So excuse the basic formatting but here are the thoughts that were swirling round my head - just waiting to jump down the radio waves...

Key points:

• The media should cover women's sport not out of sympathy, but because the public are demanding it
• Our research shows that women's sport receives less than 5% of media coverage - which is completely at odds with our other research which shows that 61% of fans want to see more women’s sport in the media
• We have lots of incredible sports women and when they get coverage (for instance at the women’s world cup last year) they get very good viewing figures
• This really matters because by the time they leave school girls are only half as likely to play sport than boys - having more role models would help!
   

Other discussion points:

• The England France quarter final last year had 3 million viewers in this country - the Women’s World Cup Final a week later was the most tweeted about event in history

• There was a huge outcry when the BBC Sports Personality shortlist had no women on it last year - another indication of the public's support for the women’s sport

• We have some great role models in Jess Ennis, Nicole Cooke, Rebecca Adlington, Kath Grainger etc - but we only get to see them every four years at the Olympics. Women in team sports have even less chance of getting attention e.g. Karen Atkinson, Faye White, Maggie Alphonsi

• It’s not just the lack of quantity of coverage that matters - the tabloids take a page three attitude to women’s sport, only covering it if there is a chance of a Maria Sharapova type of photograph - reinforcing really damaging attitudes

• Given their public duty the BBC have a greater responsibility to invest the time in developing the fan base for women’s sport - the 6 nations start this weekend - there is wall to wall live coverage of the men’s games over many platforms - will they even be sending 1 reporter to the women’s games which also start this weekend? 

• Its not just down to the media - governing bodies of sport need to get better at promoting their sports and their female athletes - social and digital media give them a good opportunity to do this

• There is a real opportunity for one newspaper to become the home of women’s sport - cover it properly and market the fact to the public - the demand is out there and the readership will build - but like everything it will take time to build the characters and develop the stories. (ABC in Australia market themselves as "The Home of Women's Sport")

• Ticket sales for the Olympics show that the public cares about more sports than just football. Sponsors are paying hundreds of thousands to be associated with women’s sport - they wouldn’t do that if the public weren’t interested

• Lack of female sports journalists also doesn’t help - the few we have are excellent - but we need more...

Blog by Tim Woodhouse, WSFF Head of Public Affairs