It seems strange that given the current popularity of skiing holidays, trips to Lapland, indoor snow slopes etc that the media coverage of snow-related sports seems to be much sparser than 20 to 30 years ago.
Back in the heady days of the 1980's you could guarantee some decent coverage on the BBC - Ski Sunday kicked off in early December and continued right through to the end of the season, rather than in recent years when it's surfaced in mid January and then bizarrely finished its run before the titles have been decided, rather like Match of the Day starting in October and ending in March.
Blimey, back then you could even catch some bobsleigh action in Grandstand and the Four Hills ski-jumping tournament was also shown over the new year period on BBC2. The relative-success of the Bell brothers and the bobsleigh team meant that the press also gave some decent column inches to winter sports, compare that with the current appalling press output, where, if you're lucky, you might get the downhill rankings printed in the results section of the Times.
But hey, it's not all bad news...
The travel supplements in the weekend papers are more comprehensive than they used to be and usually have a good array of articles on ski holidays. And there are still a few winter sports magazines available from September to March.
Obviously, the big difference is that we didn't have access to the web back in the 1980's - we can hardly imagine a time when you couldn't just pop online to check out the latest conditions, beaming out live on cameras from nearly any resort on the planet.
...And there's one really good bit of news for anyone wanting to get a good fix of the white stuff whilst stuck in the green fields of dear old green Blighty - Eurosport. What a god send. Ok, so it might be slightly over the top getting addicted to watching the Biathlon at 7am on a Sunday morning but at least this is one channel that provides a wide range of coverage on a whole host of winter sports.
Anyway, below is a list of sections for skiing and winter-sports in all the different types of media.
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