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This week sees tickets for BBC Sports Personality of the Year go on sale, with the ceremony set to be held in Belfast later this year.

For those wanting to sit amongst the sportsmen and women to be honoured at the Sse Arena on Sunday, December 20, tickets will be available to buy from Thursday (October 15).

Marking the first time the ceremony is held in Northern Ireland, Gary Lineker, Clare Balding and Gabby Logan will host the awards in front of the live audience and millions watching on BBC One.

We've still got a few more weeks of sporting achievement ahead of us, but milestones bound to feature this year include England's Ashes triumph, Wayne Rooney becoming the Three Lions' top scorer and Chris Froome claiming his second yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

Other achievements this year include Northern Ireland reaching their first major football tournament in 30 years, Great...

Line of Duty, Casualty and Harry Enfield & Paul Whitehouse have won at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards 2013-2014.

The event - which honours excellence across all genres of television programming - took place at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on Tuesday (March 17), hosted by John Sergeant.

Line of Duty picked up Best Drama Series, Best Actress went to Happy Valley's Sarah Lancashire and Best Actor was won by Tom Hollander (A Poet in New York).

Casualty beat Coronation Street and EastEnders to claim Best Soap, while comedy Harry & Paul's Story of the Twos received two awards from its three nominations.

Strictly Come Dancing's Claudia Winkleman also took home Entertainment Performance, The Graham Norton Show won for Entertainment Programme and The Island With Bear Grylls triumphed in the Popular, Factual and Features category.

Sky Sports' Gary Neville collected Best Sports Commentator for the second year running, and the Lifetime...

Sunshine On Leith has five BAFTA Scotland nominations The nominations for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Scotland awards have been announced.

Sunshine on Leith leads the way with five nominations, followed closely by Starred Up with four and Filth with three.

James McAvoy, Jack O’Connell and Peter Mullan will battle it out for best actor, while Jane Horrocks, Sophie Kennedy Clark and Freya Mavor will compete for the actress gong.

Including Outstanding Contribution awards (to be announced at a later date) 19 trophies will be handed out at the ceremony hosted by television presenter Hazel Irvine at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Glasgow on Sunday, November 16.

Director of BAFTA Scotland Jude MacLaverty said: “We’re thrilled to unveil the nominations and are especially pleased to announce Hazel as this year’s host. The past year has been a very exciting one for Scotland’s moving image...

The BBC will build on its digital success at London 2012 with extensive TV and digital coverage of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Laying down a marker for the broadcaster's coverage of all major sporting events in 2014, including the football World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, the broadcaster has announced that it will deliver over 650 hours of live action from Sochi across digital platforms. There will be 200 hours on network TV, and also two red button streams.

The Winter Olympic Games live page on BBC Sport will be the hub for audiences who want to follow specific events how and where they like, via smartphone, laptops, tablets or connected TVs.

Clare Balding, Hazel Irvine and Jonathan Edwards will lead TV coverage of the Winter Olympics.

Balding will host the opening ceremony, which takes place on February 7 on BBC Two. She will also front the closing ceremony on February 23.

2010 gold medallist Amy Williams and former Olympians Graham Bell,...

The BBC has announced its broadcasting plans for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Over 200 hours of network TV coverage will be led by a presentation team of Clare Balding, Hazel Irvine and Jonathan Edwards working from 7am to 7pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD.

Director of BBC Sport Barbara Slater said: "The Sochi Winter Olympics kicks off a huge year of major events for BBC Sport in outstanding style.

"The extensive coverage across TV, radio, digital and online, coupled with our superb presenting line-up, offers audiences the unparalleled coverage of a major sporting event that they expect from us.

"I'm delighted that we are once again able to bring every moment live to audiences, building on the success of our coverage of the Summer Games in London."

Balding will also front a daily highlights programme on BBC Two/BBC Two HD from 7-8pm each night, while Matthew Pinsent,...

The BBC has announced details of its coverage of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Presenters including Hazel Irvine, Gary Lineker, Clare Balding, Gabby Logan, Ken Bruce, Susanna Reid, Bill Turnbull and Mishal Husain will host coverage over the Games' 11-day run.

Lineker and Balding will present the opening and closing ceremonies which will be broadcast live from the Celtic Park and Hampden, with commentary from Irvine and Huw Edwards.

Once the Games begin, coverage will be aired from the BBC's base in Pacific Quay in Glasgow, as well as special events from the channel's pop-up venue BBC @ The Quay.

Coverage will kick-off in the morning during BBC Breakfast, before Husain presents the morning's action until midday.

Jason Mohammad will host from midday to 3pm, followed by Irvine until 7pm before Lineker takes over presenting duties for the evening coverage.

As with the Olympics, BBC Three is hoping to have an...

Head of ceremonies admits he and Danny Boyle were surprised when monarch agreed to be involved in James Bond spoof

The Olympics organisers considered using Helen Mirren to act as a double for the Queen in the opening ceremony's the spoof James Bond sequence if the monarch had declined their invitation to participate.

Martin Green, head of ceremonies for the Olympics ceremonies said, he and the director Danny Boyle were surprised the Queen agreed to do it and they had originally planned to use a body double.

The duo discussed using the actor – who played the Queen in the film of the same name – if the royal family agreed to allowing them to film in Buckingham Palace. "We did talk about Helen Mirren," said Green at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.

"Danny and I went to see her private secretary. We showed him in storyboard form what we wanted to do.

New York -- The choreographer of a somber segment in the London Olympics opening ceremony said Saturday he's disappointed that NBC decided not to show it to an American audience.

Spectators were asked to display photos of loved ones who could not be there during the segment. The music, a hymn called "Abide With Me," was described in the ceremony's program as an "honest expression of the fear of approaching death."

NBC producers did not air it, instead showing American viewers Ryan Seacrest's interview with swimmer Michael Phelps.

"I am disappointed," said Londoner Akram Khan, who choreographed and danced in the segment. "I am really sad that I couldn't show the work in America, and that really upsets me, because I don't think it's any more or less than the other pieces. It brings to mind the question ... that maybe it's too truthful."

The ceremony's program describes the performance...

New York -- NBC has come under fire in the British press for editing out a performance during the London Olympics opening ceremony that has been interpreted by some as a tribute to victims of the "7/7" terrorist attacks that rocked that city in 2005.

The network, which has exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the London games, cut instead to a taped interview between Ryan Seacrest and gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps.

The Daily Mail scoffed that NBC replaced a "tribute to 7/7 victims with bland Michael Phelps interview."

The Guardian, in a piece headlined "Row after NBC drop opening ceremony '7/7 tribute,'" said that section of Friday night's performance has been "widely interpreted" as a tribute to the 52 victims of the 2005 bombings.

As Scottish singer Emeli Sandé sang "Abide With Me," and a memorial wall featured images of spectators' deceased loved ones, BBC commentator Hazel Irvine noted that "the excitement of...

Danny Boyle's "live film" must satisfy both viewers in the stadium and at home. Can the director pull it off?

Danny Boyle is unusual among Oscar-winning film-makers in also having had sustained success as a theatre director. This makes him an inspired choice to produce the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, as the special challenge of such events is that they must simultaneously satisfy two audiences: the select set watching live in the stadium, who become the equivalent of theatre-goers, and the millions watching on screen. It may also be useful that another of the rare screen-theatre hybrids — Stephen Daldry, who, like Boyle, once worked at the Royal Court Theatre in London – is one of the creative consultants to the Olympics.

By saying in advance interviews that he is aiming to create a "live film", Boyle shows that he understands the existence of this forked audience and the hybrid art form...