Despite badminton being the most favourite racket sport in Singapore, and also a sport with rich tradition and a great number of followers in this region, we are surprised how little air time is given to this sport in the local cable channels, compared to tennis and golf. Even wrestling has more coverage.

Granted that we do see live coverage on All Englands, World Championships or Singapore Opens, but there are many other top-class tournaments that have been given a miss.

A case in point is the recently concluded Japan Open, part of the 12 annual Super-Series events in the world badminton calendar, which was not covered at all.

Another example is the China Open that was held in July, which was also not given live coverage but a delayed broadcast many weeks later. But the programme broke the whole tournament into segments and was aired in the late hours on weekdays.

This hardly does justice to one of the most anticipated events in the Super Series.

Actually what badminton gets for live coverage in a year, EPL gets in a weekend. Soccer may be the most popular sports here but badminton can claim a close second.

We are not asking for unreasonable amounts of air time, but rather to give badminton a balanced coverage and allocate a proportionate amount of exposure.

Take the programme on Channel 22 Super Sports from Sept 21 to Sept 27 for example: There are 36 hours of golf, 28 hours of tennis, eight hours of table tennis but only a miserable 30-minute slot for badminton. Even wrestling has a solid two-hour time slot for five days that add to a total of 10 hours of air time.

Let us not also forget that there are many Malaysians and Indonesians who have taken up residency in Singapore. Badminton is an even bigger game in their countries and I am sure they will also be happy if they see more badminton coverage in the cable channels.

We hope that the management of StarHub does not under-estimate the popularity and appeal (and thus the commercial potential) of badminton in Singapore.

Linus Wee Tian Hong

(This letter carries 84 other names)