Vidiprinter

Key takeaways

Vidiprinter belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Vidiprinter to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Vidiprinter from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A vidiprinter is a sports scores and results ticker service provided to media organisations. It is shown on BBC One (occasionally on BBC Two), BBC Red Button and Sky Sports News to provide a live on-air feed of football scores. It appears on-screen when a significant number of games are in progress. The vidiprinter service was originally supplied by the Press Association, doing so from the vidiprinter's inception until the end of the 2012/13 season. The contract was taken over by Opta Sports from the start of the 2013/14 season, and Opta has provided the service ever since.

Implementation The BBC and Sky Sports show a vidiprinter during their scores and results programmes and can pick and choose which competitions they wish viewers to see on any given day. On Saturdays, their vidiprinters appear at the start of the 3 pm kick-offs until just after 5 pm when all the results are in. However, on the Saturdays when international fixtures are taking place, the BBC does not show a football scores programme. Sky also shows its vidiprinter when the lunchtime games are taking place - ie between 12.30 pm and 2.30 pm. Both also show their vidiprinter when a lot of midweek games are being played. Since 1998 Sky Sports has broadcast a midweek version of Soccer Saturday, Soccer Special, and the vidiprinter is on screen from 7:45 pm until around 9:45 pm, although it can appear for extended periods depending on the games taking place that night. Since 2007 the BBC has also shown a midweek edition of its scores service called Midweek Final Score although the programme is a text and graphics service with audio coming from BBC Radio 5 Live. Both channels produce editions of their scores programmes on Boxing Day and New Year's Day as a full set of English games (plus Scottish games on Boxing Day) take place on these bank holiday afternoons. BBC Scotland broadcasts its own Saturday afternoon results programme, Sportscene Results, and the vidiprinter is onscreen from the start of the programme until the classified results are read out, and this can be at any time between 4.55 pm and 5.05 pm. Until 2020, neither broadcaster produced a regular football scores service on Sundays, despite all the top Premier League clashes, other notable games and almost all of the women’s football programmes taking place on Sundays. The only exception was the final day of the Premier League season due to the final set of fixtures being played on a Sunday, when all ten games start at the same time - the only time of the season that this happens. However after the BBC regained the rights for the FA Cup in 2014–15, a Sunday edition was broadcast for a few seasons on the weekends of the first and second rounds of the competition with the vidiprinter seen on-screen when the FA Cup games were in progress, and in late 2020, Sky Sports News's Sunday afternoon coverage, which aired between 12noon and 6 pm, which in 2025 became Soccer Sunday and airs between just before 2 pm until 6 pm, shows the vidiprinter on screen throughout the programme, and the information shown also includes information from five European leagues. There are also various versions of the vidiprinter on the internet. As well as English and Scottish football, The Sporting Life's website vidiprinter features league, but not Cup, scores and results from many global leagues. The Sky Sports online vidiprinter largely mirrors the vidiprinter seen on Sky Sports News, although it does not include scores from the women's game, and the Football Web Pages vidiprinter includes scores, results and scorers from Steps 2, 3 and 4, along with some Step 5 and Step 6 leagues, of the non league pyramid. It expanded its coverage at the start of the 2019/20 season to include the women's game, the Welsh Premier League and nine European competitions with its selection of Step 5 and 6 leagues added for the 2024/25 season. This is the only vidiprinter to include games from leagues which sit below Step 2, and games from Scottish non-league. As of mid 2017, the BBC's website no longer features a vidiprinter. The BBC website had included a vidiprinter from the early 2000s. Originally this was a live feed of the Press Association service featuring all the competitions that the service covered. However from the 2007-08 season the BBC started to create its own version by removing competitions that it felt did not merit inclusion and as time progressed the coverage generally mirrored the competitions featured on the BBC's website. In October 2013 it began featuring European league matches at the expense of non league, Welsh and Irish games although the BBC did re-introduce coverage of the regional Conference leagues to their online vidiprinter at the start of the 2014–15 season. Later Welsh Premier League and Northern Ireland Premiership scores reappeared but cup competitions from both countries were not featured. In 2017 the BBC removed the vidiprinter from its website as part of a revamp of its scores section. From the 2024/25 season, television broadcasters now only feature games from country-wide competitions following the removal of the regional National League scores and results from BBC Scotland's results programme, although results from the FA Trophy are included. The two regional National League divisions continue to feature on Sporting Life's vidiprinter feed.

Competitions covered As of the 2025/26 season, the television broadcasters cover the following competitions, providing, unless stated, goal flashes, sendings-off, half time and full time scores from their featured competitions. This should be seen as a guide as broadcasters are able to include (or remove) specific games/competitions at any time:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Vidiprinter

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Vidiprinter claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Vidiprinter before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Vidiprinter ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Vidiprinter

In research: Vidiprinter appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Vidiprinter in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Vidiprinter is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Sports television in the United Kingdom, Telegraphy, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Vidiprinter outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Vidiprinter in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Vidiprinter means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Vidiprinter out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Vidiprinter in simple terms?

A vidiprinter is a sports scores and results ticker service provided to media organisations. It is shown on BBC One (occasionally on BBC Two), BBC Red Button and Sky Sports News to provide a live on-air feed of football scores.

Why does Vidiprinter matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Vidiprinter?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Vidiprinter.