Football League on Channel 5

[robf]

It's bidding time at the moment. This could be interesting, 9pm on a Saturday is certainly a better time than the current post-MOTD one. I believe this is only for the highlights package - live coverage of any Football League matches will continue to be on Sky only (so no live games on terrestrial TV unfortunately)

 

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BBC Sport will receive a hammer blow on Monday, the morning after their flagship Sports Personality of the Year show, with news they have lost Football League highlights rights to Channel 5.

 

The Football League are due to announce a three-year deal with C5 for all their divisions plus the Capital One Cup, starting next season.

 

C5 won the contract with an estimated offer of £2million a year, which was marginally better than the BBC’s, and a pledge to screen their show at 9pm on Saturday.

 

This was seen by the Football League as a far better way to promote their product than being put in the graveyard slot after Match of the Day, even if there is more cache in having the Beeb as rights-holders.

 

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[Shropshire_Valiant]

Interesting, I've never been aversed to Channel 5's coverage of footie in the past they used to cover the Europa League(UEFA Cup as it was) and a few England games for a while but I assumed they'd lost interest in football generally when they all went to ITV.

However the commercials will be a pain but you get that with all channels BBC aside.

 

It's a shame in one way as I think the beeb have made a decent fist of the lower league highlights and imo the FLS is a decent programme in general, certainly better than The Championship when ITV had the highlights for a few years.

[robf]

I quite like the majority of the BBC show. I don't like the club feature with "Clem" as I find him irritating but the coverage overall is fine.

 

With so many games and the fact that clubs like the Vale won't have multiple cameras/directors and so on (there will just be one camera and no real chance to show anything other than the key incidents) there is a limit to what you can do anyhow, but I think putting it on earlier is a good idea.

 

I wonder who will present it? I think Jim Rosenthal is their main presenter and Pat Nevin their main pundit.

[Yukon]

I quite like the majority of the BBC show. I don't like the club feature with "Clem" as I find him irritating but the coverage overall is fine.

 

He has this patronising "look at the little club" attitude, that really grinds my gears. I'm sure he's trying to be a bit of a geezer (or something equally inane) but he comes across as a total pillock.

 

You've opened a wound their Rob!

[robf]

He has this patronising "look at the little club" attitude, that really grinds my gears. I'm sure he's trying to be a bit of a geezer (or something equally inane) but he comes across as a total pillock.

 

You've opened a wound their Rob!

 

I'm glad you said that because that's EXACTLY what I think about him. I get really annoyed that TV always does very serious, in many ways too serious analysis of players, clubs, managers in the PL (I mean look at Sky's coverage of the transfer window - some WARS have had less coverage than that!) but that bloke tries to present all Football League clubs as quirky, funny, something not too serious. It's really insulting to people who have spent years watching and lots of money supporting those clubs.

 

I don't expect the same gravitas that the PL clubs get (in many, many ways that way is over the top too) but a little respect for the people involved would be nice.

 

Having said that, I quite liked the one on Watford this week as it was quite clear that Elton John had turned down any interview request so he was forced to produce a piece about Elton John's new stand without any chance of speaking to the man himself...

[For Us All]

C5 won the contract with an estimated offer of £2million a year, which was marginally better than the BBC’s, and a pledge to screen their show at 9pm on Saturday.

 

The BBC shouldn't be outbid by anybody really,with the money they get in from the licence payers.They are willing to pay high salaries and waste money on taxi-fares but aren't prepared to provide funding for football viewing.The SPOTY extravaganza last night in Glasgow which was won by Lewis Hamilton must have cost well over £2m.