BBC Football League Contract

[Crazy Diamond]

Discussions are apparently ongoing regarding free-to-air Football League highlights with the current deal ending at the end of this season (the discussions started in April and it's all gone rather quiet since). Personally I feel the Football League Show has been a success, especially when compared to the dire quality that ITV managed.

 

I remember we played Plymouth back in 2006 (I think) and Djamel Belmadi scored a great goal with about 10 - 15 seconds of great passing play. On ITV however we only saw the finish. Another time we played Millwall at the Den in 05/06 and the action inexplicably cut to the sight of a plane taking off from City airport. For me those two incidents demonstrate just how bad it was on ITV.

 

That said I do realise The Football League Show is not everyone's cup of tea, with some comparing the studios over in Chiswick to the set of Crimewatch.

 

Either way, highlights of the Football League will be on Sky if a deal is not reached between the BBC and the Football League. Live Football League games on the BBC will not happen anymore, as they simply cannot afford it. It may come as a shock to some of you that the BBC actually had first dibs on their ten live games - I for one am thankful they quite rightly chose the derby game in December!

 

I do hope it's renewed though as I don't believe Sky is value for money - that's just a personal opinion of course.

 

The other interesting thing is that the BBC will be changing all cameras to HD at the end of the season, so if the deal for free-to-air highlights was to be agreed, we would have the option of watching Saints highlights on the BBC in HD.

 

Of course, if we're in the Premier League, it's a different story, and no one here will particularly care...!

[St. Neil]

Gawd yeh I remember all those highlights on itv of ground level cameras showing passes, was just a blur of socks.

[Lets B Avenue]

Gawd yeh I remember all those highlights on itv of ground level cameras showing passes, was just a blur of socks.

 

Like Farton Park still has?

[Flyer]

Like Farton Park still has?

 

Im sure thats just some bloke standing on top of the dugout recording it on his phone.

 

I was told the gantry was condemned there but the last time I was there, there was still someone on the top with a camera but the crappy lower view was shown.

[Crazy Diamond]

Im sure thats just some bloke standing on top of the dugout recording it on his phone.

 

I was told the gantry was condemned there but the last time I was there, there was still someone on the top with a camera but the crappy lower view was shown.

 

I know the cameraman who alternates between Bompey and us, he covered a game once at Fratton and he says it was a nightmare. Apparently it's in a really inconvenient place and you end up treading on other people's toes the entire time. That coupled with stadium staff that are easily annoyed make it particularly difficult. St. Mary's is of course the best by far...!

 

As for blurry socks, that's probably only something you'll have at a featured game which has more than one camera. At a regular highlights match there is one single camera that records all the action, and that same camera at St. Mary's also provides the feed that goes to the stadium screens. You'll get a cameraman from both Sky and the BBC at one game.

[bpsaint]

Hope BBC renew the contract, although would prefer the Football League Show if they used the same studio as MOTD, Final Score and Football Focus. Don't like the 'crimewatch' one.

[Bensfcno1]

Why would sky pay to have the highlights show? SSN shows most of the goals before the airing of the football league show anyway, don't they?

[Stud mark of doom]

I thought we were on motd next season?

[Saintandy666]

I thought we were on motd next season?

 

Regardless, the more live football and sport the BBC has the better for it. We don't want it swallowed up by Sky... but it will do. People don't realise(the way the mail goes on), but Sky has far superior spending power.

[pap]

The Football League Show, for all its faults, is far far better than the shyte that ITV were able to conjure when they were doing the Championship.

 

That said, why is it on after Match of the Day?

 

A better solution would be to give each division in the league 45 minutes/1 hr on another channel, and have the Premiership as the main event.

 

That's the way it works in almost every other field of entertainment. You have the lower rated boxers fighting first on a boxing night and a support act before a big gig. Why are the Beeb showing the Football League ( not a main event ) after the Prem ( which let's be honest, is the real deal )?

 

And don't give me any bolox about production time. I lived in Ireland for 3 years. They put the Premiership on the telly in the early evening.

[S-Clarke]

The Championship was awful on ITV, for one it was poorly put together and rushed. They ****ed around with fancy arty shots which missed most of the action and annoyingly it was on bright and early on a Sunday morning.....

 

The BBC have a great slot with the football league show, you can enjoy MOTD...and then more football follows. It's in a time when most blokes will be up and about to watch it, and the coverage is better - and we get decent analysis from the guys. Glad they've scrapped the text messaging segment this year as that was cringe worthy - I hope they keep the show on the BBC though, it's far more professional than anything ITV could ever produce.

[Crazy Diamond]

The Football League Show, for all its faults, is far far better than the shyte that ITV were able to conjure when they were doing the Championship.

 

That said, why is it on after Match of the Day?

 

A better solution would be to give each division in the league 45 minutes/1 hr on another channel, and have the Premiership as the main event.

 

That's the way it works in almost every other field of entertainment. You have the lower rated boxers fighting first on a boxing night and a support act before a big gig. Why are the Beeb showing the Football League ( not a main event ) after the Prem ( which let's be honest, is the real deal )?

 

And don't give me any bolox about production time. I lived in Ireland for 3 years. They put the Premiership on the telly in the early evening.

 

I can do my best to answer the production time thing, it's not entirely straightforward.

 

Down in the south for example, let's say Saints and Bournemouth were playing at home on the same day.

 

The cameramen arrive at the grounds at midday, film the shots outside the stadium etc, then the game itself from 3pm until 4:50pm or so, then the post-match interviews. So we're at about 5:30pm by the time its all done and dusted at the ground. I was working on the Birmingham game and it took us until about 7 or 7:30pm to get back to the studios owing to the traffic.

 

The tapes are then reviewed and the highlights chosen. That is put together as one piece, which depends on the proficiency of the editor and how many highlights there were, this creates the highlight reel.

 

Let's say we're up to about 8:30pm now, and that hour for the Saints clips could well take longer because in the middle of all this, the staff at the BBC studios are putting together stories and working on the next bulletin. As far as I'm aware there is only one editor. The Bournemouth highlights have to be done as well, so with the same time as the Saints game to review and edit, it's 9:30pm, assuming the journey from Bournemouth to Southampton is uneventful.

 

Remember these are the full highlights reels. They then have to be sent over to Chiswick (I think, at least that's where the show is filmed live) where the Football League show crew have until the start of the programme to go through the full highlights and edit down to fit into their programme... Along with all the other fixtures that day in the Championship, League One and League Two.

 

In short, there's not a lot of time to do it, and it's an effort to get the show done. Being the Football League and not the Premier League, the money isn't there to hire staff and get it done faster. There are probably a hell of a lot more people per game and better technology for the Prem.

 

As for being after Match of the Day, I much prefer that to 9am the next day.

[StDunko]

I also agree that The Football League show is better than the tripe that ITV used to dish up. But I'll never understand why the BBC didn't just copy the MOTD format. I hate the way in the Footy League Show they comentator reveals the results whilst the higlights are still playing, especially if I don't already know the result.

 

e.g. spopilers such as "Rochdale squandered their best chance to score against Bury when they missed this 61st min penalty".

 

FFS just let me watch the highlights without spoiling it for me first. (I don't care about Rochdale and Bury, but at least the unpredictability of real football can sometime surprise).

[CB Fry]

The Football League Show, for all its faults, is far far better than the shyte that ITV were able to conjure when they were doing the Championship.

 

That said, why is it on after Match of the Day?

 

A better solution would be to give each division in the league 45 minutes/1 hr on another channel, and have the Premiership as the main event.

 

That's the way it works in almost every other field of entertainment. You have the lower rated boxers fighting first on a boxing night and a support act before a big gig. Why are the Beeb showing the Football League ( not a main event ) after the Prem ( which let's be honest, is the real deal )?

 

And don't give me any bolox about production time. I lived in Ireland for 3 years. They put the Premiership on the telly in the early evening.

 

 

Not really how TV works though is it. There is a reason why Coronation Street is on at half past seven and not quarter to midnight.

 

When ITV had their brainwave to put Premier League highlights on Saturday evening (7ish it was, with Andy Townsend's tactics truck) no bugger watched it. Or they did, but in precisely the same numbers that watched Match of the Day at 10:30.

 

I watch the FL show on iplayer or if its on, on the red button on Sunday morning. It doesn't warrant going on any earlier Saturday night, but a regular BBC repeat mid morning (or mid afternoon) on a Sunday would be a good idea.

[pap]

I can do my best to answer the production time thing, it's not entirely straightforward.

 

Down in the south for example, let's say Saints and Bournemouth were playing at home on the same day.

 

The cameramen arrive at the grounds at midday, film the shots outside the stadium etc, then the game itself from 3pm until 4:50pm or so, then the post-match interviews. So we're at about 5:30pm by the time its all done and dusted at the ground. I was working on the Birmingham game and it took us until about 7 or 7:30pm to get back to the studios owing to the traffic.

 

The tapes are then reviewed and the highlights chosen. That is put together as one piece, which depends on the proficiency of the editor and how many highlights there were, this creates the highlight reel.

 

Let's say we're up to about 8:30pm now, and that hour for the Saints clips could well take longer because in the middle of all this, the staff at the BBC studios are putting together stories and working on the next bulletin. As far as I'm aware there is only one editor. The Bournemouth highlights have to be done as well, so with the same time as the Saints game to review and edit, it's 9:30pm, assuming the journey from Bournemouth to Southampton is uneventful.

 

Remember these are the full highlights reels. They then have to be sent over to Chiswick (I think, at least that's where the show is filmed live) where the Football League show crew have until the start of the programme to go through the full highlights and edit down to fit into their programme... Along with all the other fixtures that day in the Championship, League One and League Two.

 

In short, there's not a lot of time to do it, and it's an effort to get the show done. Being the Football League and not the Premier League, the money isn't there to hire staff and get it done faster. There are probably a hell of a lot more people per game and better technology for the Prem.

 

As for being after Match of the Day, I much prefer that to 9am the next day.

 

Very good post, Crazy Diamond. Nice to get an insight into the process.

 

Surely they're missing a trick though. I can understand why this might have been used in the past, but we live in an age of high-speed internet.

 

If the Smiths across the road are able to download high definition horse porn in less than an hour, surely there are more efficient ways to get video footage to a central location.

[pap]

I also agree that The Football League show is better than the tripe that ITV used to dish up. But I'll never understand why the BBC didn't just copy the MOTD format. I hate the way in the Footy League Show they comentator reveals the results whilst the higlights are still playing, especially if I don't already know the result.

 

e.g. spopilers such as "Rochdale squandered their best chance to score against Bury when they missed this 61st min penalty".

 

FFS just let me watch the highlights without spoiling it for me first. (I don't care about Rochdale and Bury, but at least the unpredictability of real football can sometime surprise).

 

I totally agree. A few posters have said that they just want parity with Match of the Day.

 

I don't actually mind Steve Claridge or even Manish. It's just all the gimmicky bolox they do that annoys me.

[Crazy Diamond]

Very good post, Crazy Diamond. Nice to get an insight into the process.

 

Surely they're missing a trick though. I can understand why this might have been used in the past, but we live in an age of high-speed internet.

 

If the Smiths across the road are able to download high definition horse porn in less than an hour, surely there are more efficient ways to get video footage to a central location.

 

Yeah I agree, I think it'll get better when HD comes in. It's all very basic at the moment, for example a cameraman will be taking four tapes, each half an hour long, to a game and whilst a throw in is taken or there is a pause in play they will change the tapes over. In that time a goal could be missed if a change over takes a little bit too long.

 

Then there's the fact that not many football grounds will have an AV facility for a cameraman to go and record from tape to a hard drive, so the only option is to drive the tapes back to the studio for editing.

 

If it's one thing I don't like about The Football League Show then it's how there's just such a contrast to Premier League highlights programmes. It's nowhere near as glamorous. It sometimes feels like it's catering to simpler people, as if lower league football is a bit watered down. Given how open the Championship has been recently and the size of the teams in it, it's not a good idea to act that way!

[Crazy Diamond]

Today I found out why there are no emails being read out anymore.

 

The show isn't live anymore. As part of a cost-cutting exercise, the Football League Show is now pre-recorded. I spoke to a BBC guy today and negotiations are going on still about free-to-air highlights, Sky are believed to be getting it to put on their website and for broadcast. The highlights would be free for a broadcaster to get but payment comes into it later when the show's producer (at the moment it's IGM) gets involved. It's all a bit messy.