The Premiership (TV series)

"This article is about the UK series. For the Irish series, see The Premiership (television)."Infobox Television
bgcolor = #D6D6FF
show_name = The Premiership


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format = Sports
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runtime = Variable
creator =
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starring = Des Lynam
Ally McCoist
Andy Townsend
Gabby Logan
Robbie Earle
Terry Venables
Clive Tyldesley
Jon Champion
Ron Atkinson
narrated =
opentheme = Beautiful Day - U2
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country = UK
network = ITV
first_run =
first_aired = 18 August, 2001
last_aired = 15 May 2004
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website =
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The Premiership (also known as "The Premiership on ITV") was ITV Sport's flagship football show, from 2001 to 2004, devoted to the English Premier League after the network won a lucrative multi-million pound deal to show highlights. The programme was presented by Des Lynam, with Ally McCoist and Andy Townsend frequently serving as pundits.

The theme music was a specially commissioned Beautiful Day by U2.

History

Television Rights

Match Of The Day, the BBC's long-running football programme, was in its eighth year of terrestrial Premier League coverage and about to start a record ninth. Bidding for a further three seasons to the Premier League panel, the BBC went in as favourites to retain the exclusive highlights package. However the contract was surprisingly instead awarded to ITV, offering a £185 million pound deal, outbidding their rivals by £60 million and securing the rights from the start of the 2001-02 season. This had dubiously meant that the channel was splashing roughly £1.3m per show.

After much debate about who was going to sponsor the programme, Coca Cola were awarded the rights in a £100 million pound deal – the biggest sports sponsorship in British television history. [cite news |title=Coke to sponsor Premier League broadcasts |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2001/jun/07/football.marketingandpr |publisher=Media Guardian |date=2001-06-07 |accessdate=2008-08-07 ] The soft drink brand beat off competition from Pepsi and Budweiser and focused their advertising on footballers, such as Robbie Savage, Rio Ferdinand and Emile Heskey and how the sport has influenced their family and friends. In addition, U2's Grammy Award-winning track, Beautiful Day became the show's signature tune. To reflect the supplementary changes on the network, ITV extended their lunchtime football show, On The Ball to an hour and introduced The Goal Rush, which was billed as the fastest and most comprehensive results service in the country. [cite news |title=ITV kicks off soccer coverage |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1471752.stm |publisher=BBC News |date=2001-06-07 |accessdate=2008-08-07 ] In order to cut back on the departments resources, ITV decided to send four of their commentators (typically, Clive Tyldesley, Jon Champion, Peter Drury and Guy Mowbray) to the high profiled matches of the weekend. Gabriel Clarke, Ned Boulting and other freelancing reporters would provide through match reports, judgment from both sets of fans ("Vox populi") and interviews from the players and managers.

As part of the deal, ITV decided to air the show at 7pm – at a time when they thought that football fans and family alike could watch it together. For extensive coverage, a later edition of the show was more often than not aired at 11pm, which included extended highlights, match commentary and further post match interviews. Eagle-eyed football fans were promised technological advances in its coverage such as player tracking to aid analysis to help debate about the main talking points of the match.

Controversies

The first show aired at 7pm on 18th August 2001 and was presented by Des Lynam. The main game featured was Middlesbrough and Arsenal at the Riverside Stadium with commentary provided by Peter Drury and Arsenal convincingly winning 4-0. Liverpool's clash with West Ham United was the other featured game, broadcasted towards the end of the programme.

The Premiership was watched by a peak figure of 5 million viewers, compared to The Weakest Link which drew an average of 7 million, on the BBC. Despite ITV declaring that it was a positive start to the season, media and football critics – most notably the Daily Mirror were outspoken about the programme's lack of essential highlights and excessive amount of talk and punditry coming from Ally McCoist and Andy Townsend. Out of the 70 minutes on air, the show included only 28 minutes of action, compared to an average 58 minutes on Match of the Day last season. Many neutral soccer fans bemoaned the idea that what should have been the featured game – (Bolton Wanderers 5-0 drumming of Leicester City at Filbert Street) only got the briefest of autodubs by Gabriel Clarke and analysis from the studio which lasted for about two minutes. The overuse of football technology to support the decisions was also controversial in spite of praise by top league managers such as Arsène Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson. "Townsend's Tactics Truck" was mocked by journalists and loyal supporters as “excruciatingly painful & totally inept”.

A week later saw ITV suffer their worst Saturday night ratings for five years when an average of 3.1 million viewers watched The Premiership. After two months, figures had not greatly improved: only 4.6 million viewers tuned in, and the early evening slot was a clear failure.

The decision was made in early October 2001 to shift The Premiership from its original slot to a permanent later time of 10:30pm, from 17th November, with repeats shown early on Sunday mornings.

References