The Premiership (TV Series)
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''The Premiership'' (also known as ''The Premiership on ITV'') is a television programme which showed highlights of the
FA Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
. It was
ITV Sport ITV Sport is a sport producer for ITV. It was formed following the merger between Granada Sport and Central Sport.ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
network won a multimillion-pound deal to air Premier League highlights once owned by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. The programme was presented by
Des Lynam Desmond Michael Lynam, (born 17 September 1942) is an Irish-born television and radio presenter. In a broadcasting career spanning more than forty years, he has hosted television coverage of many of the world's major sporting events, presentin ...
, with
Gabby Logan Gabrielle Nicole Logan (''née'' Yorath; born 24 April 1973) is a Welsh presenter and a former international rhythmic gymnast who represented Wales and Great Britain. She hosted ''Final Score'' for BBC Sport from 2009 until 2013. She has also p ...
as a stand-in and
Ally McCoist Alistair Murdoch McCoist, (; born 24 September 1962) is a Scottish former footballer who has since worked as a manager and TV pundit. McCoist began his playing career with Scottish club St Johnstone before moving to English side Sunderland i ...
,
Barry Venison Barry Venison (born 16 August 1964) is an English football coach, former professional footballer and sports television pundit. As a player was a defender from 1981 to 1997. He played for Sunderland, Liverpool, Newcastle United, Galatasaray and ...
and
Andy Townsend Andrew David Townsend (born 23 July 1963) is a former professional footballer and sports co-commentator for Premier League Productions and CBS Sports. As a player he was a midfielder who notably played in the Premier League for Chelsea, Aston V ...
frequently serving as pundits. ''The Premiership'' ended in 2004, when the rights returned to the BBC from the 2004/05 season.


Background

''
Match of the Day ''Match of the Day'' (abbreviated to ''MOTD'') is a football highlights programme, typically broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights, during the Premier League season. The show's current presenter is former England international striker Gary L ...
'', the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's long-running
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
programme, was in its eighth year of terrestrial
Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
coverage and about to start a record ninth in 2000. Bidding for a further three seasons to the Premier League panel, the broadcaster went in as favourites to retain the exclusive highlights package. The contract was however awarded to rival network ITV at the last possible moment, outbidding their rivals by £60 million and securing the rights from the start of the 2001–02 league season at a reported cost of £183 million. This meant that they were splashing out roughly £1.3m per show. In June 2001, ITV secured a three-year deal with the soft drink corporation
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
to help sponsor their new programme. At a fee of £50 million, it was the biggest sports sponsorship deal in British television history and was enough to overcome competition from rivals
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and
Budweiser Budweiser () is an American-style pale lager, part of AB InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, Budweiser has become a large selling beer company in the United States. ''Budweiser'' may also refer to an unrelat ...
. A remixed version of U2's Grammy Award-winning track, "
Beautiful Day "Beautiful Day" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the first track on their tenth studio album, ''All That You Can't Leave Behind'' (2000), and was released as the album's lead single on 9 October 2000. The song was a commercial success, h ...
" was selected as 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 ''The Goal Rush'' was a live ITV television programme that aired from 2001 to 2003, produced by Granada Television. The programme was broadcast on Saturdays as a rival show to Final Score on BBC One, and provided live football scores from the ...
'', which was billed as the fastest and most comprehensive results service in the country.


Format

ITV decided to air the show on Saturdays at 7pm, the earliest time permitted by their joint broadcasting partner
BSkyB Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...
. ITV's initial plan to broadcast the programme an hour earlier at 6pm was blocked by Sky. An extended late-night edition of the show was also broadcast on Saturdays (its first edition at 11:15pm).). It included further highlights, post match interviews and comments from Sunday newspapers. In order to cut back on the department's resources, ITV decided to send four of its commentators, Clive Tyldesley,
Jon Champion Jonathan Martin Champion (born 23 May 1965) is a British sports commentator currently working as the lead association football commentator for ESPN (US). Champion is a well-established and experienced commentator who has also worked for the BBC ...
,
Peter Drury Peter Drury (born 24 September 1967) is a British sports commentator who currently works for NBC Sports as the lead main (play-by-play) commentator for its Premier League coverage in the United States. Prior to joining NBC Sports, Drury was the ...
and
Guy Mowbray Guy Nicholas Mowbray (born 16 February 1972) is an English football commentator, who primarily appears on the BBC and BT Sport. While working for Eurosport at the 1998 World Cup, he became the youngest ever television commentator on a World Cup ...
, to the high profiled matches of the weekend.
Gabriel Clarke Gabriel Clarke is a British TV journalist and documentary filmmaker. Clarke earned an English Literature degree from the University of London and began his journalistic career with local newspapers in Somerset and Bristol. He started his spo ...
,
Ned Boulting Norris Edward Boulting (born 11 July 1969) is a British sports journalist and television presenter best known for his coverage of football, cycling and darts. Early life and education Boulting was born in Andover, Hampshire but moved to Bedfo ...
and other freelancing reporters provided match reports for the other games in addition to opinions from both sets of fans and interviews with the managers and players. Fans were promised technological advances in the coverage such as player tracking to aid analysis of the match. On Monday nights, ''The Premiership Parliament'', later titled ''The Premiership on Monday'' was presented by Ally McCoist and
Gabby Logan Gabrielle Nicole Logan (''née'' Yorath; born 24 April 1973) is a Welsh presenter and a former international rhythmic gymnast who represented Wales and Great Britain. She hosted ''Final Score'' for BBC Sport from 2009 until 2013. She has also p ...
and featured 20 fans – one representative from each club to debate about the weekend's action.


Reception and later airtime

The first show aired at 7pm on 18 August 2001 and was presented by Des Lynam. The main game featured was
Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...
and
Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...
at the
Riverside Stadium The Riverside Stadium is a football stadium in Middlesbrough, England, which has been the home of Middlesbrough since it opened in 1995. Its current capacity is 34,742, all seated, although there is provisional planning permission in place t ...
with commentary provided by Peter Drury.
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
's home fixture against
West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...
was the other featured game, broadcast towards the end of the programme. ''The Premiership'' was watched by a peak figure of five million viewers, in comparison to ''
The Weakest Link ''Weakest Link'' (also known as ''The Weakest Link'') is a television game show which The Weakest Link (British game show), first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000 and originally ended on 31 March 2012 when its host ...
'' which drew an average of seven million when shown on rival channel
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...
at the same time. Despite ITV declaring that it was a positive start to the season, media and football critics – most notably the ''
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
'' - were outspoken about the programme's highlights. Out of the 70 minutes on air, the first show included only 28 minutes of action, compared to the average of 58 minutes on ''
Match of the Day ''Match of the Day'' (abbreviated to ''MOTD'') is a football highlights programme, typically broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights, during the Premier League season. The show's current presenter is former England international striker Gary L ...
'' the previous season. Many football fans bemoaned that what should have been the featured game,
Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...
' 5-0 drubbing of
Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...
at
Filbert Street Filbert Street was a football stadium in Leicester, England, which served as the home of Leicester City F.C. from 1891 until 2002. Although officially titled the City Business Stadium in the early 1990s, it remained known almost exclusively b ...
, 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 Arsène Charles Ernest Wenger (; born 22 October 1949) is a French former association football, football Manager (association football), manager and football player, player who is currently serving as FIFA's Chief of Global Football Developme ...
and
Sir Alex Ferguson Sir Alexander Chapman Ferguson (born 31 December 1941) is a Scottish former football manager and player, best known for managing Manchester United from 1986 to 2013. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football managers of all tim ...
. 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 7pm 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 17 November, with repeats shown early on Sunday mornings.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Premiership, The 2001 British television series debuts 2004 British television series endings Premier League on television Football mass media in the United Kingdom ITV Sport ITV (TV network) original programming Premiership