I don’t want to live in a world where ITV hold the rights to Premier League highlights.
Apparently I did live in that world between 2001 and 2004, but thankfully I didn’t notice and it is only in the last five or so years that I have become a Match of the Day devotee.
In this digital age where you can find match highlights practically as soon as they happen, watching Match of the Day is still a wonderfully appealing prospect; two evenings of uninterrupted football highlights combined with a great mix of tactical discussion, platitudes and Robbie Savage drivel.
Thankfully, these interludes of people actually talking act only as little palette cleansers between highlights that are crammed with all the ferocity and excitement that is your average Premier League weekend.
Keeping those numbers up
Why then, when highlights of every game are available online from numerous foreign and local outlets are people still persisting with BBC’s football programme?
Maybe the ritual is ingrained, or the thought of breaking Premier League copyright laws terrifies them, or maybe they aren’t interested in watching highlights of Stoke against Burnley with Russian commentary.
Whatever is keeping them coming back to Match of the Day every week and forgoing the immediacy of the internet is going to be totally wiped away if ITV are the new home of Premier League highlights.
Advert machine
The only word I associate with ITV is: adverts. If I was to expand on that, it would be to say that they arrive with such frequency and are so long that it almost feels like the ratio between programme an advert is one to one.
How do you think ITV are going to pay for this spectacularly expensive highlights package? With adverts of course! And because they are going to be premium television real estate, the only companies that seem to be able to afford those kinds of adverts are betting companies. I guarantee that if ITV are where Premier League highlights live, we are going to spend more time watching Ray Winstone’s giant revolving detached head than any actual football.
I can also guarantee that I will never watch it.
But no, I hear you crying, even putting up with ad-breaks must be better than watching highlights with massively over excited Arabic commentary.
Unfortunately not, I would take that any day over ITV’s terrible football pundits and commentators. Fortunately, the time spent in the studio listening to them would be extremely minimal, because, well, adverts.
So ITV, go ahead and bid for Premier League highlights and if you win, I will say farewell to you and your audience of masochists. Then I can look forward to the day that everyone gets fed-up with the adverts, stops watching and they are back on BBC, you know, like last time you tried this.
About the Game 