| The Premiership | |
|---|---|
| Format | Sport highlights |
| Presented by | Des Lynam Gabby Logan |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Production | |
| Running time | Variable |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ITV (ITV1/STV/UTV) |
| Original run | 18 August 2001 – 15 May 2004 |
The Premiership (also known as The Premiership on ITV) was a television programme which showed highlights from the FA Premier League. ITV Sport's flagship football show from 2001 to 2004, the show began after the ITV network won a multi-million pound deal to show Premiership highlights, and was presented by Des Lynam, with Ally McCoist and Andy Townsend frequently serving as pundits.
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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 in 2000. Bidding for a further three seasons to the Premier League panel, the BBC went in as favourites to retain the exclusive highlights package. In a late twist, the contract was surprisingly awarded to ITV who outbid their rivals by £60 million and secured the rights from the start of the 2001-02 season at a reported cost of £185 million pounds. This meant that the channel was splashing out roughly £1.3m per show.
As the 2000-01 season drew to a close, ITV secured a three-year deal with the soft drink giants Coca-Cola to help sponsor their new programme.[1] At a fee of £50 million, it was the biggest sports sponsorship deal ever seen on British television and was enough to overcome competition from rivals Pepsi and Budweiser. For their first season, Coca-Cola's sponsorship stings focused on footballers, such as Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Emile Heskey, and how the sport affected their families and friends. As well as that, a remixed version of U2's Grammy Award-winning track, "Beautiful Day" was selected as the show's signature tune.[2]
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.[2] In order to cut back on the department's 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 thorough match reports for the lesser games, judgment from both sets of fans (Vox populi) and interviews from the players and managers.
ITV decided to air the show at 7pm, the earliest time permitted by the broadcasting contracts.[3] Their original plan, however, had been a programme beginning at 6pm, little more than an hour after matches finished, but occupying less space in prime time. When Sky refused to allow the contracts to be changed,[4] ITV proceeded with the prime-time 7pm slot. They also (as originally planned) scheduled a late-night edition of the show, usually starting at 11pm, which included extended highlights, match commentary and further post match interviews.
Fans were promised technological advances such as player tracking to aid analysis of the match. On Monday nights, The Premiership Parliament, eventually titled The Premiership on Monday was presented by Ally McCoist and Gabby Logan and featured 20 fans - one representative from each club in a debate.
The first show aired at 7pm on 18 August 2001 and was presented by Des Lynam.[5] 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, broadcast towards the end of the programme.
The Premiership was watched by a peak figure of 5 million viewers, in comparison to The Weakest Link which drew an average of 7 million when shown on the BBC 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 - were outspoken about the programme's lack of essential highlights and excessive amount of talk and punditry from Ally McCoist and Andy Townsend. 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 the previous season. Many neutral football fans bemoaned the idea that what should have been the featured game (Bolton Wanderers' 5-0 drubbing 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 and 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.[6] 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,[7] with repeats shown early on Sunday mornings.