Are there any other TWI viewers who would like to predict the commentators on the games I've suggested??
Yeah we could have our own mini-TWI competition in the middle of this. I watch TWI coverage quite a bit, including 3pm games and PremPlus games, and, depending on the commentators, even when it's on Sky Sports.
There is a problem though. Every game is covered by TWI, and the games we are able to watch depends on the channels we receive. The 3pm game(s) we can see may vary.
However, on the games you suggested, here goes:
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Rob Hawthorne and Trevor Francis
Newcastle v Everton - John Helm and Gary O'Reilly
Liverpool v Man City - Jon Champion and Robbie Earle
Bolton v Fulham - Jim Proudfoot and Garry Birtles
Blackburn v Arsenal - Rob Palmer and David Provan
Yes Li4m, I understand all 10 games per weekend are too many to predict for, but many of the games I suggest in my weekly predictions are SKY or PremPlus games, infact all are except for the 3pm game. Although, the 3pm game involves 1 of the top teams (the top 4), where usually theres a good chance one of the top SKY commentators will be at. This weekend is a little different because of no 'early' Sunday game, we get Saturdays Bolton/Fulham which isn't on SKY, and the same goes for Blackburn/Arsenal which will fill in the 'MNF' slot in North America.
Long story short, I'd be happy to suggest the weekends TWI games to predict on, and I could also run the competition if thats okay with others.
Seeing as its late, if those of you would like to play, get your picks in before lunchtime (U.K) Saturday and type TWI in the subject so I can recognize it easier and faster.
Highlights of Wednesday champions league games are shown in the build-up to the Thursday UEFA cup game on ITV4.
And the regional Soccernight programmes will show relevant Champions League highlights too - tonight for example, see Arsenal and Chelsea highlights on London Soccernight, and Liverpool highlights on Granada Soccernight.
Generally however, by the time the rights revert to ITV, interest in watching substantial highlights of those games has disappeared.
In fact there is very little interest in watching highlights of anything these days - all broadcasters are finding that if it isn't live, it won't attract an audience.
Fair enough ariusk. Although - as Football First on Sky proves - highlights which are long an detailed enough, and attractively packaged, can still be popular with viewers.
I do think ITV could make much more of their portfolio of football. In all reality, it's pretty good - they have far more range than the BBC, but they don't advertise it enough; for example, I haven't seen any adverts for the fact that they'll be showing extended highlights of the League Cup Final on Sunday. And how often to they advertise other big events like the end of season play-off finals? Even in highlighted form, they are exciting events. I remember the last time they were shown live on ITV back in 2002, and the live viewing figures were on a par with the FA Cup Final, so these aren't showcase events to be sniffed at, and could be made better use of.
Seems like I've missed the deadline for live matches this weekend, but after my dire showing last time out, I think I'll hide in shame this time!
Deadline has passed for this week's prediction competition.
Only three games, so fair chance there'll be joint winners. Good luck to everyone who entered.
bwfcol
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Brian Marwood
Liverpool v Man. City - Martin Tyler and Alan Smith
Man. Utd. v Wigan Ath. - Ian Darke and Andy Gray
The Naitch
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Tony Gale
Liverpool v Man. City - Ian Darke and Alan Smith
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
casinoman
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Brian Marwood
Liverpool v Man. City - Ian Darke and Andy Gray
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Alan Smith
Li4m
Newcastle v Everton - Ian Darke and Alan Smith
Liverpool v Man. City - Martin Tyler and Brian Marwood
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
Nickleics
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Tony Gale
Liverpool v Man. City - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Martin Tyler and Alan Smith
mlt11
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Brian Marwood
Liverpool v Man. City - Martin Tyler and Alan Smith
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
Fair enough ariusk. Although - as Football First on Sky proves - highlights which are long an detailed enough, and attractively packaged, can still be popular with viewers.
That's slightly different though because they are highlights of games which haven't been shown before.
Football First's success isn't that it is attracting huge audiences to Sky Sports on a Saturday evening... because it isn't. The 80 minute Game of the Week edit gets a quarter of a million which is no more than live Spanish football in the same slot the following evening. Live Premiership football gets 1.5-1.8 million.
The first 50 minute slot gets around 100,000, then each subsequent slot loses between 10 and 20,000.
What it is doing is taking the audience away from the BBC. Match of the Day now is getting 1.5 million fewer viewers than The Premiership was getting on ITV three years ago.
The Wednesday night Champions League games have already been shown live, and the majority of people who want to watch them will have done so already. These days there are practically no football fans who don't subscribe to Sky Sports, so all you get from showing highlights is casual viewers.
To illustrate, 2.2 million people watched Chelsea v Barcelona live on Wednesday night - one of Sky's biggest audiences of the year so far. It was more than double the audience on Five at the same time, and just a quarter of a million short of beating BBC1!
I understand that ITV bid for the delayed live matches when the tender was put out in 2003 - a way to take viewers off the BBC, and boast a more comprehensive coverage of Premiership football. Do you think they'll bother this time round?
I understand that ITV bid for the delayed live matches when the tender was put out in 2003 - a way to take viewers off the BBC, and boast a more comprehensive coverage of Premiership football. Do you think they'll bother this time round?
Actually they didn't. I believe they considered it, but decided that package (which also included 3G rights) wasn't viable.
I suspect that was the wrong decision at the time, but we'll never know if it could have turned into something which got a million viewers on ITV2 every Saturday night.
Sky was the only bidder in the end and got it for a bargain £27m.
The 80 minute Game of the Week edit gets a quarter of a million which is no more than live Spanish football in the same slot the following evening. Live Premiership football gets 1.5-1.8 million.
The first 50 minute slot gets around 100,000, then each subsequent slot loses between 10 and 20,000.
What it is doing is taking the audience away from the BBC. Match of the Day now is getting 1.5 million fewer viewers than The Premiership was getting on ITV three years ago.
The Wednesday night Champions League games have already been shown live, and the majority of people who want to watch them will have done so already. These days there are practically no football fans who don't subscribe to Sky Sports, so all you get from showing highlights is casual viewers.
To illustrate, 2.2 million people watched Chelsea v Barcelona live on Wednesday night - one of Sky's biggest audiences of the year so far. It was more than double the audience on Five at the same time, and just a quarter of a million short of beating BBC1!
Very interesting information arius.
You say almost all football fans have Sky Sports but is this right? How do the ratings for Chelsea v Barcelona on Sky compare to Real Madrid v Arsenal on ITV? I suspect ITV had about 3 times the Sky audience - this implies there are a lot of people who will watch football but don't have Sky. Or are you saying these people will only watch a "mega" match?
Re Match of the Day - if 250,000 watch Sky Game of the Day this cannot explain a fall of 1.5million for Match of the Day. If MOTD is down 1.5million this must surely reflect a general fall in appetite for highlights.
You say almost all football fans have Sky Sports but is this right? How do the ratings for Chelsea v Barcelona on Sky compare to Real Madrid v Arsenal on ITV? I suspect ITV had about 3 times the Sky audience - this implies there are a lot of people who will watch football but don't have Sky. Or are you saying these people will only watch a "mega" match?
There are a lot of people who will watch whatever is on. Even in today's multi-channel world, that figure must be somewhere around 66% of the audience.
ITV only got 5 million for Madrid v Arsenal - but then Arsenal are not as big a draw in TV terms (not compared with Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs or Everton).
But choosing Liverpool again would have led to accusations of bias - they had already featured in four of the eight live games on ITV1 this season. (Chelsea 2, Manchester United 3).
Re Match of the Day - if 250,000 watch Sky Game of the Day this cannot explain a fall of 1.5million for Match of the Day. If MOTD is down 1.5million this must surely reflect a general fall in appetite for highlights.
Which was my original point. And it's true of all sports, not just football.
I think ITV were right to make Madrid v Arsenal the ITV1 game. Although Liverpool are a bigger draw than Arsenal, the fact Arsenal were playing Madrid made it a far bigger game (+ Beckham factor etc which may draw casual viewers).
Note that Sky are making Arsenal v Madrid 2nd leg their main game on SS1 (with Keys as presenter etc). Liverpool v Benfica will be on SS2 with a separate 15 minute intro.
Man Utd and Liverpool are clearly the biggest 2 draws for TV. But not sure Arsenal are below all those other teams. Look at the figures for total live Premiership appearances this season on Sky (Sky Sports + PremPlus) up to April 17th:
Man Utd 22
Liverpool 21
Arsenal 17
Chelsea 17
Tottenham 16
Everton 14
I agree the Beckham factor is also important for Madrid v Arsenal.
I believe that the second leg of this round will be the first time Arsenal has been the main game on Sky's champions league coverage. I think they were always on SSX during the group stage.
I believe that the second leg of this round will be the first time Arsenal has been the main game on Sky's champions league coverage. I think they were always on SSX during the group stage.
You are correct.
Of course in the group stages Arsenal always played on the same night as Man Utd.
In all 3 of these rounds shown by Sky, Man Utd were the main match. Similarly Man Utd were the main match for the 3 rounds shown by ITV.
Li4m -
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Rob Hawthorne and Trevor Francis
Newcastle v Everton - John Helm and Gary O'Reilly
Liverpool v Man City - Jon Champion and Robbie Earle
Bolton v Fulham - Jim Proudfoot and Garry Birtles
Blackburn v Arsenal - Rob Palmer and David Provan
liverpool_9009 -
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Martin Tyler and Trevor Francis
Newcastle v Everton - Peter Drury and David Pleat
Liverpool v Man City - Alan Parry and Robbie Earle
Bolton v Fulham - Jim Proudfoot and Gary Birtles
Blackburn v Arsenal - Rob Hawthorne and Davie Provan
On TWI, it's Martin Tyler and Nigel Spackman at Chelsea v Portsmouth. It sounds like Jim Proudfoot and Paul Walsh at Blackburn v Arsenal (but that needs confirmation). I can never tell between Paul Walsh and Tony Gale and Tony Gale (ex-Blackburn) might make more sense.
Actually they didn't. I believe they considered it, but decided that package (which also included 3G rights) wasn't viable.
I suspect that was the wrong decision at the time, but we'll never know if it could have turned into something which got a million viewers on ITV2 every Saturday night.
Sky was the only bidder in the end and got it for a bargain £27m.
I think you're right, and that it was the wrong decision - to think that ITV could have secured access to most of what the BBC show, and for a fraction of the cost. Perhaps now that they have a channel in ITV4 which is aimed at young men might convince them that they could viably show Premiership football on a Saturday night. Personally, I think ITV's strategy could be, for starters, to bid for one of the 5 live packages on offer. That leaves 23 matches - the best of which can be shown on ITV1, and the rest on ITV4. And then to supplement the coverage comes the delayed live matches shown on an interactive format on ITV4. I agree with you that mainstream highlights don't really work anymore - so I assume that ITV won't bother bidding and wasting money on the overpriced 'Match of the Day' package. This is all speculative of course. While they're very capable of picking up the free live package which Sky aren't allowed, it'll be harder to get the delayed rights, because I think Sky will fight to retain them.
On TWI, it's Martin Tyler and Nigel Spackman at Chelsea v Portsmouth. It sounds like Jim Proudfoot and Paul Walsh at Blackburn v Arsenal (but that needs confirmation). I can never tell between Paul Walsh and Tony Gale and Tony Gale (ex-Blackburn) might make more sense.
EDIT -> Oops, PW and TG on Sky Soccer Saturday.
To complete the information, the summariser is Warren Barton.
I think you're right, and that it was the wrong decision - to think that ITV could have secured access to most of what the BBC show, and for a fraction of the cost. Perhaps now that they have a channel in ITV4 which is aimed at young men might convince them that they could viably show Premiership football on a Saturday night. Personally, I think ITV's strategy could be, for starters, to bid for one of the 5 live packages on offer. That leaves 23 matches - the best of which can be shown on ITV1, and the rest on ITV4. And then to supplement the coverage comes the delayed live matches shown on an interactive format on ITV4. I agree with you that mainstream highlights don't really work anymore - so I assume that ITV won't bother bidding and wasting money on the overpriced 'Match of the Day' package. This is all speculative of course. While they're very capable of picking up the free live package which Sky aren't allowed, it'll be harder to get the delayed rights, because I think Sky will fight to retain them.
The question, as always, for ITV will be will it actually be profitable?
Remember ITV1 advertising revenues total only £4million per day. And most days include a Coronation Street and an Emmerdale with far far higher ratings than football.
So how much can ITV afford to pay for the live rights to a top football game?
Also Arius tells us that almost all football fans have Sky. Sky got 2.2 million viewers for Chelsea v Barcelona. ITV got 5 million for Madrid v Arsenal.
So the extra 2.8 million ITV got are almost all casual viewers - viewers watching it because there's nothing else on. As multi-channel TV continues to expand, ITV will continue to lose these casual viewers. So come 2008/09, ITV may only get maybe 3 million for a good live game. So how much will it be worth ITV paying then?
The answer is that it's becoming harder and harder to fund expensive sports rights on an advertising only funded channel.
ITV pay £3million for each Champions League game. I have long doubted whether this really is profitable.
1st live match and 1st shock: at St James' Park
Brian Marwood & ROB HAWTHORNE
No Carling Cup final for Rob this year.
Given the ‘geography’ of Tyler today, could he be in line to miss out on a live match for the first time this season??
Comments
Liverpool v Man City - Martin Tyler & Alan Smith
Man Utd v Wigan - Rob Hawthorne & Andy Gray
Yeah we could have our own mini-TWI competition in the middle of this. I watch TWI coverage quite a bit, including 3pm games and PremPlus games, and, depending on the commentators, even when it's on Sky Sports.
There is a problem though. Every game is covered by TWI, and the games we are able to watch depends on the channels we receive. The 3pm game(s) we can see may vary.
However, on the games you suggested, here goes:
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Rob Hawthorne and Trevor Francis
Newcastle v Everton - John Helm and Gary O'Reilly
Liverpool v Man City - Jon Champion and Robbie Earle
Bolton v Fulham - Jim Proudfoot and Garry Birtles
Blackburn v Arsenal - Rob Palmer and David Provan
Long story short, I'd be happy to suggest the weekends TWI games to predict on, and I could also run the competition if thats okay with others.
Seeing as its late, if those of you would like to play, get your picks in before lunchtime (U.K) Saturday and type TWI in the subject so I can recognize it easier and faster.
Fair enough ariusk. Although - as Football First on Sky proves - highlights which are long an detailed enough, and attractively packaged, can still be popular with viewers.
I do think ITV could make much more of their portfolio of football. In all reality, it's pretty good - they have far more range than the BBC, but they don't advertise it enough; for example, I haven't seen any adverts for the fact that they'll be showing extended highlights of the League Cup Final on Sunday. And how often to they advertise other big events like the end of season play-off finals? Even in highlighted form, they are exciting events. I remember the last time they were shown live on ITV back in 2002, and the live viewing figures were on a par with the FA Cup Final, so these aren't showcase events to be sniffed at, and could be made better use of.
Seems like I've missed the deadline for live matches this weekend, but after my dire showing last time out, I think I'll hide in shame this time!
Only three games, so fair chance there'll be joint winners. Good luck to everyone who entered.
bwfcol
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Brian Marwood
Liverpool v Man. City - Martin Tyler and Alan Smith
Man. Utd. v Wigan Ath. - Ian Darke and Andy Gray
The Naitch
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Tony Gale
Liverpool v Man. City - Ian Darke and Alan Smith
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
casinoman
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Brian Marwood
Liverpool v Man. City - Ian Darke and Andy Gray
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Alan Smith
Li4m
Newcastle v Everton - Ian Darke and Alan Smith
Liverpool v Man. City - Martin Tyler and Brian Marwood
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
Nickleics
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Tony Gale
Liverpool v Man. City - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Martin Tyler and Alan Smith
mlt11
Newcastle v Everton - Alan Parry and Brian Marwood
Liverpool v Man. City - Martin Tyler and Alan Smith
Man. Utd v Wigan Ath - Rob Hawthorne and Andy Gray
That's slightly different though because they are highlights of games which haven't been shown before.
Football First's success isn't that it is attracting huge audiences to Sky Sports on a Saturday evening... because it isn't. The 80 minute Game of the Week edit gets a quarter of a million which is no more than live Spanish football in the same slot the following evening. Live Premiership football gets 1.5-1.8 million.
The first 50 minute slot gets around 100,000, then each subsequent slot loses between 10 and 20,000.
What it is doing is taking the audience away from the BBC. Match of the Day now is getting 1.5 million fewer viewers than The Premiership was getting on ITV three years ago.
The Wednesday night Champions League games have already been shown live, and the majority of people who want to watch them will have done so already. These days there are practically no football fans who don't subscribe to Sky Sports, so all you get from showing highlights is casual viewers.
To illustrate, 2.2 million people watched Chelsea v Barcelona live on Wednesday night - one of Sky's biggest audiences of the year so far. It was more than double the audience on Five at the same time, and just a quarter of a million short of beating BBC1!
How about England under 21 as a tie break game?
Only two of us have Gale down for a match, so doesn't matter too much.
But, yeah, in the event of a draw anyway we'll have England's U-21 game as the tie-breaker.
Actually they didn't. I believe they considered it, but decided that package (which also included 3G rights) wasn't viable.
I suspect that was the wrong decision at the time, but we'll never know if it could have turned into something which got a million viewers on ITV2 every Saturday night.
Sky was the only bidder in the end and got it for a bargain £27m.
Very interesting information arius.
You say almost all football fans have Sky Sports but is this right? How do the ratings for Chelsea v Barcelona on Sky compare to Real Madrid v Arsenal on ITV? I suspect ITV had about 3 times the Sky audience - this implies there are a lot of people who will watch football but don't have Sky. Or are you saying these people will only watch a "mega" match?
Re Match of the Day - if 250,000 watch Sky Game of the Day this cannot explain a fall of 1.5million for Match of the Day. If MOTD is down 1.5million this must surely reflect a general fall in appetite for highlights.
There are a lot of people who will watch whatever is on. Even in today's multi-channel world, that figure must be somewhere around 66% of the audience.
ITV only got 5 million for Madrid v Arsenal - but then Arsenal are not as big a draw in TV terms (not compared with Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs or Everton).
But choosing Liverpool again would have led to accusations of bias - they had already featured in four of the eight live games on ITV1 this season. (Chelsea 2, Manchester United 3).
Which was my original point. And it's true of all sports, not just football.
I think ITV were right to make Madrid v Arsenal the ITV1 game. Although Liverpool are a bigger draw than Arsenal, the fact Arsenal were playing Madrid made it a far bigger game (+ Beckham factor etc which may draw casual viewers).
Note that Sky are making Arsenal v Madrid 2nd leg their main game on SS1 (with Keys as presenter etc). Liverpool v Benfica will be on SS2 with a separate 15 minute intro.
Man Utd and Liverpool are clearly the biggest 2 draws for TV. But not sure Arsenal are below all those other teams. Look at the figures for total live Premiership appearances this season on Sky (Sky Sports + PremPlus) up to April 17th:
Man Utd 22
Liverpool 21
Arsenal 17
Chelsea 17
Tottenham 16
Everton 14
These are the top 6.
I believe that the second leg of this round will be the first time Arsenal has been the main game on Sky's champions league coverage. I think they were always on SSX during the group stage.
You are correct.
Of course in the group stages Arsenal always played on the same night as Man Utd.
In all 3 of these rounds shown by Sky, Man Utd were the main match. Similarly Man Utd were the main match for the 3 rounds shown by ITV.
Li4m -
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Rob Hawthorne and Trevor Francis
Newcastle v Everton - John Helm and Gary O'Reilly
Liverpool v Man City - Jon Champion and Robbie Earle
Bolton v Fulham - Jim Proudfoot and Garry Birtles
Blackburn v Arsenal - Rob Palmer and David Provan
liverpool_9009 -
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Martin Tyler and Trevor Francis
Newcastle v Everton - Peter Drury and David Pleat
Liverpool v Man City - Alan Parry and Robbie Earle
Bolton v Fulham - Jim Proudfoot and Gary Birtles
Blackburn v Arsenal - Rob Hawthorne and Davie Provan
EDIT -> Oops, PW and TG on Sky Soccer Saturday.
I think you're right, and that it was the wrong decision - to think that ITV could have secured access to most of what the BBC show, and for a fraction of the cost. Perhaps now that they have a channel in ITV4 which is aimed at young men might convince them that they could viably show Premiership football on a Saturday night. Personally, I think ITV's strategy could be, for starters, to bid for one of the 5 live packages on offer. That leaves 23 matches - the best of which can be shown on ITV1, and the rest on ITV4. And then to supplement the coverage comes the delayed live matches shown on an interactive format on ITV4. I agree with you that mainstream highlights don't really work anymore - so I assume that ITV won't bother bidding and wasting money on the overpriced 'Match of the Day' package. This is all speculative of course. While they're very capable of picking up the free live package which Sky aren't allowed, it'll be harder to get the delayed rights, because I think Sky will fight to retain them.
To complete the information, the summariser is Warren Barton.
The question, as always, for ITV will be will it actually be profitable?
Remember ITV1 advertising revenues total only £4million per day. And most days include a Coronation Street and an Emmerdale with far far higher ratings than football.
So how much can ITV afford to pay for the live rights to a top football game?
Also Arius tells us that almost all football fans have Sky. Sky got 2.2 million viewers for Chelsea v Barcelona. ITV got 5 million for Madrid v Arsenal.
So the extra 2.8 million ITV got are almost all casual viewers - viewers watching it because there's nothing else on. As multi-channel TV continues to expand, ITV will continue to lose these casual viewers. So come 2008/09, ITV may only get maybe 3 million for a good live game. So how much will it be worth ITV paying then?
The answer is that it's becoming harder and harder to fund expensive sports rights on an advertising only funded channel.
ITV pay £3million for each Champions League game. I have long doubted whether this really is profitable.
Brian Marwood & ROB HAWTHORNE
No Carling Cup final for Rob this year.
Given the ‘geography’ of Tyler today, could he be in line to miss out on a live match for the first time this season??
Newcastle Vs Everton: Rob Hawthorne and Brian Marwood
None of us got 3 points
bwfcol, casinoman, mlt11 get 1 point for Brian Marwood
The Naitch, Li4m, NickLeics failed to score