4.5 hours continuous broadcast!

Mmm-I suspect after all the drama, the realisation to many people will be that they are not Chelsea fans and wont want to wallow in it.

I can - from the moment Robben missed that penalty it was obvious Chelsea were going to win it. Actually, their whole run from Villas-Boas' sacking has suggested they would do it.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18131939

I wonder if he would've said that had Arsenal finished fourth?

At least the BBC will be able to say that BBC1 have 4 out of 5 top rating programmes tonight!

On a Saturday night, what's new?

[quote=Fudd;58309791]I can - from the moment Robben missed that penalty it was obvious Chelsea were going to win it. Actually, their whole run from Villas-Boas' sacking has suggested they would do it.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18131939

I wonder if he would've said that had Arsenal finished fourth?[/QUOTE]

Quite!

Chelsea name is on the cup and no one can scratch it off, but Chelsea have perfected the art of heroic last ditch defending to win it this year and I suspect smalltalk in pubs will always say they were lucky.
Still ITV will not care much about that.

Virgin Media EPG...

19:00 Champions League
23:30 ITV News
23:40 Champions League highlights
00:40 Bonnie and Clyde

Anyone tuning in for the highlights at the scheduled time will surely have been spoilered. Can't see the 11.40 screening doing too well, unless of course Chelsea fans want to relive it.


And that is why ITV keep the Champions League - to think some here believe they should drop it every time they air an all foreign game.

Manish Bhasin has just announced The Football League Show will continue on the BBC for another three seasons. Great news.

5hrs 30mins of football...imagine the male demos for ITV1 (highlights ought do a decent post pub crowd, maybe 1.5m?)

That is good news, I wonder what the conract cost them though?

To be honest though, there really isnt anywhere else the CL could go on terrestrial TV. I assume C4 and C5 could not afford it, and even when the BBC were serious about bidding there were too many hoops to jump through, from UEFA itself through to MP's here.
The fact that English teams have been so successful is just happy circumstance really. If there is a downside its that the pre Christmas league structure has become almost terminally dull.

Though even that was livened up this year because Manchester City and Manchester United underperformed.

There was even some talk about it being free at one stage-cant imagine the highlights package will be that costly. Its the MOTD rights that will matter the most.

One huge rating a year doesn't mean they should keep the rights though. There's a lot of luck involved, Chelsea could easily have been out two rounds ago and ITV could have got themselves a 2010 rating again.

Next to nothing i'd imagine - and possibly nothing at all. The BBC wouldnt be prepared to pay much at all for it, but the Football League need some terrestrial exposure. I don't think anyone else was interested at all.

Next season: Itv will be showing Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal on Tuesday Champions League. Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle on Thursday Europa League.

That is a near perfect scenario for them. They get the high ratings for Champions League and also get some good ratings for Europa League cos big teams like Liverpool are involved. Throw some FA Cup matches and England matches into the mix. Plus theres rumours on Broadcasting forum theyre bidding for live 12-match Premier League package for a couple of season's time.

ITV pays around £3.1m per game for the Champions League though - I'm still not entirely convinced that's worth it.

A typical Saturday night would cost ITV very little over £1m to produce, a typical Tuesday night - well, maybe £3.50?

Even better is that the CL games will provided much needed boost to Tuesday shares.
Not heard about the PL rumours-could they sustain PL/FA Cup/Cl/Europa games all at once?

ITV1 Premier League bid?? Considering the match times, I would think only Monday 8pm would be appealing, though 4pm Sunday and 530pm Saturday could rate 4m or so averages. I do think ITV1 would struggle greatly to outbid ESPN/Sky etc...

[quote=Cent;58310677]ITV pays around £3.1m per game for the Champions League though - I'm still not entirely convinced that's worth it.

A typical Saturday night would cost ITV very little over £1m to produce, a typical Tuesday night - well, maybe £3.50?[/QUOTE]

£3.75 surely!

(There is all that extra feed for Martin Clunes horses)

The PL is a long shot cos theres ESPN and Al Jazeera who will want to get one of the smaller packages, they have no chance of out-bidding Sky on the big packages. But I see no reason why they wouldnt be able to hang on to the FA Cup/CL/Europa rights for the next five years, due to the BBC cuts, Channel5 moving in other directions and Channel4 showing no interest in football, the terrestrial bidding competition is virtually non-existant.

Here's The Voice's 'car-crash moment' last night... http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01j8hzc/?t=6m01s

The swearing's been edited out. Looked pretty chaotic at the start, haha!

It'll get people talking though.

The Voice averaged 5.7m, peaking with 6.5m.

Source: Colin Robertson

Poor. I really thought it would be at least back over 6m this week.