Originally Posted by mlt11:
“I always thought Soccer AM was really a children's programme - I've never seen more than brief clips of it so maybe that's unfair and maybe I thought it partly because it was on Saturday morning in the slot when BBC / ITV used to have children's programming - I don't know.”
Well, when it began it was certainly aimed at a younger audience, hence the original 7am start time, Helen Chamberlin joining from Nickelodeon and the adverts I remember seeing in video games magazines when I used to buy them, twenty years ago. But the reference to the Saturday morning shows is a relevant one because those shows appealed to a far wider audience than kids, partly because they were the only things on television for many years - the opposition to things like Going Live was either the Open University or a blank screen, so loads of adults tuned in as well. And similarly even if it was aimed at a younger audience than the rest of Sky's output, it certainly got older viewers as well because there were no other football programmes on. I remember when it first became talked about in the late nineties a lot of its appeal was based on the fact that it was at the perfect time for footballers themselves to watch while they were in their hotels, so it managed to attract quite a few as guests and that gave it some credibility.
It's definitely not a children's programme now, especially as Sky Sports now actually have programmes specifically aimed at children in Game Changers and Nick Kicks. Soccer AM is clearly supposed to skew younger than the rest of the Sky Sports output and the reference to Top Gear is a salient one, it's that kind of dads-and-kids audience it's aimed at. For a while it was also considered a very important place for the music industry and a lot of bands credited their success to an appearance on that because it attracted a lot of young men.
I watched it for a couple of years, and didn't especially mind it, but it was more because of a lack of anything else, before I became totally bored with it and stopped completely a few years back. I think pretty much everyone is pretty clear that it's long past its best, and the best example of that is its Wikipedia page, which is incredibly out of date, still referring to features from several years ago as "new", rather illustrating the lack of interest in the show as it stands as nobody can be bothered to update it. From the few brief looks I've had at it recently it seems to have had something of a radical revamp in the last year or so, not that anyone seems that interested.
Originally Posted by BFGArmy:
“To be fair the biggest thing BT get slagged off for are the 'Cool people' advert and Jake's quite awful 'That's the way we do things on BT Sport' garbage - both of which truly are/were awful.”
Well, certainly the former was a slightly crap advert, but it was clearly tongue in cheek - Darren Fletcher in particularly looked hugely embarrassed to be in it - and they barely ran it that often. It's surely no more embarrassing than having Ian Holloway on the side of bus driving around Britain, or the rubbish gimmicks with Jim White in a helicopter. You can't write the whole channel off on the basis of one trailer, ages ago now.
I find Jake quite an irksome presenter but that's his style, alas. And again, it's not exclusive to BT because Richard Keys was a massive one for boasting about Sky's line-up and talking up their role and doing heavy brand-building, especially in the early days of Sky when they needed to be noticed - and it is still the early days of BT.
We mention how good BT's European coverage is, and I would also like to put in a word for its Conference coverage which is produced with plenty of enthusiasm and I find it far more interesting and a far better advert for the league than Sky's coverage of League One and Two. I don't watch the Scottish football but I have seen several people on Twitter saying how it's way better than Sky who rather phone it in. So the vast majority of BT's coverage is very good. Certainly far more positives than negatives.
Originally Posted by BFGArmy:
“Did enjoy your review Steve. The BSc Premier League Studies line was a particularly good one. An element of truth to it too - there have been numerous mentions of how football is treated too seriously at times but Sky often contribute to that with MNF and SSN in particular. Don't get me wrong though MNF is a fantastic show and I appreciate some of the fantastic analysis from it.”
Well, yeah, I do like Monday Night Football and I can appreciate what Neville and Carragher do, and I like hearing stuff I don't know. Certainly watching someone talk intelligently about the game can be fascinating. But sometimes I wonder what the point is, and it's not so much on Monday night, but on things like the late and unlamented Saturday Night Football when Jamie Redknapp would drone on with the touch screen, endlessly winding stuff backwards and forwards and scribbling all over the screen to work out Once And For All whose fault a goal was, and really, why does it matter? The goal has been and gone. I know in general football doesn't matter, but you know what I mean. We do not need forensic study of every goal. A lot of them are just because someone's just cocked up.
And also, it's a bit of a shame that we can have such intense discussion of that kind of stuff and people get so worked up about it, but there's little concern about other issues in the game. One thing I like about Danny Baker, which he illustrated on his BT show, is that he actually wanted to know what it was like to be a footballer. Why you do things, how transfers work, all that. And you don't hear that enough.
Actually one of the best bits of football analysis was on MOTD2 when Colin Murray was doing it, who I know was an acquired taste, but he once asked Mick McCarthy to explain the merits of zonal marking and why so many people slag it off, and in about two minutes McCarthy explained what it was and why managers persist in using it despite fans constantly saying it's rubbish. It was to the point and it actually told you something. I know the audience is more tactically aware than ever before but sometimes pundits can be so wrapped up in the game they forget the audience, who are sitting there going, "yes, but WHY did they do that?".
Originally Posted by BFGArmy:
“On the celebrities point, given Tubes has already appeared on FNF I wouldn't be surprised if Soccer AM residents Ralph Little/David Haye (or they used to be years back when I last caught it) appear as 'celebrity fans' on 'Off the Bar' at least at some point,”
And Serge from Kasabian, of course. This is the thing, it feels so cliquey and especially with things like Tubes they fritter away so much time on in-jokes. It sometimes feels as if they're more concerned with impressing on the viewer what big mates they are with these people than actually doing anything interesting with them.
As I mentioned yesterday, you'll have seen Bob Mortimer was on MOTD2 and I would love to see someone like that on Friday Night Football because he's a huge football fan, and he offers something from the fan's perspective, but is articulate and amusing with it, not some gurning idiot in a pub. That's surely how you widen the audience and add the entertainment factor, with people who know and like football and have something interesting to say about it - Mortimer, Alistair McGowan, people like that.
Originally Posted by TheSubaru2012:
“Considering that Fletcher has commentated on all the PL games so far and Darke announcing he has no PL in the lineup then I think Darke will only be weekends where BT Sport will have 2 games and midweeks. Another reason why I think Fletch is getting more commentaries is because of the axing of Fletch & Sav, think BT want to fill the amount of air-time lost by Fletch & Sav, I also wouldn't entirely rule out Darke to scale down slightly his commentary commitments.”
Well, indeed, I think this is a the main reason of it - Fletcher's been working every week for them in recent seasons, either as presenter or commentator. He no longer has a presenting gig, for reasons beyond his control, so to give him the same amount of work they're getting him to commentate more instead. If that means Darke does less, so be it.
Gosh, went on a bit there, didn't I?