This is a Guarian Unlimited article looking at the new ITV proposals. Part of me is excited, part of me worried. The time of 7pm is good if I'm not going to Anfield or an away game, crap if I am (but then an even longer show will be on later that evening).
But McCoist instead of Hansen? Both are Scots, but the former is a cheeky-chappie who has yet to say anything interesting about footie, the later just the best pundit around. Even Gary Lineker started to seem better than the doddery Des Lynam of ITV incarnation.
Incidentally, the first game to be featured is LFC vs West Ham. Funny, Liverpool 2 Arsenal 0 (with the hooked Roger Hunt goal that still gets shown) in 1964 was the first Match of the Day.
"Goals, gadgets, and gluttony"
ITV's new Premiership package will mean something Paul MacInnes thought could never happen: too much football on TV
Thursday August 2, 2001
When ITV launch their coverage of the Premiership in a fortnight's time, I won't enjoy it. Partly due to a long-nurtured dislike of adverts, partly because I can't stand Ally McCoist, and partly due to other, darker reasons that it wouldn't be delicate to explain. But after having cast a disdainful eye over what Brian Barwick and co have in store for the terrestrial football fan this upcoming season, I've got a feeling I won't be alone.
"We want our football to be a family affair," says Barwick, ITV's controller of sport. "Football is at the heart of the nation, ITV have put it into the heart of the schedule." Nice words from a man whose channel claims to provide TV from "the heart of life". But what Barwick actually means is that next season, as well as the traditional pub-enhanced highlights package, ITV are to introduce a new show at 7pm too.
Imaginatively entitled The Premiership, this show will look to pull bigger ratings than Match Of The Day ever could. But a family experience? Come off it. There'll be goggle-eyed men and boys all right, heck even some girls too, but there will also be a substantial proportion of mothers who will have their Saturday night interfered with (if it's a 90-minute show then it won't finish until 8.30pm, ruling out an early showing at the cinema), Dishy Des or no.
Then there's the actual content. The Premiership and its late-night counterpart will be packed with ads, sorry, gadgets, designed to take the analysis of the action to even greater depths. There's Prozone, which charts every moment of every player on the field, and presumable produces a handy equation at the end of it. Then there's the Tactics Truck, packed with old pros watching the game through a "super wide-angled analysis camera" - just in case the umpteen cameras already stationed around the ground missed anything.
And there's the Premiership Parliament. An extra Monday night bonus, the Parliament will feature 20 pre-selected supporters (one for each Premiership club) who will be given valuable airtime to mouth off about their team. This is probably an attempt to mimic football phone-ins which are the staple of radio stations everywhere, but with the added treat of being able to watch people slag off Manchester United as they do it.
The word, I believe, is overkill. What's more, you can bet your lowest common denominator that Sky, the home of sporting excess, will also have a million new shows, gadgets and pundits with which to thrill us every single night of every week. With the season morphing seamlessly into the World Cup next summer, there will be no break from football for nigh-on two years. I'm petrified - and I love watching football. God help those who don't.
