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BBC Renew Match of the Day and Football League show rights

BBC Renew Match of the Day and Football League show rights

The BBC have announced that they have extended their deal with the Premier League to show their Match of the Day highlights till the end of 2015/16, just a few days after renewing their football league highlights show till 2014/15.

“We’ve seen audiences for MOTD grow in recent years and the programme remains one of the BBC’s best loved and most iconic brands. The new contract will see MOTD celebrate its 50th birthday.” – BBC director of sport Barbara Slater

The BBC’s current Match of the Day deal was due to expire at the end of next season, this now safeguards Premier League rights for an additional three seasons after 2012/13.  The Football league highlights were up for grabs as the rights had finished.

The corporation have been cutting their sports portfolio after the licence fee freeze and 20% reduction in their budget, examples being losing half of their live formula 1 rights to Sky Sports, cutting back on tennis and golf coverage and more.

Match of the Day -along with Wimbledon and the Six Nations- were the main focus for the BBC and now all three have long term deals.  The Match of the Day deal extension is at a cost of £197.7 million pounds, This means the highlights show on Saturday night will remain along with Sunday nights programme, midweek programmes if there is a number of games and for the first time the Saturday night show will be available on the BBC I Player on Monday nights from midnight.  The Premier League highlights show features the likes of Gary Lineker, Colin Murray, Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer and Mark Lawrenson.

The Football League Show, hosted by Manish Bhasin, will continue for another three seasons covering the Championship, League 1 and League 2, as well as the League Cup and Johnstone’s Paint Trophy There were fears the programme could be axed. However it is to continue however the BBC have lost their live rights to ten Championship games a season and the latter stages of the League Cup, this reverting back to Sky exclusively.

“The free-to-air highlights are extremely important to the broadcast reach of the Premier League; allowing the competition and our clubs to be seen by the maximum possible number of fans across the country.” – Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore

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