On the Ball axed.

Gabby to present Champions League as Des bows out.
Full story at The Scotsman.

Though it's a shame it's been axed, I can't say it suprises me, as ITV's Football coverage has been one of the biggest financial flops ever. Though you must also see that The Goal Rush was also axed, you can see that ITV couldn't give a sh*t about their Football coverage, but after the past few years you don't blame them. Though if you look at the schedule over the past few months the programme is never usually in the same slot, last week it was on at 12.40pm and this Saturday it's on at 11.25am. Though I am glad to see Gaby being promoted to Champions League, she's probably the next best after Lynam.

I think it's a shame really. So now we only have the one terrestrial football magazine. But like nwtv said, it's symptomatic of the way ITV's football coverage has been going.

You can see why its being axed. What would people watch next season, Football Focus with Premiership action or On The Ball with people talking about the action but not actually showing any.

It's also going to be curtains for the Football Extra programmes on the ITVNC surely as well.

You're right yes. But it was on before ITV acquired the Premiership rights, and dont forget, Football Focus ha been going even without Premier highlights. I just think it's part of a new policy at ITV Sport to concentrate on event sports only.

It's all happened before of course.....
'Saint and Greavsie talk about the Endsleigh League is if it's Im-port-ant.....'

I can see the ITV News Football Extra being the ONLY football programme that stays on ITV.

It is on a news channel and so is deemed a news item and so ITV News can still run segments of each game (not sure of the limits - is it one minute per match???) and fill say 30 - 60 minutes with 'newsworthy' sports items.

Its cunning really as you get to show certain amounts of the matches without paying anything at all!

Lets wait and see what ITV News actually do though........

Or, perhaps not. You cant fill an hour with only minimalist goal highlights, without interviews or any other detail.

Well I think the limit (possibly a minute per match) doesnt inlcude pre-match and post match interviews.

So from what I have previously seen on ITV News Channel football extra is they tend to use one minute of football action followed by a two minute interview with various players/managers talking about the match.

So it seems the interviews and any other footage that isnt within the 90 minutes football match is allowed to be shown on other channels.

Eh ? I don't get your point. Surely the only reason that the ITVNC show the post match interviews with the players and managers is because ITV hold the rights to the Premiership. You don't see these interviews going out on the BBC or do you ?

So, when ITV cameras disappear from inside the football grounds next season, I would fully expect the Football Extra programme to disappear from the News Channel.

No ?

Lets hope the BBC put MOTD back to a decent time, not 11.30pm!