The World Cup 2006

I'm sure Gabby would have anticipated this. Steve is a well respected name from the BBC and was sure to play a major part in this major tournament. Gabby will almost certainly get work for the quarters, semis or ven final and I'm sure that she'd be more than happy for that.



What did Gabby ever do to keep viewers with ITV? She's alright but she's not the best in the world and her evaluative team is not as good as it should be; far under-par in comparison with BBC and Sky.

However, ITV have got a very strong team on board for this summer, and this could be the edge for viewers choosing ITV Sport, regardless of who's sitting in the chair.

has Des left ITV Sport then?

The BBC is really going to give the England v Paraguay match the full treatment. Kick off is at 2pm but the build up will start at 12.10 and the programme wont finish until 5.25 - despite Sweden v Trinidad and Tobago kincking off at 5pm on ITV1. That's according to the BBC Press Office anyway - i wouldnt be surprised if it finishes earlier than that in the end.

Alan Hansen, Martin O'Neill and Alan Shearer are going to be analysts - surprised there's no Ian Wright there. John Motson and Mark Lawrenson will of course be the commentators.

i doubt it. She will probably feel that she's earned her role as ITV's main football anchor and may well be quite miffed that she's been shunted aside.

not really a surprise - i don't think the new boss at ITV Sport really rates her considering he tried to poach Jeff Stelling from Sky last year.

Well, yes. It's very hard work presenting Countdown.

oh do keep up at the back

Leaving F1 has allowed him to become the permanent boxing anchor though, and thats what he joined the channel for in the first place. I think the man who should be most disappointed is Matt Smith. For me he is far better than Jim or Gabby.

I take it Steve will do the British GP then fly to Germany, leaving Angus Scott to do Canada and USA?

I saw it somewhere (maybe in The Newsroom) asking whats going to happen to the news, Coronation Street, EastEnders etc when there are matches shown at those times on those channels.

Well, heres the schedule for the opening day of the tournament (Friday week)

BBC One
1600 World Cup Match Of The Day Live (Germany Vs Costa Rica)
1900 BBC News; Regional News; Weather
1930 Airport
2000 EastEnders

ITV1
1900 Coronation Street
1930 World Cup 06 (Poland Vs Ecuador)
2200 Emmerdale

So BBC1 News is going to be doing the same as it did during Euro 2004 (a shorter bulletin at 1900) but unlike when they used to show the Champions League on Wednesdays, Coronation Street is going to be on earlier with Emmerdale shunted round the schedules instead...

Also Neighbours will often only have one episode a day, either at 1.40 or 5.35. The first Friday and Monday there will only be episodes at 1.40 and on the Tuesday it will be shown at 4.05 only. There wont be any CBBC when there's footy on BBC1 - it wont be moved to BBC2 unlike previous years. In the first week I think there will be two hour long EastEnders on Thursday at 7.30 and Friday at 8.

As for ITV News, the regional news will be shown at 4pm when they have a 5pm kick off. According to DigiGuide, rather oddly on days when they dont have a 5pm match they have the regional news at 6.30 and the national news at 7 - with Airline at 6.

That's a bit surprising. I thought the BBC liked to take every opportunity to give Neighbours a break every so often. Are they not catching up with Australia too quickly?

They seem to of forgotten about that policy recently - they had episodes at Christmas ad they're showing on Monday too.

Im quite surprised ITV have moved Emmerdale to 10pm and Corrie to 7pm. I thought it would be the other way around. Maybe because Corrie pulls in more viewers they want to put that in the more peak time slot of 7pm, as im sure in the past when they have screened episodes at 10pm (where nothing big has happened, Mad Maya was an exception) ratings have been low.