Live football on Sunday - and its not Sky.

There's something quite retro about the BBC's live football on Sunday late afternoon - for those who can remember ITV's Big Match, that is.   It's difficult now to recall how important The Big Match seemed at the time, since there was so little televised football available, and in comparison, the live coverage of ten Championship matches on BBC2 seems a modest addition to the huge availability of televised football.

Interestingly, the audiences for these live matches are pretty decent - perhaps because the schedulers have shrewdly chosen teams which were in the Premier League last year, such as Newcastle and West Brom, or other household names such as Derby, Forest, and recent FA Cup finalists Cardiff. The first match on in the middle of the holiday season on August 12th, featuring Newcastle and West Brom, had an audience of 1.8 million/12%.  Next up, on 26th September came Ipswich and Newcastle - 2.2 million/14% share.  Then in quick success, two consecutive weeks, QPR vs Derby with 1.8 million/10% share, and Cardiff vs Forest with 2 million/10% share. 

To put that into context, on the previous evening, Saturday at 5.30pm - ESPN had a Premier League game, Man United vs Blackburn, with an audience of 406,000/2.4% share.  Later that night BBC1 has its Football League Show at midnight, with an audience of 980,000/15% share, following on immediately after the flagship BBC1 Match of the Day Premier League highlights show at 10.30pm with 4 million/28% share.

The importance of Champions League and Premier League games for ITV and Sky Sports respectively, is taken as given.  However, the BBC's audiences suggest that the attraction of live football is not limited to the games which will dominate the back-pages and callers to 606.  Next up will be ITV's coverage of the FA Cup, which is promising extra coverage starting with the first round tie on Saturday 7th November at lunchtime, between Paulton Rovers and Norwich City. Now that should prove a real test.