BT Sport reunites Danny Baker and Danny Kelly for new football show
Popular football broadcasters Danny Baker and Danny Kelly have agreed to reform their on-off broadcasting partnership to front a new football show for BT Sport.
‘Baker and Kelly’s Vaguely Sporting Phone-Out’ is a new live interactive football show that will run on Friday evenings for 40 weeks throughout the 2013-2014 season on BT Sport. The first show will air on August 16, the day before the Barclays Premier League season kicks off.
The two Dannys have worked together on football shows for various radio stations over the past 20 years, most notably for BBC Radio 5live.
The TV series is a co-production between BT Sport and Campbell Davison Media, the company behind Danny Baker’s multi award-winning BBC Radio 5live Show on Saturday mornings.
The new show is a weekly hour of original “unpredictable, football-themed entertainment” with audience participation on phones, texts, email and social media. It will come live from the BT Sport studios in the Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford.
“We intend to make all other twisted opinion shows seem as dull as egg eating contests,” said Danny Baker. “No wait, egg eating contests are pretty cool aren’t they? Like in Cool Hand Luke who, lest we forget, before he ate the eggs was just called Hand Luke.
“So just as I said, but forget the egg eating contest bit. Instead think ‘all other football opinion shows” That’s it. Baker & Kelly: The Best At All That Stuff. Sometimes right. Sometimes wrong. Always certain.”
BT last month announced that it will be offering BT Sport free to any consumer broadband customer, making weekly live matches from the Barclays Premier League free for the first time in over 20 years.
The three channels – BT Sport 1, 2 and ESPN – will make available 38 live football matches from the Barclays Premier League, as well as up to 69 rugby matches live from the Aviva Premiership, for which BT will be the sole broadcaster.
By offering BT Sport free with BT Broadband, BT hopes to appeal to the vast majority of UK homes, of which only one in five currently subscribes to a sports channel.