ITV Brings Sport To Saturday Evenings

ITV has announced that its new football highlights programme, The Premiership, will be screened at 7pm on Saturday nights, replacing existing light entertainment programmes like Blind Date and Stars In Their Eyes.

ITV poached the rights to show the Premier League match highlights from BBC1 last July and has scheduled the programme for Saturday evenings in order to attract family audiences.

The football highlights show will begin on 18 August and will be hosted by Des Lynam. It will also feature Terry Venables and Ally McCoist.

ITV’s director of channels, David Liddiment, said: “The scale and ambition of our premiership programming should leave fans in no doubt about ITV’s commitment to the game.”

As part of ITV’s increased commitment to sport Gabby Yorath will host an extended version of On The Ball on Saturday lunch times and a new programme for Monday evenings called The Premiership Parliament. A new results service called The Goal Rush is also planned for ITV2.

ITV’s current Saturday evening audience is used to programmes like Blind Date and Stars In Their Eyes and the new football highlights show will mark a change in content which will inevitably mean a change in audience make-up from light entertainment fans to sports enthusiasts.

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.co.uk

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