ITV Relegates Premiership

ITV is moving The Premiership from its 7pm slot to a later time of 10.30pm, after the sports highlights programme failed to attract enough viewers. A move of this nature has been predicted by media-watchers ever since the timing of the new show was announced, and disappointing audience figures have added weight to the argument that Saturday’s traditional family viewing time is not right for football highlights (see ITV’s The Premiership Fails To Score).

At this year’s Edinburgh TV festival ITV’s director of channels David Liddiment said that a failure to attract bigger audiences by November would “not necessarily” result in the predicted move to a later spot (see Premiership Slips Down Ratings League), while Steve Anderson, controller of news, current affairs and religion on the ITV network insisted that the programme needed time to “bed in”.

However, yesterday Liddiment admitted: “I had hoped to give the programme more time to consolidate in the 7pm slot, but pressure on the overall performance of the schedule and advertising revenues means that we simply cannot sustain the current position.”

The Premiership will move to its new slot on Saturday 17 November and will be repeated on Sunday mornings at 9.25am.

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

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