Football tomorrow and beyond
A couple of pieces of news - the first about something happening this Wednesday and the second about another long-term rights deal for the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ.
Ukraine v Scotland was already planned to be shown on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Scotland. Now, given the huge amount of interest generated by the Scottish victory over France, we're showing the game UK-wide on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two. You can catch it from just before 6pm tomorrow.
And an announcement today about radio Premier League rights. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has won six out of the seven packages on offer for live commentaries between August 2007 and May 2010...
This means that Five Live will continue to be the home of live radio sport - and we will have every game that matters live and free-to-air on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ.
This is the first time the Premier League has offered a number of radio packages in the way that television has been divided up - in other words, grouped by kick-off time. Under the new regulatory system, we couldn't win all the packages - in the same way that Sky weren't allowed a monopoly in TV.
However, we've come out of this extremely well. The only package we don't have is a second choice on Saturday at 3pm: a game that would currently be broadcast on Five Live Sport Extra. Every other kick-off time is in a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ package.
Across all our platforms, we believe we have a terrific football portfolio:
*All the key Premiership games on Radio Five Live until 2010
*All the best of the televised action on Match Of The Day and MOTD2 until 2010
*Live audio streaming in the UK - and broadband video simulcasts of MOTD from next autumn until 2010
*The FA Cup live on television and radio until 2008
*England's home internationals live until 2008, and highlights of all the away qualifiers
*The World Cups in 2010 and 2014
So plenty of good stuff to come - and meantime don't miss the UK's current top team playing in Ukraine...
