Weekend football feedback
The start of the new season saw a new look for the BBC’s televised football coverage, with Match of the Day, Football Focus and Final Score now all being presented from the same brand-new set. And the pre-season optimism of executive producer Jim Irving seems to have been well-justified, judging by the overwhelming majority of your comments:
“It looks fresh and more sophisticated”
“Nice new studio – well done!”
“Really like the new set”
However, not everyone was happy with what they saw. Two of you e-mailied in to complain about the shirt Mark Lawrenson wore on Focus (more on him later).
On a more serious note, MOTD editor Paul Armstrong has taken on board the feedback many of you provided about the “flipper” graphic which displays the statistics during the post-match interviews. He’ll mention this in more detail in his next blog, but accepts it rotated too quickly and says the speed will be adjusted!
A new season also means a new batch of feedback about the order in which the matches are shown on MOTD. Some of you wondered why the programmes were led by games that had been shown live on satellite broadcasters. There are two main reasons for this: a large proportion of the MOTD audience doesn’t have access to these channels, and the running orders are drawn up purely on editorial merit.
For example, on Saturday newly-promoted Sunderland (with Roy Keane in charge) beating Tottenham (who are trying to break into the Champions League places) with a 94th-minute winner was arguably the story of the day. This was borne out the next morning, when it was the main headline in many Sunday papers and on the BBC Sport website.
Some Everton fans also wondered why their match was last on Saturday’s show. Again, the merits of every match were assessed before the running order was completed, and it’d be interesting to see which match neutral fans would have put lowest down their order.
Saturday also saw the first-ever MOTD online simulcast (UK users only). There was a minor problem with the streaming of the first few minutes of the show for some of you using the Windows version (the Real version of the feed was fine throughout). I’m told by BBC Sport boffins that the problem can be solved by refreshing your browser, although hopefully it won’t happen again.
And finally, quite a few of you have asked for the whereabouts of Challenge Lawro. Sadly it won’t be running this season. As many of you will be aware, the BBC has suspended all competitions in light of some editorial mistakes made over recent months. But Mark will still be doing his regular Premier League predictions on Radio 5live (Fridays, 1715) and online throughout the season.
