Football Focus, once a mainstay of football fans\u2019 matchday, is being scrapped by the BBC at the end of this season after 52 years on air.<\/p>\n
The Saturday lunchtime television programme, first broadcast in 1974, has been a staple of the BBC\u2019s coverage for decades, but the broadcaster says that the shift of viewers to other media platforms means the appetite for the show has waned.<\/p>\n
The BBC said in a release on Thursday: \u201cChanging audience behaviours mean fans are now increasingly consuming football content in different ways and we need to respond appropriately as we face difficult decisions around how the licence fee is spent.<\/p>\n
\u201cFans are accessing discussion, highlights, analysis and news through digital platforms and on-demand viewing and as viewing habits continue to evolve, it is right that BBC Sport adapts how it brings football coverage to the widest audiences across television, radio, online and to its extensive social platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
BBC head of sport Alex Kay-Jelski said the decision was made before last week\u2019s announcement that the broadcaster needed to make \u00a3500 million worth of savings over the next two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball Focus has been a hugely important programme in the history of BBC Sport and has played a key role in telling the stories of the game for generations of viewers,\u201d Kay-Jelski said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision was made before last week\u2019s wider BBC savings announcement, reflecting the continued shift in how audiences engage with football and our commitment to evolving how we deliver content to reach fans wherever they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kay-Jelski added that the regular Football Focus presenter, Alex Scott, would \u201cremain at the heart\u201d of the BBC\u2019s sport output, including its coverage of next year\u2019s Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football Focus, once a mainstay of football fans\u2019 matchday, is being scrapped by the BBC at the end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1578,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-414712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-bbc","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}