Premiership: Sky defends game

Satellite broadcasters Sky have leapt to the defence of the Barclaycard Premiership because of deflected criticism over the rescheduling of ITV’s Saturday night highlights programme ‘The Premiership’.

Sky have the contract for broadcasting live Premiership matches and have backed the league following ITV’s decision to move the highlights programme back from a prime time 7pm slot on Saturday to 10.30pm.

‘‘It is totally wrong for people to knock Premiership football simply because one programme has failed to work,’’ said Sky Sport’s Jonathan Sim.

‘‘Attendances so far this season are up again, and so are the audiences for live games on Sky Sports a 6.9% improvement on last season.

‘‘Plus, if you look at the total audience for all of ITV’s shows - two on a Saturday, plus Sundays and Mondays it all adds up to a much bigger total audience on terrestrial television.’’

Sim also pointed to low audiences for Nationwide League games on the ITV Sport channel as a separate issue to the flagship programme ‘The Premiership’.

‘‘There may be some problems with other competitions but the interest in the Premiership at this time is as healthy as its ever been,’’ he added.