The BBC will take Football Focus off air this summer, bringing to an end a 52-year stint as the unofficial kick-off to the sporting weekend.
The national broadcaster said it had given “extensive consideration” to the decision to scrap the Saturday lunchtime programme, but the news will hardly come as a surprise as the changing nature of fans’ media consumption has left the venerable televison show quietly forgotten in the age of clips and livestreams.
The BBC said Football Focus’s demise would be offset by an increase in digital content, including new sports shows made directly for YouTube as part of a deal between the broadcaster and media platform. The director of BBC Sport, Alex Kay-Jelski, denied that the move had come about as a result of cost-cutting, with as many as one in 10 jobs set to be lost at the corporation over the next two years.
“Football 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,” Kay-Jelski said. “This decision was made before last week’s 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.”
Currently presented by Alex Scott, Football Focus provides a mixture of interviews and features from the world of football with an emphasis on the weekend’s games. It is a formula that has stood in place since 1974, when Bob Wilson became the first host of the show, providing a then-rare mix of on-camera interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from inside the game.
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Such content is now ubiquitous online, both through offerings from broadcasters and clubs’ own social media offerings. The journalistic approach of the BBC’s in-house style, meanwhile, has for many viewers been superseded by the more impassioned and partisan voices of former professionals and fan influencers.
Scott said in an Instagram video post that it was “the right time” for the show to end but that she had found the buildup to the announcement hard because of the expected social media backlash.
“It has felt heavy, and at times it has filled me with so much anxiety and dread because of the toxic side of social media – that I am often told to ignore and just carry on – but I am human, just like you,” Scott said. “I would love nothing more then for this moment to be about recognising the iconic show that is closing its doors and celebrating everything it has given and nothing else.”
Kay-Jelski said Scott would continue to be a “big part” of the BBC’s sports coverage, with a role at the summer’s World Cup and the end-of-year Sports Personality of the Year Awards. He also teased “a very exciting new project” that could form part of the incoming YouTube offering.
Replacing Football Focus in the TV schedules will be The Football Interview, a series led by presenter Kelly Somers which currently screens after Match of the Day on Saturday night. Final Score with Jason Mohammad will also start earlier on BBC One at 3.45pm on Saturdays.
Wilson criticised Football Focus’s demise. “I am really disappointed it has come to this,” he wrote in the Times. “The BBC has said it will be replaced next season by an interview show about what makes footballers tick. That is crazy.”
