Have you ever wondered how broadcasters decide which England games to show at international tournaments? Well wonder no longer, because The Rest Is Entertainment podcast has provided insight into the process during Euro 2024.
BBC and ITV typically share England matches between them, with the Three Lions’ final group match against Slovenia set to be shown live on ITV from 6.45pm on Tuesday evening. The match kicks off at 8pm local time. And the battle to secure coverage of England’s knockout stage fixtures has been likened to “extreme cold war”.
Journalist Marina Hyde revealed on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast that this year ITV picked first, opting for coverage of the semi-final, should England get that far.
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“You can choose anything right from the start, it’s like a draft,” said Hyde. “So ITV thought ‘we’ll do semi-final pick one because we think England will do well in this tournament’. The BBC then counter — and this is what happened in the room for this particular Euros, we’re giving you the inside track — with quarter-final pick one.
“And then ITV are like ‘what next?’ It is honestly like game theory. They’re thinking ‘we’re going to do the round of 16’, that’s not a risky choice because England’s group is manageable and they’re going to get out.
“The BBC then look at England Serbia, 8pm on a Sunday night, it is the maximum possible audience: ‘we’ll have that’. ITV next choose England vs Slovenia - that’s also a peak time game but it’s the third game in the group. If England have already qualified it could be dead but people will always watch England games.
“But then the big dilemma: ITV could have had the second semi-final at this stage and they are sitting there thinking ‘what do we do?’ The BBC would be shut out for the final week of the tournament until the actual final. But if England have already gone then the level of interest might have gone.
“So ITV then said ‘we’ll have game one of the whole tournament, we’ll have Germany’. The data shows that English people love to watch Germany, for whatever reason. And it was against Scotland, obviously a home nation, peak time on a Friday night. That has paid off brilliantly for them because so many people watched that.”
There you have it. The decisions around which games to pick and which to ignore for BBC and ITV involve far more politicking and strategic thinking than you might have imagined.
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