Football League Tonight
| Football League Tonight | |
|---|---|
| Presented by | George Riley Kelly Cates |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 42 |
| Production | |
| Running time | Various |
| Production company(s) | Sunset + Vine Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network | Channel 5 |
| Picture format | 16:9 1080i |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | 8 August 2015 – present |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | The Football League Show (BBC One) |
| External links | |
| [{{#property:P856}} Website] | |
Football League Tonight is a football highlights show on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom. The show covers the Football League, the Football League Cup and the Football League Trophy; when covering the League Cup the programme is entitled Capital One Cup Tonight.
Background
Channel 5 regularly covered football from its launch in 1997, including the Scottish League Cup, Serie A, the UEFA Europa League and international football, but Football on 5 had been off air for three years after losing the rights to the Europa League. In May 2015 Channel 5 won the rights to broadcast highlights for the Football League and the Football League Cup from the 2015–16 in a three-year deal. The contract succeeded the BBC's six-year coverage of the league with the Football League Show and gave Channel 5 their first foray into English domestic league football. The highlights show was agreed to be broadcast at 21:00, around an hour and a half before the typical Match Of The Day slot; previously the BBC had shown the Football League Show after Match of the Day.[1]
Presenters and pundits
George Riley and Kelly Cates from BBC Radio 5 Live were chosen to be the presenters of the show. Cates had also worked on football coverage for ITV Sport, ESPN UK and talksport, whilst Riley has worked for BBC TV and radio on coverage of rugby league, football, darts and snooker. Both host coverage of Football League, with Cates presenting League Cup highlights alone.
A number of commentators are used for the programme, the main one being Paul Walker, who also worked for BBC on the Football League Show. Other commentators include Paul Farrar, Dan O'Hagan, Martin Fisher and John Roder. Channel 5 also use Sky Sports commentators for their match highlight coverage such as Bill Leslie and Daniel Mann. Match reporters include Dave Beckett, Sue Thearle, Adam Lockwood, Tom Skippings and Matt Williams.
The show has a mixture of former players and managers as pundits; Adam Virgo is the most frequent pundit having appeared on both Cup and League highlights shows. Other pundits that have worked on the show are Michael Gray, Mark Bright, Gus Poyet, Alex McLeish, Jamie Cureton, Clinton Morrison and Karl Robinson.
Criticism
In the first few weeks of Football League Tonight the show was criticised for trying to be different from the previous BBC highlights programme, with the main grievance being the running order which started in the Championship, went to League One and back to the Championship before showing League Two, and the audience, who were not miked.[2]
