Match of the Day

Sky and TNT score TV rights to Premier League in £6.7bn deal

The Sky Sports Football studio, decorated with the official Premier League trophy

The new deal will come into play from the 2025-26 season, and will cover four years. For the first time, all matches outside the Saturday 3.00pm blackout (a rule introduced in 1960 to prevent matches from being televised between 2.45pm and 5.25pm on that day) will be broadcast live.

Sky won four of the five packages to show a minimum of 215 matches a season, including all first pick matches. Sky Sports will therefore be the home of Saturday 5.30pm kick-offs, Sunday 2.00pm and 4.30pm kick-offs, plus Monday and Friday night fixtures and three midweek rounds.

The mixing of sport's TV economy

It’s more of a trickle than a flood, but live sport is returning to free-to-air television. Women’s football, cricket’s new The Hundred competition and, most recently, Super League rugby have all signed deals that give terrestrial TV the right to show some live matches.

Super League rugby games will air on free-to-air TV for the first time in the competition’s history in 2022 after a two-year deal was agreed with Channel 4. Sky Sports will show the overwhelming majority of fixtures, while Channel 4 will show 10 games.

BBC to reveal new Doctor Who companion

Doctor Who, Dr Who, Peter Capaldi, Clara Oswald, Jenna Coleman

The reveal will be made during half-time of the FA Cup semi-final Match of the Day Live: Everton vs Manchester United at around 18.00GMT.

The new companion will star alongside current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, who plays the 12th iteration of the character.

The new companion replaces outgoing character Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman, who was written out of the series in the Christmas 2015 special.

Profile: Ken MacQuarrie

Ken MacQuarrie

When Tony Hall needed someone to investigate Jeremy Clarkson's attack on his producer, he looked north and summoned Ken MacQuarrie, the calm and reserved Director of BBC Scotland.

 

As an experienced member of the Editorial Standards Committee, MacQuarrie was an obvious choice. His terse report sealed Clarkson's exit. What the Top Gear presenter made of the enigmatic Scot, his polar opposite, remains the stuff of speculation.