Football League 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 9pm, 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.

Format

Initially, the show was named Football League Tonight and its format was similar to its BBC predecessor, The Football League Show. During the 2015–16 season, the format changed and the programme was split into two 30-minute segments; the first part called The Championship, which shows highlights of the games from its namesake division, and Goal Rush, which only covers the key incidents from Leagues One and Two.

League Cup highlights were originally shown under the name Capital One Cup Tonight, taking the name of the title sponsor of the competition. For 2016–17, the programme followed suit of its Championship counterpart, becoming Football on 5: The EFL Cup.

Presenters and pundits

For the 2015–16 season, 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 and Talksport, whilst Riley has worked for BBC TV and radio on coverage of rugby league, football, darts and snooker. Both hosted coverage of the 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 produces commentary for the Pitch International World Feed, who also worked for the 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.

For the 2016–17 EFL season, George Riley will host for the second season running, this season alongside Lynsey Hipgrave from BBC Radio 5 Live's Danny Baker Show and BT Sport, as the presenters of the new look show, which returns with the name Football on 5 (The Championship or Goal Rush, depending upon which portion of the show it is).

Paul Walker will return to commentary duties of the featured Saturday match not broadcast by Sky Sports. Bill Leslie, Daniel Mann and Gary Weaver will also return as commentators (from the Sky Sports live matches broadcast).

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 liked, alongside showing the league tables on spin-round placards instead of on-screen graphics. However, for the second half of the season, the audience was removed, and Riley and Cates hosted from the sofa, with the guests sat opposite them, while the tables were changed to said on-screen graphical displays.