Gary Lineker has spilled the beans on the historic rivalry between BBC and ITV, boasting that Auntie does it best.
The broadcasters hold the rights to screen Euro 2024 and World Cup games in the UK. ITV kicked the tournament off with three successive matches, including Germany’s 5-1 drubbing of Scotland, while the Beeb got the first England game of the summer; Sunday night’s 1-0 win over Serbia.
Talking on The Rest is Football podcast, Lineker and Richards chewed over the long-standing tussle and what made it so intense. Ex-Man City ace Richards grilled the Match of the Day star about what fuels the fierce scrap.
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“How many watched on the BBC? Do you know? Have you got the figures? What is this rivalry between ITV and BBC?” quizzed Richards, curious about the numbers for England’s recent 1-0 triumph over Serbia aired by the Beeb. Lineker then let slip he’s not fussed about ratings these days, but he does keep tabs on the crowd-pulling power of major finals, which both broadcasters have rights to air.
“For me, I got over that a long time ago,” Lineker confessed. “I don’t really care as we alternate games between us, and obviously there is a bit of rivalry, because we’re competitive people, but how do you judge that?”
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(Image: BBC)
He questioned: “Do you judge it by the amount of people who watch a game? Because if England are playing then you get more viewers and they’re only on one channel and everyone will watch it regardless of whether it’s on the BBC or ITV”, reports the Mirror.
The former Leicester and England striker confessed he’s still got a competitive streak about which channel scores the most eyeballs for a major tournament final. He said: “I got over that a long time ago but there is one thing, both BBC and ITV both show the final. We are sporting people, we are competitive so that is a little competition but it’s not important.”
Richards chimed in to cool off any talk of a telly war and referred to his mates who work over on ITV: “We do like ITV though don’t we? With Keano (Roy Keane) and Wrighty (Ian Wright) we don’t need to have that rivalry.”
(Image: Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Lineker agreed, dishing out praise for his fierce competitors, but couldn’t resist landing a sly dig to keep the fires of competition stoked. “They’re really good,” he said about ITV, before delivering the zinger: “English television does football very well, ITV do it brilliantly – we do it slightly better.”
Lineker likely marked the World Cup final in Qatar 2022 as a notch in the BBC’s belt, with the Beeb pulling in the majority of UK viewers for the clash. A whopping 20million tuned in for the Argentina vs France showdown, with BBC One bagging a peak audience of 14.9 million, leaving ITV to make do with 4.3 million viewers.
A staggering 15 million viewers tuned in to BBC One’s coverage of the England vs Serbia match on Sunday night. The game was also streamed a whopping 3.5 million times on BBC iPlayer, with an average audience of 10.5 million, bagging a 60% share.
The Beeb will also broadcast England’s second Group D clash against Denmark, while ITV will air the final group-stage face-off against Slovenia.