Lynam's disaster at dinner

Watching Brian Barwick, ITV's head of sport, putting on a brave face following the decision to move The Premiership from its 7pm berth to the more traditional late-evening slot was like listening to a coach of a defeated football team.

He was trying to say: "At the end of the day, we gave it 110 per cent but just couldn't deliver the result we deserved," before adding that he was immensely proud of his team's performance, that they all played brilliantly, that it was a shame there were so few people to enjoy it.

Certainly, it was quite an achievement to turn around a highlights programme only a couple of hours after the matches had ended. But The Premiership is not only being relegated to 10.30pm because it played havoc with the schedules at prime time on a Saturday evening but because those in charge - Bar-wick included - thought they could get away with treating the viewing public as if they were imbeciles.

No wonder Des Lynam looked embarrassed when he greeted viewers last week with a boast about an upcoming hatful of goals.

He knew better than anyone that the big football story of the day was Bolton Wanderers' astonishing victory over mighty Manchester United. It was the result of the season so far and it marked the first time in four years that Sir Alex Ferguson's team had tasted back-to-back defeats at Old Trafford. But you would never have guessed it from watching The Premiership.

First, viewers had to sit through Liverpool's predictable slaughter of lowly Leicester City, then came nine commercials, including one for an ITV movie to be shown later that evening, followed by 10 minutes of Arsenal versus Blackburn, then some studio chat, then another eight ads (before which, Lynam was practically on his knees, pleading: "We've got Manchester United and Bolton still to come - don't miss it"), then the goals from other matches, more chat and, finally, at 7.41pm, we were allowed to see 19 minutes of action from Old Trafford. This came with a four-minute break in the middle for another batch of ads, by which time thousands of exasperated football fans would have gone to the pub.

Imagine running a TV news programme where you led with a story about a cat stuck up a tree and ended with footage about a huge bullion bank robbery. Imagine a newspaper burying its big exclusive on Page 24 and splashing instead on cloudy weather at the seaside.

Treating viewers with disdain was half The Premiership's problem. Thinking that the power of football could sweep all before it, at a time when even die-hard fans are beginning to admit that there is too much of it on television was the other.

Even so, Barwick, a blunt scouser, was determined to hold out until Christmas. He believed that once the clocks went forward and the nights drew in, The Premiership would start attracting at least five million viewers, rising to six million as the season approached its climax next year. But director of channels David Liddiment, an equally blunt Yorkshireman, was coming under increasing pressure from his ad sales team, who believed that The Premiership would anyway attract an audience of almost four million at 10.30pm, only 600,000 fewer than last Saturday's 7pm show.

ON Monday morning, Liddiment held crisis talks with Martin Bowley and Mick Desmond, the sales chiefs of Granada and Carlton, ITV's main shareholders. They insisted that the only solution was to restore Cilla Black's Blind Date to its former slot, which regularly draws an audience of more than seven million. Lynam wouldn't like it, but his £5 million contract still has four years to run. He would have to lump it.

ITV snatched the Premiership highlights from the BBC last June in a £183 million, three-year deal. Since then, ITV has invested heavily in its ITV Sport Channel, which is available to ITV Digital subscribers and includes several payper-view matches. In total, ITV is spending £240 million on keeping the football bubble from bursting.

The BBC, meanwhile, is already drawing up plans to win back the Match of the Day contract. Bidding could begin as early as next summer, following the World Cup, which is expected to be a beauty pageant for both channels when they go head-to-head. "We'll be back - after the break," was Gary Lineker's famous sign-off line at the end of the final Match of the Day programme last May. But even BBC insiders hadn't reckoned on ITV gifting them such a spectacular own-goal after little more than two months of the new season.