Match of the Day ratings ‘PLUMMET’ (except they really haven’t)

We have checked and re-checked the calendar and it still appears to be October, but the Daily Telegraph presumably thought it was Christmas when they checked the TV ratings and discovered:

Match of the Day viewing figures plummet after Gary Lineker’s BBC exit

How sexed-up can a right-wing anti-BBC outlet be? There’ll be no need for flagpoles. One of the Telegraph’s previous headlines on this subject is ‘Lineker’s fall will be cushioned by like-minded woke men’, so you get their inevitable right-leaning drift.

They are not lying; it’s true that ‘Match of the Day has shed hundreds of thousands of viewers since Gary Lineker left the BBC’.

But do you know what’s also true, and is acknowledged in the 12th and 13th paragraphs? The ‘plummet’ is almost exactly in line with the general drop in people watching live TV. And we don’t think Lineker is to blame for Strictly’s viewing figures also ‘plummeting’ (h/t Daily Mail).

So after 11 paragraphs of gleeful reporting about how the BBC has ‘cannibalised’ its audience by making highlights available on their website (that’s still the BBC, guys), we get this:

Such a drop is in line with falling television ratings more broadly and Match of the Day has managed to maintain its share of the overall viewing audience in its time slot.

So far this season, the show has attracted an average of 34.8 per cent of people watching television, versus 34.7 per cent and 33.1 per cent, respectively, for the same period the previous two years.

So…of the people watching TV live late on a Saturday night (seriously, who the f*** is awake?), MORE people are watching Match of the Day than last season, and the season before.

That’s only a ‘plummet’ if you have an agenda. And my word, do they have an agenda.

The corporation played down the relevance of Match of the Day’s falling television ratings, stating that a significant percentage of the programme’s audience now watched it on iPlayer.

However, it provided no streaming figures to support that assertion.

Why would anybody need supporting evidence for the fact that rather a lot of people now watch TV programmes on streaming? Is Ben Rumsby my dad? He doesn’t look like my dad.

And then of course this is gleefully reported across other media platforms with no nuance whatsoever.

Here come the Daily Express…

Match of the Day viewers switch off after Gary Lineker exit as BBC left red-faced

They sure did sound ‘red-faced’ when they said: “This isn’t a decline. It’s adapting to changing audience behaviours as we all should be. Match of the Day is reaching more people across multi-platforms.”

But never mind that sound business sense, let’s all laugh at the silly BBC for realising that a falling number of people sit down to watch linear TV.

The numbers have reportedly fallen from 2.68m to 2.39m as viewers flood to the BBC’s new online highlights.

Videos are now being posted on the broadcaster’s website more than two hours before Match of the Day usually airs, leading to a decline in viewership.

A ‘decline in viewership’ by one particular metric, yes. But more eyes on the BBC in general and actually, a greater percentage of those old-fashioned live TV watchers. But sod that because these are DARK DAYS (The Sun). Yes, actual DARK DAYS.

‘The impact of Lineker’s departure has been felt by Beeb bosses,’ write The Sun before a rather large ‘admittedly’ when it comes to the fact that percentages have actually gone UP. Oh and numbers were dropping even before Lineker’s exit. So it’s almost like Lineker’s departure has not been felt by BBC bosses at all.

And of course the Daily Mail roll out the capitals:

Match of the Day ‘viewing figures PLUMMET’ after Gary Lineker’s £1.35m-a-year BBC contract was axed

We know the Mail do not give a solitary sh*t but if you’re adding ‘research does, though, suggest that viewing figures were falling before Lineker’s exit’ as a caveat within a few paragraphs of that headline, then maybe Lineker – for once – is not the story. Maybe we’re just woke (we are definitely woke).

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