ITV 'adding more sport' to Premiership

McCoist, Lynam and Venables lead the coverage on The Premiership

ITV is to include more football action and less talk in its new Saturday evening programme, it has been reported.

The Premiership came in for criticism when its first show last Saturday featured less football action than its predecessor Match Of The Day.

Complaints about the show said adverts and analysis made up a large proportion of the viewing.

The Mirror reported on Friday that ITV controller of sport Brian Barwick said there will be changes to this weekend's show.

Criticism

"Overall we were delighted with the first show and in our view it was exceptional, given all the new items on it," he told The Mirror.

We listen to what the public tell us, but we also have the courage of our own convictions

ITV spokesman

"But no one closes their eyes and ears to criticism, particularly if it comes from viewers and fans, and indeed the media critics."

He told the paper ITV were "quite prepared to take on board a number of issues".

"I think people will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome when they tune in this Saturday," he added.

Anne Robinson's Weakest Link beat The Premiership for viewers

An ITV spokesman told BBC News Online: "Programmes like this evolve and The Premiership is no different.

"We listen to what the public tell us but we also have the courage of our own convictions."

He said ITV believe the programme started well.

ITV screens its main football programme on Saturday evenings at 7pm - a time usually reserved for light entertainment shows such as Blind Date.

Beaten

Fronted by Des Lynam, it took over from BBC's Match Of The Day when ITV won the rights to show highlights of Premiership games.

But at its first airing last Saturday the show was beaten in viewing figures by the BBC's Weakest Link quiz show with Anne Robinson.

The quiz show's "reality TV" special pulled 2.4m viewers more than The Premiership.

But ITV said it was heartened that the combined audience figures for The Premiership and the late-night version of the show at 11.45pm, beat that of its BBC predecessor Match Of The Day.

No time change

Mr Barwick told the Mirror there are no plans to alter the 7pm time of the programme, despite there being less viewers than the number who would have watched previous entertianment programmes at that time, such as Blind Date.

"We believe we've got it right, that people want to watch the highlights at 7pm and there are no plans to change it," he told the paper.

The Premiership show is part of a package of Premiership soccer programmes ITV has planned, after paying £183m for the rights over three years.

The BBC will continue to show the action from FA Cup and England international matches.