Getty Images
- Football Focus has been a mainstay for 52 years
- Decision marks latest evolution of BBC’s soccer coverage
The BBC will take the long-running Football Focus programme off the air at the end of the 2025/26 season after 52 years.
The British public service broadcaster (PSB) said the decision, which came after ‘extensive consideration’, was made due to ‘changing audience behaviours’, with fans increasingly choosing to consume content through digital platforms and on-demand viewing.
As a result, BBC Sport has promised to evolve its soccer coverage by expanding its digital output across its own platforms and launching a slate of new exclusive shows on YouTube.
First shown in 1974, Football Focus airs every Saturday at midday on BBC One, providing fans with a mix of interviews and features previewing the weekend’s games. It is currently hosted by Alex Scott, the former England international and Arsenal Women defender.
It will be replaced on television by The Football Interview, a series fronted by Kelly Somers in its Saturday 12:45pm time slot. The move will also see the Final Score results programme start earlier at 3:45pm.
“Football Focus has been a hugely important programme in the history of BBC Sport and has played a key role in telling the stories of the game for generations of viewers,” said BBC Sport director Alex Jay-Kelski.
“This decision was made before last week’s wider BBC savings announcement, reflecting the continued shift in how audiences engage with football and our commitment to evolving how we deliver content to reach fans wherever they are.”
The BBC’s decision will not come as a huge surprise, with fans increasingly consuming highlights, analysis and news on a variety of platforms and across a range of different formats, including bite-size clips, personality-led content and live watchalongs on social media.
Those evolving consumption habits mean programmes like Football Focus, once essential viewing for UK soccer fans, face a battle to attract large audiences at a time when fans are shifting from traditional broadcast platforms to streaming.
The move is the latest major update to the BBC’s soccer coverage since Kay-Jelski succeeded Barbara Slater as director of sport in April 2024.
Distribution of the BBC’s iconic highlights programme Match of the Day has already undergone changes under the broadcaster’s new rights deal with the Premier League, which allows it to upload clips of every game on its digital platforms from 8pm.
Previously, it was only able to distribute the entire show on iPlayer from 10:30pm.
As of January, average weekly linear viewership for Match of the Day on Saturday and Sunday nights had fallen by ten per cent year-over-year (YoY) from 7.65 million to 6.88 million.
However, average weekly views across BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport mobile app and website were up to 1.52 million – double the 770,000 television viewers lost in the past 12 months.
While not exclusive to sport, the BBC also struck a partnership with YouTube earlier this year to create content specifically aimed at younger audiences on the platform.
Indeed, Brits are increasingly spending their time on YouTube, with the UK ratings agency Barb noting that more people watched content on the video platform last year (52 million) than the BBC’s combined channels (51 million) for the first time.
So while the loss of Football Focus will be felt, the BBC can be optimistic that the move will free up time to invest in content better tailored to capture audiences across multiple platforms – driving engagement with its soccer coverage in the process.
As platforms multiply, audiences fragment and media rights deals plateau, it’s time to understand what’s really going on in sports media. Join us at SportsPro London this April to learn more.