Simon Jordan has hit out at “clown” Samir Shah over the BBC chairman’s proposed changes to Match of the Day.
Shah plans to slash the amount of action shown on the BBC’s highlights show in favour of a programme focusing on analysis, with the trio of Kelly Cates, Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman sharing hosting duties as Gary Lineker steps down at the end of the season.
The channel chief believes most viewers will already have seen the highlights before the show airs, but a recent poll on the BBC website showed that just eight per cent of viewers want more analysis and less action, in contrast to Shah’s reasoning.
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46 per cent would prefer more action and less analysis while the remaining 46 per cent would rather keep the show’s format as it is.
Discussing the planned changes, Jordan labelled Shah an “idiot” for not taking the audience’s desire into account.
“The bottom line is if Match of the Day goes down the parameters of what this idiot controller is suggesting that it should be doing, it’s basically saying less game, more speech. Less clips, more commentary,” Jordan told talkSPORT.
“I mean, have you ever heard such balderdash? No one in their right mind would possibly suggest that the viewing public, in fact, the vox pop that was done suggested the viewing public does not want to hear more chat.
“They want to see the clips with less chat, yet this clown is suggesting that Match of the Day needs to morph into more commentary, less clips.”
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Jordan has previously slammed the BBC’s changes to Football Focus, currently presented by Alex Scott, and hopes MOTD doesn’t follow suit given it’s historic importance in the evolution of the Premier League.
“It’s killed itself,” Jordan said of Football Focus. “It’s just putting rubbish on the screen presented by rubbish people and there’s your outcome.
“Match of the Day was so important to football because without it, Sky would never have got traction.
“The reason why Sky got it is because they were prepared to give a highlights package for Match of the Day and keep it on terrestrial TV.
“So Match of the Day was absolutely fundamental to the value of the increase in opportunity for broadcasters like Sky to be successful.”
“So to diminish it and turn it into something that’s not valuable would be a fool’s errand.
“If they turn it into something that resembles Football Focus then they’ll destroy it.”
The BBC has an agreement to display highlights of all Premier League games until the end of the 2028/29 season.
