Sky Sports' Saturday Social is presented in a subdued studio, half shabby chic, half warehouse JD Sports
You can scream for change, switch off from it, or reject it entirely, but should we even try to give it a shot? Saturday mornings on Sky Sports were once colossal with four hours of Soccer AM. Now here's Saturday Social, which, it must be said, didn't sound very promising when describing itself. «Check out the latest football topics on social media and get a glimpse into the lives of footballers off the pitch, with YouTubers and other users sharing their opinions.»
In a subdued studio, half shabby chic, half JD Sports warehouse, we meet competent hosts Adam Smith and Joe Tomlinson. They were joined by YouTube elder Robbie Lyle, a friendly man who has been asking questions to angry fans on Arsenal Fan TV since 2012, and new face Lies Bouzidi. Both were well informed but vanilla. Asked to name the underdogs or dark horses of the Champions League, Bouzidi replied PSG and Lyle bravely gave his life for Bayern.
I found Bouzidi too fond of laughing at his half-jokes, but later on he said it was his live television debut, which made his performance remarkably confident. You can see why it thrives in the changed atmosphere of YouTube's soccer world, which is no longer dominated by screams like KSI opening FIFA Ultimate Team packs.
Instead, today's «like and subscribe» heroes are well-educated young men with neatly trimmed hair, apparently all graduated from a university that churns out elite sons-in-law. It is easy to imagine how pleasant it is to spend time with them, it is more difficult to adapt to the current style of making undeniable statements, as if they were the most poignant passages from Irvine Welsh novels.
Before the Manchester United-Manchester United joint Arsenal XI match is discussed, Tomlinson promises that «it will be fireworks». This is not fireworks. Catch them on the Bonfire Night Years, which repeats hourly on the Sky Fawkes channel. Instead, it was a kind of argument that could be turned on with headphones to drown out on public transport.
Even at its worst, Soccer AM zombies provided energy. Saturday Social doesn't have him, and he compares favorably with other ghosts of Sky's past. More balanced than The Sunday Supplement and less flashy than Goals Sunday, which speaks volumes for a program featuring Chris Kamara. Some of his problems are related to the budget, which seems to be limited to just the board and a few magnets. Other issues are not a matter of taste.
Soccer AM hosts Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain (center) with Oasis guest star Noel Gallagher Photo: Sky Media/Kerry Guys
The guests have broken down each Premier League team's transfer window by tier, YouTube's favorite device. The timing was clearly bad, which meant that the alphabetically unlucky West Ham and Wolverhampton had only a fraction of the time to discuss Arsenal. There were too many conversations about each other that could be called organic, but they seemed casual. And maybe it would be nice to include a woman in this number? The only concession seemed to be a yellow Her Game Too campaign t-shirt in the background, a decoration for men to talk about the facts seriously and courageously. It was like watching a podcast.
Of course, linear TV is only part of the content these days. Saturday Social is designed to be cropped, cropped and posted on various social networks. Obviously something is working, as YouTube views are typically in the hundreds of thousands, which is not far behind the equivalent of the shinier and more expensive Monday Night Football.
If you're over 30, you're not purpose. market for this program. That's the way things are and that's the way it's always been. Bruce Forsyth must have seemed rude to those who grew up on Cliff Michelmore.
It's harder to see why a program that showcases new talent is so lifeless. Sky needs to find the next generation of paying customers, but it will take more than just booking guests with a lot of followers and asking them to serve this thin porridge.
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