Press & Journal takes to airwaves with league highlights

This is how the Aberdeen Press and Journal's live coverage of the Highland League looks to users of the paper's website — This is how the Aberdeen Press and Journal’s live coverage of the Highland League looks to users of the paper’s website

A Scottish daily has begun a weekly football highlights show on its website, covering the competition that it sponsors, Anton Rippon writes.

The Aberdeen Press and Journal’s The Big Game is available on the newspaper’s website from the Sunday night following each round of matches in the Scottish Highland Football League.

The hour-long programme includes match-day highlights, manager and player reaction, and analysis from Press and Journal sportswriter Dave Edwards.

The paper’s online editor, Martin Little, said: “The Highland League has thousands of dedicated fans who follow their club week-in, week-out. We want to bring them the very best coverage of the league they love, from match reports and analysis to reaction and video highlights. The Big Game will have this in abundance.”

The canny Scots in Aberdeen may have actually found a way to get its website to start paying towards the costs of its journalism, too. The Press and Journal website offers five articles for free. Readers can register for another two free articles and then a paywall kicks-in, starting at 99p for the first month and then ranging from £10 to £22 a month for access to premium digital content and the e-edition, as well as six newspapers per week.

Last month Archant, the publisher of a series of daily newspapers in East Anglia, announced that it was to broadcast two Norwich City pre-season friendlies live on its television station, Mustard TV. The first of these broadcasts, for the match against West Ham, was marred due to a failed satellite link. When they tuned in to watch the match viewers were greeted with a message stating the channel was having “technical difficulties”.

A full recording of the game was made available for supporters to watch, and began broadcasting while the second half was still in progress.

Coverage of last Saturday’s friendly against Brentford went as head as planned.

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