BBC blows final whistle on Football Focus as show scrapped after 52 years

• Growth of digital platforms reflected in audience fall

• ‘We face difficult decisions around the licence fee’

Football Focus, once a mainstay of football fans’ match day, is being scrapped at the end of this season by the BBC after 52 years.

The television programme, first broadcast in 1974, has been a staple of the BBC’s coverage for decades, but the UK’s national broadcaster says that viewers’ shift to other media means the appetite for the show has waned.

More details soon