The Gardeners' World Blog

In June 2004, 24 million people watched the BBC's coverage of England's European Championship penalty shoot-out defeat to Portugal. Nothing - not even a Final between Italy and Germany which ends 6-6, then goes to 27-26 on penalties - will now induce anything like that volume of viewers to tune into Euro 2008 next summer.

It's a long-established fact of life that home interest boosts TV sport viewing figures - a Lewis Hamilton win in Formula One, or a GB triumph in Olympic hockey or rowing lead to the die-hards being joined by millions of floating viewers. The same applies to football, so naturally the heroic elimination of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as England's dismally ignominious demise, is not good news for the BBC or ITV who jointly hold the rights to next summer's Finals.

As football fans, we're the same as anyone else in wanting our teams to qualify, though we'll still enjoy watching and working on the top-quality fare on offer. As programme-makers, we now have a little more thinking to do about next summer's output.