The Gardeners' World Blog

I normally sleep soundly, but as director of sport I've found there are two exceptions to that rule. One is the night of Sports Personality where the buzz of the event is like drinking 23 cups of black coffee, and I find myself pacing round a hotel room in Birmingham or Liverpool at three in the morning. The other is when we have a Premier League rights deal in the offing and there's the late-night jab of awareness that we're at the once-every-three-years moment when the fate of Match Of The Day is at stake.

Well, we've just been through the rights process for Premier League highlights - and I'm delighted to report that the BBC has been successful. Match Of The Day will stay on BBC screens until at least the summer of 2013 in the current format: the main show on Saturday night, the repeat on Sunday morning, MOTD2 on Sunday evening - and then the occasional special, like tonight, when we catch up with a midweek fixture list.