hello. i met ros atkins, and welcome to the media show. and i'm delighted to sate my guest today is one of the best—known and most influential figures in the uk media. he has his own production company, a new game show on itv, over 8 million followers on twitter, a role in one of the best—known advertising campaigns in the last 25 years, a regular presenting slot on saturday nights on bbc one that he has had since 1999, and before all of that of course he was pretty good at football as well. gary lineker, welcome to the show. thank you, nice to be here. as you listen to all of that, do you recognise it? do think of yourself as a media player rather than a retired football player? well, it beats crisp—flogger extraordinary. to little kids, that's all i am. yeah, ifeel that i'm a media person now.

it's been a long time since... a very long time since my careerfinished in the early �*90s. so, yeah, i've been very fortunate to have found another career post—football. obviously it still involves football, which is my great passion, but, yes, ifeel i'm very much a media person these days. and when you were a player starting out, were you one of those in the dressing room who was tuned into the media, who had the paper and was like, "look what they're saying about our team or about politics? " in terms of the newspapers and looking at how our team and our performances, i always would buy all newspapers if i'd scored and if i'd played appallingly i would not buy any of them. right. nowadays it's all very different cos it's mostly unavoidable. so i was interested in the media during my career... i think once he got to my mid

20s and when i established myself in terms of being a player at the elite level, i started to think, encouraged by my agentjohn holmes who is still my agent to this day, encouraged to think about post—football and what i wanted to do. i never really saw myself as being a coach or manager. but i was always interested in the media. i remember the world cup in �*86 and the world cup in �*90, i would meet all the journalists and i remember i used to go and sit with them and see how they write their opening lines for their newspapers. i used to sit with radio people, the tv people because i was actually quite fascinated with how the media worked. and from that, i think i sort of saw a career ahead. thatjourney was a reasonably long one, though, you to put in a lot of time. i started presenting in �*96 on television. i did my first bit was the highlight show

for the euros, so euro �*96. so my second ever live presentation was the highlights of england—scotland and it drew 11 million viewers. not that you know that at the time, but... - and i obviously was not very good at that stage. i think fair to say. good evening. tonight we will show you all the important action and reaction from the game that almost transcends euro �*96 itself. and here you are in 2021 presenting match of the day most saturday nights. about 3 million and people watching live and over i million people on demand, so it's a significant audience. how do you view the programme not as a bit of sports broadcasting, but as an institution, notjust for the bbc, but for the country really? i think it's quite remarkable. i think it bucks the trend with so many other things in terms of sports television, highlights, highlights

that really work in... i cannot think of anything else really coming out of the way that match of the day does. but i think what it does it gives the nation and we have to remember people in this country still don't have sky or bt or whatever when football is shown. so it gives them the weekly fix. and also we are addressing a much younger audience now because of catch—up, the bbc iplayer and stuff like that, so i think people love football so much in this country and it's a global sport as well, but also its nice just to watch a few minutes of every game. and it keeps you in touch of everything that's going on. we take a long time to try and get the balance of the show right, but between the amount of highlights and the amount of chat, we have to remember our audience is not sky's audience on a monday night for example or the people they want to watch a bit of football, the goals, let's pick up a little bit of analysis, so we do a lot of research into that. and itjust seems to work.

people like it. but the timing of the games being available? withing about ronaldo and his come back at old trafford that happens at 3pm on saturday afternoon, good for you and this programme for people to wait to see it but it is an anachronism that a modern sport like football with a modern product like the premier league is not letting you see a moment like that at the time? i think that's one of the great wonders of the premier league that they do that because it does not really happen anywhere else. and it's done notjust to make sure that crowds of people still go to football matches all the time, which is you want, full houses are really important to football and i think we've noticed that perhaps more than ever over this period during the pandemic where we've had empty grounds. full football stadiums look better on television, so if you started putting every game live on television, the crowds i think would inevitably be sparser. and i think that would diminish from the product that you're putting on television, yes, you can miss the odd big moment, but in a way

that's quite a good thing. because you're also protecting the lower leagues, fans notice talking about teams going and people going to watch really football but we have an incredible football pyramid that we like to protect. so if they're playing at 3pm and a saturday afternoon and you watch everyone staying in because they want to watch ronaldo�*s debut for united, then that's not a good thing for them. so i think it's a great thing and people playing football on saturday. they play on sunday afternoons. so i think actually i really like that aspect of the premier league. notjust because it's helpful to us on match of the day but it is of course helpful to us. it definitely is, it is part of the reason match of the day remains an institution on bbc one. could i ask you about your role within that institution as been reported, you're one of bbc�*s best paid presenters for your work on match of the day. why do you think you bbc has decided to commit that much money to the presenter of that particular programme? well, i think it's obviously

been a long time process and my salary has gradually come down. but, no, obviously i was in a fortuitous position. i was sought after by numerous channels over the years. and football is global, it's big business, it does the biggest numbers on television, more than anything else we've seen on the euros again this summer. so, and there's a lot of competition and bbc had to fight... i hate talking about this for myself because obviously i realise how fortuitous i am, but bbc wanted me to have... football on television and i'm very grateful for that. and as we get this plurality of output from the footballing world, notjust in terms of punditry but where we can see the games committee, you think there's a risk we are asking too much of fans?

so, a leicester city fan may have to pay the licence even on top of that you might pay for sky and bt and amazon, it's quite a long list now. do you think that's the sport being reasonable towards fans? i mean, i think when you look at it, particularly when you made the sky, in particular who went obviously at the start of the premier league, i mean, they've survived on football. they put a lot of money for it, and they've helped football along the way, but you can imagine if suddenly they lost the rights completely to the premier league, what would happen to sky sports? you know, it's very expensive, it's very expensive to watch sky sports. same with bt sport with the champions league, if they suddenly lost a champions league now, would people bother with a subscription for bt sport?

and the same way with the sky sports. so tv channels pay huge, huge amounts of money for it. bbc pays a fair amount as well, not to the levels, they can't compete. a secondary question, which is some of the investors into football clubs, so if we take paris saint—germain with its connections to qatar, man city with its connections to abu dhabi, the newcastle saudi arabia story that's ongoing, that money is being pushed into football partly as an investment but partly because via the media, these countries or these organisations can change their public image. are you always comfortable with that? not always, no, no. i don't know what we do about it. i think it's every club's supporter, they don't like it but then when it happens to their club, that's ultimately what they want because it might give them a greater chance of success, which is what fans want. but am i comfortable with it? no, not really. gary, we've talked a lot about football and sport,

but it's notjust sport for you at the moment. you've got a new game show coming up on itv, it's called sitting on a fortune. just give us the elevator pitch. i don't want to build up too much because it's... you never know until it actually airs. but we recorded a few episodes, and it's going to be primetime sunday evenings i believe on itv within about a month or so, a month and a half. it's sitting on a fortune, and i think it's brilliant and the audiences that came to watch it thought it was amazing. it's got feel—good factor, people winning loads of money. it's got tension. it's gotjeopardy right from the start. i think it works. but i've already built it up too much. was it the first time somebody called you and said

would you do a saturday, sunday night entertainment show? might be. certainly the first time it's got through my agent. right. this is not something you've been fending off? it never crossed my mind. more broadly, do you have aspirations to go outside of sport. you will know that... i didn't have aspirations for the game show, it never crossed my mind until we spoke about it. but when i watch what you talk about social media, so for example just before i came into the studio i had a look, you talked about var in sport, about des�*s birthday, then about climate change and about animals in cages. and that's not unusual for you to take on a range of subjects. given your platform, i would imagine someone, i'm guessing lbc or a broadcaster or a newspaper, would've come to you and said, "we like what you're doing on social media, can we build this into something? they have advanced at times, yeah. but i'm wary of that. who has come to talk to you? i think it's unfairfor me to say exactly who. i don't think that will be

right because especially having said no, and ijust don't think that would be the right thing to do. but there have been numerous ideas and some of them have been vaguely interesting and some of them not at all. and i have obviously... i'm like a normal person. i have interests. not unlike everyone else. i mention politics, and you... but what separates you from the rest of us if you have 8 million followers on twitter. i don't know why got that, because of the game, but i have other interests like other people. you know, it's a lot of people. like, i get that. so we see piers morgan sign up for a show that would be streamed in australia and the us thing about politics and talking about sport and a variety of issues so that does not appeal? no, i can have my view about things that i feel are important, which i've done.

climate change for me is really, really important. i've got four kids. i'm not worried about... it's not about me coming ahead. my generation will probably be all right, who knows? but i worry about my boys and worry about their children and their children's children. you know, are they going to have a planet that can actually live on? so, important things like that. because i've got a big platform, i can put it out there. obviously i think about the things that i do. but as you say, you want to impact these issues, you are aware of your platform and using it, but you're not interested in a more traditional platform like a tv show or a radio show which would also allow you to address these issues. it's interesting. to a lot fewer people. so, that's interesting. your calculation is if you want to have a lot of influence, you've already got the platform? this is quite a new experience having this platform as well because it's only come over the last few years, and i've kind of never even cultivated keeping my views down,

but nobody ever asked for my views before social media about other aspects. and i understand people that say we are not interested in the slightest about your opinion and i totally get that. but then, ok, don't follow me. so, social media has given us all the platform to show a little bit about who we are. do i want to do those things for a living? no, not really. it's not about this. this is about me pointing out opinions. i don't think i would make any difference either to be totally honest. but i will put it out my views on the off chance it might just make a difference. in the spirit of putting your views out on this platform that you've learned to use has been like. i looked up an exchange you had in 2016 when you said the treatment by some towards asian refugees is hideously racist and utterly heartless, what is happening to our country? and a few hours later, you said i'm getting a bit of a spanking tonight and i take it that means you had a torrid time on social media because of saying that. five years ago,

i may have learned. what have you learned? at that time, i think i'm very supportive of refugee issues. and that was a big thing for me and ijust do find it very hard to understand how we can't have a degree of empathy for people's positions when they have to flee the country for war, for conflict, for possibly climate change in the future, who knows? for all sorts of different reasons that we can be so... i suppose awful in our treatment of the way we view that. we don't want them here, and ijust found that, you can think of belief led me that day, but it annoyed me but i don't usually tweet as aggressively as that. and i don't think i do now, and probably would have rephrased it slightly. but you do tweet about issues on which there are passionate

divisions, don't you? and you know when you press send on the tweet that there is going to be pushback and there could be some furore around that. do you find that stressful? not really. i don't find it stressful at all. i don't tweet anything i don't really believe in. and i... you see people with platforms take years off and say i'm taking a break from twitter, i'm taking a breather from this because they have found themselves in these endless online battles. often the online battles below your tweets, i was wondering if you're kind of aware of them or the impact on how you experience media? i rarely look at the the mentions under my tweets. isee... i have the two different lists. i have the blue—tick people and that might might get a notification from them if i actually follow them. that's about the people i actually see. so, which is a shame because i think the abusive nature of some people ruins it for everyone else because most

people, the vast majority of people, in this country are really good people. and kind. we just get that tiny percentage of the people on twitter that could upset you if you read them, and therefore you don't read them but by not reading them, you also don't read the really nice people and the really good people that actually want to and are having a different conversation about something. so, i avoid that because... because otherwise sometimes might be 1000 tweets nice to you, but the one that's nasty is the one that you remember. so why bother with it? all right, you're not looking

at the comments below but you will be aware that when you are posting these tweets, they are just relevant to you personally and could potentially be relevant to the bbc, which i know is not your only employer, but is maybe the highest profile employer. do you consider that when you send tweets? i consider everything when i tweet. i have three rules. i don't tweet when i've had a few drinks, any drink. i don't tweet when i'm angry. but i'm neverangry, that can't be true. there must be times... you don't get angry? yeah, i get upset. i can get a bit miffed, but i'm not... i played a whole career and never got booked, so i never tackle, so that's probably why. so i haven't really got that. but also the other thing is when i write a tweet, if i will read it through and if i have a i% doubt about it, i won't send it. that's my rule. so the three lineker rules for sending tweets, but one of the rules is not steering clear of controversial subjects because you have tweeted about them? like similar to climate change, i think they're important. and so my question with regard to the bbc is given bbc news's commitment to impartiality, and i know that for example

simon mccoy when he was a presenter on bbc news took issue with one of the tweets that you sent and said this is not helpful for the work... they only apply to people in news and current affairs. they only apply... so those of the rules i suppose what i'm saying in the messages and you're breaking the rules, but what i'm trying to understand is do you consider just the broader impact on how the bbc is perceived, even if you are within the rules? i consider myself a freelancer anyway. and so i work with the bbc, i have worked with bt for years, i'm now working with itv, i've worked with walkers, i've worked with numerous people around. i'm always, i think i might try to be considerate about what it would mean to the people that have employed me at some point. the bbc ever called up and say, gary, please don't another tweet on the people's vote or whatever it may be? no, i stopped on brexit about two, three years ago.

yeah, i noticed that. how come? because i thought it was done. i thought it was time. and i won't ever tweet about gloating if things go... i would not gloat, i want this country to be to brilliant. but i was strong on it at the time because that's what i felt. but i've left that for years apart from that i don't really tweet much about politics. was submerged in politics, but i don't back up to be censored. i think that's what i try to be. and i think i don't know, i've never had any phone calls... so tim davey when he came in... i've had terrific conversations with him, but he never called me up and said you cannot tweet about that or you cannot tweet about this. but when you met him did he talk to you... they can't do that anyway because i'm my own person. they can't tell you but they might ask you because i wonder if they might have. did impartiality come up?

i've known tim for a long time, from way back. but i don't think we talked about impartiality, no. because i was assuming that your agent would be deluged with offers from the media say what you do this or would you do that? else also wondering recently whether political parties have tapped you up? no, no. on the occasion i've had the odd direct message from people to try and help influence their political side of things on twitter. and again i said i'm not doing that. i don't think that's right. does that happen a lot? only very rarely, a couple of times and i won't say who it was because it would not be fair but it has happened occasionally. but, no, iwould not do that, and to be honest i am probably... i am your archetypal

floating voter. people assume my politics all the time. but i'm actually fairly in the middle. i have voted for lots of different parties in my lifetime. so i'm not a lifetime subscriber to one party. so i would not feel right in actually supporting one party anyway. that's interesting aside from politics that in that case a politician but more broadly people see you and your twitter platform as a media channel in its own right to try and lobby. that's. .. your 25—year—old self would've been surprised at that. extraordinary, isn't it? extraordinary, ros. but i suppose the thing to look at the amount of people that follow you and think that could make a major difference. i mean, the people had the occasion of it, that you should be allowed to have an opinion about something else than football because you've got such a following. i said, well, i cannot... i don't manufacture my following, its kind

of happened over a period of time so people have decided to follow me, so what is the cutoff point then, is it so you have a view if you've got up 150 followers or maybe 3000 or is it 10,000 or1 million but 8 million you cannot? so... you have a twitter plan, but as you tell me right at the start, you had a plan to go to the media when you are a 25—year—old, you were describing that as many time with the journalists and reporters and the broadcasters, you had a twinkle in your eye and i can see your enthusiasm. do you still have that same love affair and curiosity with the media that you had then? i still love what i do, i really do. ifeel like sometimes i pinch my stuff think why me, why have i been so lucky in life? but i'm notjust saying that. the things i have done my football career are amazing, and i've had so much fun in the media over seven years. so, it's, yeah, i've still got

that passion and i still love doing match of the day. i still love going to live games and... what is it about the media experience that you love? i thought about this before, and i think what it is is that you can never replace playing. there's nothing like it. there's nothing in life that gets even close to scoring a big goal in a big game. it's like an explosion of emotions. people say when you watch your team and they score a really important goal, how do you feel? it's like amazing, wejump up in the seat. it is like that when it's you that's done it, it's like tenfold, a hundred—fold if you like. it's scoring to equalise against germany in a world cup semifinal, it's like indescribable. but what the media has given me, not those feelings so much, but it's replacing the team aspect of it so you still get the camaraderie even though it's a smaller team in television, but there's still the dressing room banter,

that's still there. and they're still the adrenaline rush when the light goes on because people on television, not all of it, especially now, is live. so, you know, when that red light goes on there's a buzz and there's a buzz. it's not quite comparable with the buzz about i got playing football, because if you mess up in television, no one really cares that much except myself. whereas if you mess up in a football match, you miss a penalty with one minute to go when you lose, then that effect love people's lives for quite a while. so there is a difference, but it still gives me, it gives me something and it's not quite comparable but it's not that far off. gary lineker, thank you very much indeed forjoining us on the media show. well, that's it for this week's eddition, join me next week for the media show here on the bbc news channel.

hello there. for most of this september, temperatures have been a lot warmer than you might normally expect to see. temperatures over the weekend, for example, reached 23 celsius in north scotland's kinloss, but, a cold front has since moved through, and that's really dunked the temperatures. in kinloss, the same spot, down to 13 celsius for a high on monday. and there were plenty of showers following our cold front through. that was one of those shower clouds working across the skies. there is the cold front, there are the shower clouds, but lurking to our west, this is what's coming next, and this is a developing low, a developing front that is going to spread more persistent rain in. however, over the next few hours, it's showers that are in the forecast, so if you are heading outside, wales, parts of southwest england, along with northern ireland and western scotland, that's where you are most likely to see showers over the next few hours.

across many central and eastern areas, a lot of dry weather with clear spells. so not a bad start to the day, mostly bright and dry, but across wales and western areas of england, quickly that area of cloud i showed you, well, that's this rain that's going to be moving its way in. pushing eastwards and northwards through the day, the rain does eventually reach southern and eastern scotland. northwest scotland and northern ireland, though, brighter, again, a day of sunshine and showers here. and the day's top temperatures between around about 14—17 celsius with fairly gusty winds. that weather system clears out of the way as we get into wednesday, and what follows is a ridge of high pressure. now, the weather for many of us will be a dry with increasing amounts of sunshine. however, we are going to see showers feeding in across these northwestern areas. so west scotland to the north of northern ireland, northern parts of wales and into northwest england through areas like merseyside, cheshire, greater manchester and the west midlands — you're likely to see showers even into the afternoon. temperatures about 13— 16 celsius. wednesday promises to be one of the cooler days of the week.

but a fair amount of sunshine. won't be too much of that sunshine an offer on thursday though because we've got an active weather system set to come in — bringing some heavy outbreaks of rain, and strengthening winds as well towards the northwest as we go on to the day, might even see some gales developing in places. temperatures, about 14— 17 celsius in the southwest of england. we've got more of this very unsettled weather for friday. general outbreaks,of rain, still quite windy. something of an improvement over the weekend, we are back to a mixture of sunshine and showers.

welcome to bbc news, i'm maryam moshiri. our top stories... american r&b singer r kelly is found guilty of sex trafficking, racketeering and sexually abusing women and children. the 54—year—old could spend the rest of his life behind bars for the two decades�* abuse detailed by 11 victims. challenging the taliban over the way they teach children. at the way they teach children. at the bbc reports from inside their heartlands in afghanistan. british soldiers are put on standby to help deliver fuel as pumps run dry after days of panic buying. keeping an eye on climate change with an out of this world view — the new satellite tracking what humans are doing to the planet.