Next season, the English Football League’s (EFL) free-to-air highlights show will be broadcast on the Discovery-owned channel Quest TV, with a new reaction show taking pride of place on Facebook Live.

Over the last few years the highlights show of English football’s lower tiers have been searching for a home, moving from a late-night post-Match of the Day spot on BBC One to a more prime time Saturday night space on Channel Five. From next season, it will be on Quest – not traditionally one of the UK’s mainstream channels – but the main point of interest has to be the impact of Discovery, who aren’t bringing the rights directly to Eurosport and are also bringing a social media live stream to the table.

Recently, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Eurosport Digital, Sameer Pabari spoke about how they had no interest in ‘chasing audiences’ and were instead looking to amplify their content with the use of social media video and OTT services.

????⚽️ @QuestTV to become the new home of #EFL highlights!@ColinMurray will host the weekly highlights show from next season >> https://t.co/Fm8Al84HpQ pic.twitter.com/NerREJT5E2

— EFL (@EFL) May 3, 2018

This move to take the EFL highlights and create a Facebook Live series which will be based around ‘fan engagement’ (it remains to be seen whether this means live audience engagement or whether the show will focus on incorporating fan opinion into its analysis) seems to chime with Discovery’s strategy for Eurosport.

EFL chief executive Shaun Harvey said: “As an experienced broadcaster, clubs and their fans will be able to access high quality coverage on a channel that is committed to making the EFL highlights programme one of its flagship shows.

“Quest is the largest channel in the Discovery portfolio with over 12 million people tuning in each month and alongside the rights based programming, they will utilise their existing and emerging digital platforms to enhance the experience for fans to help tell the EFL story as the new season starts to unfold.”

Simon Downing, head of Quest and Eurosport UK, added: “It’s our shared ambition to make coverage of these competitions accessible to as many people as possible, across all consumer platforms.”