BBC reveals Saturday night’s limited Match Of The Day was watched by 500,000 more viewers than previous week

The football highlights programme was viewed by nearly half a million more than last Saturday's show, which had an audience of 2.1 million, according to BARB overnight figures.

However, the show was radically different as it aired for only 20 minutes and did not include accompanying commentary or analysis from pundits or even its famous theme tune - instead broadcasting only short highlight clips of the day's matches.

It comes after presenters withdrew from the show, including Ian Wright and Alan Shearer, in solidarity with Gary Lineker who was asked to step back from hosting MOTD by the BBC for comparing the language used to launch a new Government asylum seeker policy with 1930s Germany in a tweet.