A vidiprinter is a sports scores and results ticker service provided to media organisations. It is shown on BBC One (occasionally on BBC Two), BBC Red Button and Sky Sports News to provide a live on-air feed of football scores. It appears on-screen when a significant number of games are in progress.
The vidiprinter service was originally supplied by the Press Association, doing so from the vidiprinter's inception until the end of the 2012/13 season. The contract was taken over by Opta Sports from the start of the 2013/14 season, and Opta has provided the service ever since.
Implementation
The BBC and Sky Sports show a vidiprinter during their scores and results programmes and can pick and choose which competitions they wish viewers to see on any given day.
On Saturdays, their vidiprinters appear at the start of the 3pm kick-offs until just after 5pm when all the results are in. However, on the Saturdays when international fixtures are taking place, the BBC does not show a football scores programme. Sky also shows its vidiprinter when the lunchtime games are taking place - ie between 12.30pm and 2.30pm.
Both also show their vidiprinter when a lot of midweek games are being played. Since 1998 Sky Sports has broadcast a midweek version of Soccer Saturday, Soccer Special, and the vidiprinter is on screen from 7:45pm until around 9:45pm, although it can appear for extended periods depending on the games taking place that night. Since 2007 the BBC has also shown a midweek edition of its scores service called Midweek Final Score although the programme is a text and graphics service with audio coming from BBC Radio 5 Live. Both channels produce editions of their scores programmes on Boxing Day and New Year's Day as a full set of English games (plus Scottish games on Boxing Day) take place on these bank holiday afternoons.
Until 2026 BBC Scotland had broadcast its own Saturday afternoon results programme and, as with Final Score, the vidiprinter was onscreen from the start of the programme until the classified results are read out. However the 2026/27 season has not seen any kind of scores service from BBC Scotland, and now viewers in Scotland see Final Score.
Until 2020, neither broadcaster produced a regular football scores service on Sundays, despite all the top Premier League clashes, other notable games and almost all of the women’s football programmes taking place on Sundays. The only exception was the final day of the Premier League season due to the final set of fixtures being played on a Sunday, when all ten games start at the same time - the only time of the season that this happens. However after the BBC regained the rights for the FA Cup in 2014–15, a Sunday edition was broadcast for a few seasons on the weekends of the first and second rounds of the competition with the vidiprinter seen on-screen when the FA Cup games were in progress, and in late 2020, Sky Sports News's Sunday afternoon coverage, which aired between 12noon and 6pm, which in 2025 became Soccer Sunday and airs between just before 2pm until 6pm, shows the vidiprinter on screen throughout the programme, and the information shown also includes information from five European leagues.
There are also various versions of the vidiprinter on the internet. As well as English and Scottish football, The Sporting Life's website vidiprinter features league, but not Cup, scores and results from many global leagues. The Sky Sports online vidiprinter largely mirrors the vidiprinter seen on Sky Sports News, although it does not include scores from the women's game, and the Football Web Pages vidiprinter includes scores, results and scorers from Steps 2, 3 and 4, along with some Step 5 and Step 6 leagues, of the non league pyramid. It expanded its coverage at the start of the 2019/20 season to include the women's game, the Welsh Premier League and nine European competitions with its selection of Step 5 and 6 leagues added for the 2024/25 season. This is the only vidiprinter to include games from leagues which sit below Step 2, and games from Scottish non-league.
As of mid 2017, the BBC's website no longer features a vidiprinter. The BBC website had included a vidiprinter from the early 2000s. Originally this was a live feed of the Press Association service featuring all the competitions that the service covered. However from the 2007-08 season the BBC started to create its own version by removing competitions that it felt did not merit inclusion and as time progressed the coverage generally mirrored the competitions featured on the BBC's website. In October 2013 it began featuring European league matches at the expense of non league, Welsh and Irish games although the BBC did re-introduce coverage of the regional Conference leagues to their online vidiprinter at the start of the 2014–15 season. Later Welsh Premier League and Northern Ireland Premiership scores reappeared but cup competitions from both countries were not featured. In 2017 the BBC removed the vidiprinter from its website as part of a revamp of its scores section.
From the 2024/25 season, television broadcasters now only feature games from country-wide competitions following the removal of the regional National League scores and results from BBC Scotland's results programme, although results from the FA Trophy did appear included. The two regional National League divisions continue to feature on Sporting Life's vidiprinter feed.
Competitions covered As of the 2026/27 season, the television broadcasters cover the following competitions, providing, unless stated, goal flashes, sendings-off, half time and full time scores from their featured competitions. This should be seen as a guide as broadcasters are able to include (or remove) specific games/competitions at any time:
BBC Final Score: Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two, National League, Women's Super League, Women's Super League 2, FA Cup (from the first round proper), EFL Cup Scottish Premier League, Scottish Championship, Scottish League One, Scottish League Two, Scottish Cup (from round 4), Scottish League Cup Cymru Premier Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A Champions League, Europa League, UEFA Women's Champions League Sky Sports: Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two, National League, Women's Super League, Women's Super League 2, FA Cup (from the first round proper), EFL Cup, EFL Trophy, Women's FA Cup (from round 4) Scottish Premier League, Scottish Championship, Scottish League One, Scottish League Two, Scottish Women's Premier League 1, Scottish Cup (from round 3), Scottish League Cup Champions League (from final qualifying round), Europa League (from final qualifying round), UEFA Conference League, UEFA Women's Champions League, FIFA Women's Champions Cup World Cup, European World Cup qualifying, UEFA Nations League, UEFA under-21s qualifying, international matches On Sundays, and sometimes on weeknights, Sky Sports News provides viewers with a feed which, in addition to the above competitions, also includes European domestic competitions: Bundesliga, Eredivisie, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A Copa del Rey, Coppa Italia, French Cup
Note: The BBC does not broadcast its scores services during international windows.
History
BBC
Since the earliest days of Grandstand a live feed of the day's football results as they came in has been a regular fixture on BBC Television on Saturday afternoons during the football season. This came in the form of a live shot of the Teleprinter with the presenter standing next to the printer reading out and interpreting the results as they came in.Brief clips of the teleprinter on Grandstand The start of the 1980s saw the live shot of the printer replaced by an on-screen computerised version, and it was renamed as the vidiprinterBBC Programme Index - BBC1 listings 16 August 1980 but the letter-by-letter typing format continued until the end of the 2000–01 season.Final Score Vidiprinter 2000www.clubwebsite.co.uk Final Score - Behind the scenes at the BBC The teleprinter/vidiprinter was on-screen for six to eight minutes at full-time, from just after 4:40pm until enough of the major results were in to provide the full classified check at around 4:50pm, although match reports often appeared between the end of the vidiprinter sequence and the classified check.Grandstand 1984 which starts with a clip of the vidiprinter Late goal flashes were omitted from the feed to ensure that only results were shown once the results started to come in.Grandstand and Final Score (1992-03-21) In January 1999, the BBC started to display the vidiprinter at the bottom of the screen during the half-time scores sequence although generally only during the first part of this sequence, i.e. just when the Premier League reports were shown. From this time, the late goal flashes started to appear during the vidiprinter sequence in Final Score, which was now generally onscreen for more than ten minutes, from around 4:45pm until 5pm because by now half time intervals at Premier League and Football League matches had been extended from 10 to 15 minutes.
At the start of the 2001-02 season, Final Score became a programme in its own right and the on-screen format for the vidiprinter changed. The biggest change was the replacement of the typing format with a much faster ticker-tape style and over the next two seasons, the vidiprinter was on screen for the entire half time round-up and also on the bottom of the screen during the final few minutes of Grandstand prior to the start of Final Score. In August 2003, the BBC started broadcasting the vidiprinter continually from 15 minutes before kick-off until the major full times were in. However, this service is only available on the Red Button until Final Score started on BBC One, which by 2003 was starting at the earlier time of 4:30pm. In the 2003–04 season, this was merely an on-screen service and Grandstand played in a quarter-screen. Called Score Interactive, it was available from around 2:45pm until Final Score started when this feed took the main Final Score programme, and the vidiprinter was onscreen from the moment Score Interactive began. During this first Red Button season, the vidiprinter feed often fed through team news as it became available to the Press Association for the period prior to kick-off. The following season, BBC Sport decided to broadcast a full scores programme in its own right. Called Score, it ran between 2:30pm and 6pm with the 4:30pm to 5:15pm segment simulcast on BBC One. However, from this point the vidiprinter did not appear until 3pm and the team news feed was not shown, and it was removed from the screen between 3:55pm and 4:05pm. In around 2008, the entire programme became part of Final Score.
In November 2007 a midweek version of Final Score was launched. This is a simulcast of BBC Radio 5 Live with the vidiprinter shown on-screen and is called Midweek Final Score. This was the first time that the BBC had shown the vidiprinter on midweek evenings. Originally on air throughout the programme, the vidiprinter is now only seen when the evening's games are in progress.