EFL on Quest
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| EFL on Quest | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Football Highlights |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 4 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 120 minutes |
| Production companies | IMG ITN Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | Quest |
| Release | 4 August 2018 – 29 May 2022 |
| Related | |
EFL on Quest is a football highlights programme on the Quest channel in the United Kingdom. The programme covered the English Football League, taking over from Channel 5's Football League Tonight.
Starting from the 2018–19 season, the four-year deal saw Quest provide 90 minutes of extensive match highlights of the English Championship, League One and League Two, hosted by Colin Murray, in primetime at 9pm every Saturday night.[1] As a result, the channel announced a HD version would launch in July 2018. It launched on 21 July 2018 on Virgin Media channel 217 but was removed on 24 July 2018. It officially launched on 2 August 2018 on Virgin Media, on 3 August on Freesat and Sky, and on 14 August on Freeview. A duplicate version was also added to Virgin Media from 22 July 2018 to 11 August 2018 on channel 194 as a replacement for Dave HD following the UKTV channels' removals.[2]
The EFL said in its news release on 4 May 2018 that "the partnership between the EFL and Quest will guarantee accessible high quality, free-to-air coverage for football fans across the country".[3] When the first programme was broadcast on 4 August 2018, viewers experienced frequent breakup of picture and the screen aspect was reduced to the obsolete 4:3 ratio. Numerous complaints were made and Digital Spy ran a feature on the impact of the "technical difficulties". Quest claimed that "some" viewers experienced problems but the Digital Spy investigation strongly suggests that everyone was impacted. Quest added that they were working to resolve the issue.[4]
Starting on 30 March 2019, the programme was extended to two hours, with increased coverage of League One and League Two and with a second pundit added.[5]
On 23 February 2022, the EFL announced that they had awarded ITV the rights for EFL Highlights from the start of the 2022–23 season, thus meaning that the show came to an end at the end of the season following the conclusion of Quest's contract. The last episode aired in 29 May 2022,[6] and the HD version of Quest was subsequently shut down on Freeview a month later.