Interview With Rebecca Lowe

Beginning August 17, EPL soccer fans in the United States will be privileged to watch and listen to the new face of Premier League coverage in this country — presenter Rebecca Lowe, who along with lead commentator Arlo White will be the two most prominent figures among a team of experts on our TV sets each week.

In conversation with the effervescent Rebecca Lowe earlier this week in New York City, she touched on a myriad of topics. She’s getting married in June to her partner Paul Buckle, who left his post as manager of Luton Town by mutual consent earlier this year to take the big leap across the pond with Lowe.

We also discussed the differences between presenting on a UK network versus an American one, and zeroed in on whether the greater number of US TV adverts in a typical hour makes her job easier or more difficult.

“It’s a different pressure. The English network has fewer breaks but they’re longer. When the end of the first half will happen, we’ll have a five minute ad break, and then we’ll do three minutes of chat and then five minutes again. In some ways, it’s great. It gives me time to think, to plan and to see analysis we want to see, but in some ways we lose viewers. In watching the TV in my hotel [in America], I’ve noticed that there’s loads of ads but they’re short. By the time you find the remote control to change it, the program is back on.

“In some ways, it’s going to be a bit of a discipline because while I’ve been trained to think we have five minutes, I’m not going to have that. But I have had the experience with ESPN [in the US] in the summer and the summer before.”

Lastly, I asked her what she missed most about her time at Setanta Sports.

“You know what I miss the most… James Richardson. We had the most fun. [Football Matters] is a program that’s missed generally. I miss working with him. I miss the style of the program; the way we did it. We have a lot of magazine shows, but we don’t have enough audience-involved or comedy. I miss him.”