CHRIS LAKEY Norwich City have been given two dates in the first batch of live TV fixtures for the new season - but the figures involved emphasise the difference between the top two tiers of English football.

CHRIS LAKEY

Norwich City have been given two dates in the first batch of live TV fixtures for the new season - but the figures involved emphasise the difference between the top two tiers of English football.

While the Premiership big boys will be carving up the three-year £2.7bn TV deal that comes on stream from next season - an average of around £45m a year for each club - the Championship will be living off the scraps.

City's Sky TV income will consist of a base payment of around £1m for the season, plus £60,000 for a home game and £10,000 for an away game.

The Canaries budget for one home and one away game over the course of a season, with anything that comes in during the rest of the campaign a welcome bonus, particularly as they embark on their first season without the parachute payments that softened the blow of relegation from the Premiership two years ago.

It's a case of taking what you can get in the fight for a way into the top flight and the riches promotion brings.

"Any additional revenue gained from being shown live on Sky is of course welcome and we hope very much we can produce performances which our supporters watching us, both live and on television, will enjoy," said director of sales and marketing Andrew Cullen.

City's home game against Sheffield Wednesday in September and the trip to Queens Park Rangers the following month will be shown live - and with yesterday's announcement of the first 24 live games came the inevitable rescheduling of fixtures.

The match against Sheffield Wednesday, on Saturday, September 29, will now be moved to a 5.20pm kick-off while the trip to QPR has been put back from Saturday, October 6, to Monday, October 8 with a 7.45pm kick-off.

Ipswich have just one match on the first batch - against Coventry on Saturday, September 22, kick-off 5.20pm.

The first Championship match to be shown will be the opening day clash between beaten play-off semi-finalists Wolves and relegated Watford on Saturday, August 11, with Charlton's visit to Stoke shown the following weekend.