After 60 years, Match of the Day has abandoned its single-host format and now has three people taking turns hosting the show. It's a departure, but far from a new strategy in television.

Unusually, Match of the Day has only had five main presenters in its history, with Gary Lineker having been in the hot seat for the past 26 years.

His successors, who will take over the BBC One football highlights show next season, will all be broadcasters rather than sports stars who take up broadcasting as a second career.

Lineker, and before him Jimmy Hill in the 1970s and 1980s, are examples of former players who are happy to take the lead in the studio, but when it comes to presenting sports programmes, they are more Be the exception, not the rule.

There was speculation that footballer-turned-broadcaster Alex Scott would take over the show, but in the end, the names included in the press release were all stalwarts of the broadcast for decades.

Perhaps less familiar to BBC TV viewers is Kelly Cates. But the daughter of Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish has 26 years of experience presenting live TV and radio on Sky and 5 Live. She understands football and she understands television.

Likewise, Gabby Logan has been speaking for 30 years. Mark Chapman has 29 years' experience and has become the face of Sunday's second day of racing.

By choosing three new presenters, the BBC is following a pattern in television where brands or formats are increasingly less and less associated with a single name.

When Richard Osman decided to leave Pointless, six people were named as replacements for The Daily Show (and eight more have been named since).

Angus Deayton's hosting role on I've Got News for You adds to the ever-changing list of weekly hosts' visitors.

There may be four main presenters at the heart of One Show, but the list of people who have worked on the green couch over the years is long.

Match of the Day has now been handed over to some very safe hands.

Based on their track records, neither seems likely to make the headlines that Lineker has in recent years.

There are good reasons to be careful. While TV ratings have been declining year on year, Match of the Day has remained stable.

In an age where every Premier League match is televised somewhere and social media is flooded with clips of goals, there's always the question if anyone still wants to watch the highlights.

Over the past five years, however, Match of the Day's viewership has remained virtually unchanged at just under 3.5 million viewers. The BBC says that 33 million people tune in to one of the match-of-the-day programs at some time during a season.

Match of the Day's resilience has not gone unnoticed and with the current rights deal running until the 2028/29 season, it is a brand the BBC is looking to grow.

There are reports that the company will use the revamp as an opportunity to use the MOTD name more widely on its online platforms.

Given that the BBC has struggled to compete in an era of rapidly rising costs for sports rights, it is keen to retain an audience that may not consume much of the rest of the BBC's programming.

There's also a good reason why the Premier League wants highlight programming to succeed - around half of the league's domestic television audience only watches their football matches on the BBC.

It's a shop window that helps keep top-flight football at the center of the national conversation.