HOPING TO COMPETE IN SOME KIND OF CHAMPIONSHIP

A few years back, when we were writing for a local listings magazine, we had a chance encounter with a bloke from a band whose gig we had reviewed in an honest, but perhaps slightly sarcastic, fashion. He was enjoying a coke rush, and so spent some time listing our shortcomings as a critic, ending on the splendid news that our inability to talent-spot would soon be obvious to all as he'd just signed a deal which would see one of his songs being used as the new theme tune for Match of the Day. Rather oddly, they still don't seem to have started cueing up his record on a Saturday evening.

We think of him now as we read the slightly over-excited report of Franz Ferdinand's deal to provide a theme tune for an MTV reality series about football:

The band's song This Boy, from their You Could Have It So Much Better album, has been chosen as the theme tune for a new flagship MTV reality show called Goal.

It means the band - Alex Kapranos Nick McCarthy, Bob Hardy and Paul Thompson - will reap untold profits as they corner the market with the song.

"Untold profits" - now, surely that means profits the like of which have never been seen before, which would imply billions and billions and billions. MTV, clearly, are generous with their royalty payments these days.

And what "market", exactly, have the Franz boys "cornered"? It's not the market for theme tunes, otherwise they'd be providing music for everyone (Granada might want to leap on board for Do You Want To, mind: "There's Les/ and there's Cilla/ there's Kirk/and there's Chesney/ It's time for Corrie/ Time for Corrie Corrie Corrie..."). It's not even the market for sporting themes... so, presumably the market they've cornered is for MTV sporting themes. A somewhat nichey little niche, we'd suggest.

music franz ferdinand mtv world cup football