Anyone who felt that dropping to the Championship would lead to more Saturday 3pm kick offs, has had their dreams shattered in the opening half dozen games with 4 of those games being selected for TV.
Saints have announced that two of their games in September have been moved for Sky Sports.
The game up at Sunderland that was down for 3pm on Saturday 2nd September will now be brought forward to 12.30pm on the same afternoon.
The following weekend will be the International break, first up after that is Leicester City at home scheduled for 3pm Saturday 16th September, but now moved to Friday the 15th with an 8pm kick off, not a good omen for Saints as we all know what happened the last time the Foxes played at St Mary's in front of the TV cameras on a Friday night.
This comes after our opening day fixture at Sheffield Wednesday was brought forward to the Friday night 3rd August and then the trip to Plymouth Argyle on 19th August changed to another 12.30pm kick off.
This means that of the opening 6 fixtures of the 2023/24 season, 4 of them have been changed for TV, including all of the first 3 away games.
That leaves just two fixtures out of this opening salvo still on a 3pm Saturday kick off, the home games against Norwich & QPR.
Throw in an evening home game against Ipswich and an away game at Stoke, it will mean that of the first 10 Championship fixtures i only 4 of them will be the 3pm Saturday kick off that so many like.
If Saints get off to a good start then the situation is likely to continue throughout the season.