The EFL and Sky Sports announced the next batch of TV picks on Thursday afternoon, with no new Middlesbrough games moved for the period, which only covered the weekend of March 8 and following midweek games through to March 12.

It comes after the EFL and Sky Sports vowed to give supporters more notice of changes to games as part of the new broadcast deal, which came into effect at the start of the current season. It meant that, before the first ball was even kicked, all TV picks up to the third round of the FA Cup last month were announced. In November, the next batch of games from January to March were also announced.

From then, Sky Sports said that the notice period would be four weeks in advance for the run-in, which is why they’ve now announced games between March 7-12. From the broadcaster’s perspective, they want to ensure the games they’re showing at the back end of the season are the games with the most riding on them as far as promotion and relegation races are concerned.

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And therefore, in another change from previous custom, rather than a huge batch of new TV games announced on Thursday, the EFL and Sky did the one weekend. The announcement said: “Future broadcast selections will now be made on a weekly basis for the rest of the season.”

With Boro away at Swansea City on March 8 and then hosting QPR on March 11, neither game was selected. Being a midweek game, the QPR game will be broadcast live on Sky Sports+ anyway. Next week, Boro will learn if their trip to Luton Town, currently slated for a traditional 3 pm Saturday kick-off on March 15, will be moved or not. It’s the final game before the last international break of the season, at which point there will be eight games remaining when the Championship resumes on March 29.