Sky had made the most brilliant start to their coverage of cricket in the Caribbean in 1990. England played well, the pictures were magnificent, the production carefully thought through, and the commentary team of Greig, Boycott, Tony Lewis, Michael Holding and Tony Cozier absolutely top-class. Writing in The Times, Sir Tim Rice said: ‘I have seen the future of televised sport and it is a dish.’ From a conservative, this was some endorsement.
Frankly, viewers liked Caribbean sunshine in their living rooms at home. It was a winter treat to set alongside the thrills of the live Premier League football games. The audacity and size of that first premiership deal had shaken the accepted stream of television consciousness to its core. Now the gloves were off. Sky made money and spent money. Cricket was valuable because it filled hours of airtime, attracted advertisers and audiences, and provided compulsive summer viewing when the footballers were on sunbeds. Sky was a big player, and the terrestrial networks were caught off guard.
I signed up full time in the autumn of 1995, immediately after retiring from professional cricket eighteen years after first walking with a kitbag into the county ground, Southampton—a kid with a dream. I was sad to say goodbye and experienced a short period of withdrawal and depression in the immediate weeks that followed. Day upon day I asked myself, ‘Why have you given away a life you’ve loved?’ before breaking down and retreating into solitude. There were three good reasons: I was 36, slow in the field and my arm had gone; I had resigned the captaincy after the best part of twelve summers, and it was time to move out of the next man’s way; my head told me it was time to go and do something else. Ian Chappell has always echoed the thoughts of Keith Miller: ‘I wanted to retire when people were asking why did you, not why don’t you.’ It was tight, but I hope I made the deadline.
Wakeling and Gayleard gave me every opportunity. I hosted the 1996 Benson & Hedges Cup Final from the top of the pavilion at Lord’s. There is nothing so terrifying as going on air live to camera for the first time. You wonder not how the words will come out, but whether the words will come out. Willis, Botham and Paul Allott were good mates and highly professional colleagues. Lamb, Mike Procter, Derek Pringle and others who auditioned over the winters and summers of 1996–97 were pretty much as nervous as I was. I have watched some of the early stuff back and won’t be watching it again. Gayleard was good at clearing a path, but not interested in allowing us editorial input. He had come to Sky from Channel Nine in Australia, where everyone did as they were told by the boss. He was a hard bastard and we had our rows but he grounded me in the business, and I thank him for that. When we worked together again later, specifically at the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, we had some fun.
Wakeling wanted a more identifiable platform for one-day cricket. He asked Bob and me to come up with a structure and take it to Lord MacLaurin, who was new in the chair at the ECB. At this time, the BBC had all the rights to international cricket in the UK, while Sky had the rights to all England matches abroad. Wakeling badly wanted one-day cricket in the UK, and more if possible. We came up with a soap-opera-themed format for domestic one-day cricket, a minimum of five England one-day internationals at home and at least one Test match, all live on Sky. MacLaurin liked it and liked even more the idea of a free commercial market for the game. International cricket was on the list of government-protected sporting events, so he took the plan to Chris Smith, then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. With barely more than a nod of the head, Smith agreed to the general principle. In the summer of 1998, cricket was moved from list A to list B and, from that moment on, the television rights game changed completely.
Smith said: ‘My decision to accept recommendations on cricket allows the sport more freedom to negotiate a fair price for flagship events. This is something for which the ECB and county clubs have specifically asked. I expect to see this freedom used responsibly, with continued access for all viewers to a substantial proportion of live Test coverage and any new income derived for cricket to be devoted to improvements in the facilities needed to play the game and to raise standards. If these expectations—especially the test of achieving substantial live coverage on free-to-air television—are not fulfilled, then I may of course need to review the listed criteria again.’
This felt important at the time but not seismic. How wrong we were. It was seismic, all right. It was the single biggest game-changer to televised cricket there has been in the UK. The people at Sky were delighted. When the ECB put the rights out to tender, Sky came in hard. So, surprisingly, did Channel 4. The BBC was underprepared.
On Friday, 16 October 1998, I came off the golf course in Troon, Scotland, to be told that Channel 4 had won the rights to televise live all but one of the home Test matches, along with the NatWest Trophy. Sky Sports had a live Test, the one-day internationals and other county, women’s and junior cricket. It was scarcely believable. The split deal was worth an unprecedented £103 million. The BBC was left with radio coverage only. Both Channel 4 and Sky had highlights of the matches they did not have live. Channel 4 added another £13 million worth of marketing and promotional commitment to the pot.
The next night I finished playing golf, showered back at the hotel in Troon and made my way down for dinner with the other seven guys on the tour. We began talking about Channel 4’s likely approach. A general concern was that it might try to be too funky. The chief executive, Michael Jackson, was quoted in the papers saying his channel would ‘revolutionise the coverage of the game’, seeking to ‘reflect a younger, multi-cultural audience’. Cricket was a ‘thrilling and exciting game’, he said, and Channel 4 was keen to attract new fans. He made it clear that the network’s bid had been accepted because ‘our and the ECB’s interests coincide, not because of the size of our cheque book’. One of the guys read this out to the rest of us from the morning’s newspaper but was interrupted by the receptionist, who said there was a call for me at the front desk.
The voice at the other end was that of Bill Sinrich, who ran Trans World International (TWI), the television production arm of International Management Group (IMG). I had worked for him on productions in India and the West Indies. He asked if I had heard the news and added that he had brokered the deal. ‘Good job,’ I said. Then he dropped a bomb. Channel 4 wanted me to lead their coverage. Lead? Yes—host, commentate and drive editorial. My heart skipped a beat or two. He added that the most exciting chapter in the televising of British sport was about to open and that we would be in it together. I said, ‘Calm down, Bill.’ But he was right. He paused before saying goodbye and then said, ‘You need to quickly realise that most people have a seminal moment in their life. This is yours. Channel 4 have a blank chequebook—for the production and for you. Believe me, this is your moment. See you Tuesday at 9 am.’
It was hard to keep schtum over dinner.
On the following Tuesday, Channel 4 offered me the job. In the room were Jackson; David Brooke, head of strategy and marketing; Karen Brown, deputy head of programming; and Andrew Brann, finance director. It was a lively meeting, in which pride and enthusiasm drove their ambition. They shared everything, talking as if I was ‘in’. Brooke had masterminded the coup and pushed for me to be at the forefront of the production. Brown was onside. The other two went with it. They all asked what the network should do first. I said, ‘Sign Richie Benaud.’
We discussed the styling. There had been a quote from within the network about taking cricket away from the domain of ‘crusty, grey-haired old fogeys’. They endorsed that, making a wise exception for Benaud, who was, as they pointed out, anything but crusty. They didn’t want blazers, though, or company motifs. Jackson left the room before the rest of us and, as he closed the door, he turned back to say, ‘Wear what you think is right. Just one thing though: no ties.’
We went to air live the following summer, at Lord’s—the Second Test between England against New Zealand—in ties but not blazers and no motifs. After the first day, reviews were generally kind. The best of the
m came from Ian Wooldridge in the Daily Mail, who said that any worries about the nature or standard of the coverage could be set aside. ‘I feared the worst,’ said the influential Wooldridge. ‘I have rarely been more profoundly wrong.’ Then he said, ‘If you had chained a child to Channel 4 midmorning Thursday, he would have learned more about the heritage, technique and mystique of the game in two hours than I learned in two years at school.’ He was generous to ‘bouffant-hair-styled’ me and reflected on the authority brought by Benaud. Everyone did. In the Telegraph, Giles Smith wrote: ‘Frankly, you could assemble a documentary series entitled Penetrative Sex around the World and just so long as each programme opened with Benaud saying “Morning, everyone”, no one would be the least bit upset.’
It had taken me less than a week to agree on a deal. I went to tell Viv Wakeling of my decision. He was upset, as was I in a way. Sky had given me the break and I had imagined a long career there. Jeremy Thompson, the face of news and current affairs, called to say he thought I was making a mistake and that the future was satellite TV, about which he was undoubtedly correct. But it wasn’t a mistake; Channel 4 was where the flame burned brightest for me. I rang Bob Willis, who sounded disappointed but, typically, wished me well; Botham, who said I had got it wrong and that he would miss me, which was so bloody sweet and un-Beefy-like; and Paul Allott, who was pleased for me and saw the move as irresistible. Much water has flowed under the bridge but the four of us are still close friends to this day. I didn’t have the courage to contact John Gayleard. I knew what he thought and it wasn’t good.
At this point, Wakeling had a problem: no presenter for the England tour to Australia. He was signing David Gower to replace me but David was otherwise committed that winter. He asked me to do it. I said, ‘Of course, though what about Gayleard?’ ‘Your problem not mine,’ he said. ‘You’ll handle him.’ Hardly, but we got through.
Meanwhile, the team at Channel 4 were on a charge. Benaud was secured within a month, amid general delight, as was head of sport Mark Sharman, who had been Wakeling’s number two at Sky. Just before Christmas, Mark shook the world of sports television production with a decision that virtually nobody saw coming. Instead of awarding the production rights to TWI and Sinrich, he went left-field and gave them to Sunset+Vine, which was led by Jeff Foulser and Gary Franses. Sinrich was devastated. An intense man, he died in 2007 while being treated for depression. He was just 50. His part in that defining series of events will be relevant for evermore.
THE CHANNEL 4 YEARS
Most English cricket lovers have a view on Channel 4’s coverage. These are mainly kind, sometimes so enthusiastic as to have made the memory of it almost a cult. Others are vanilla and occasionally there has been negative criticism. For example, the advertising breaks upset viewers who were used to uninterrupted coverage on the BBC, and complaints were made when we left live play to go the soap Hollyoaks or The Simpsons at 6 pm on weekdays, or to the racing on Saturday afternoons. People fondly remember the commentary team of 2005—Benaud, Greig, Atherton, Michael Slater, Boycott, Nicholas and Simon Hughes, the analyst in the truck—but the early years were not blessed with such quality and depth. I came in for some stick—hyperbole and exclamations being the main grumble—but no one appeared to doubt the passion, enthusiasm or energy that I, and we, gave the seven years during which Channel 4 held the rights.
Most of us had been brought up watching the game in black and white. The coverage was straightforward, conservative you might say, with a single camera at one end and barely a raised voice from a commentator. There were next to no ‘add-ons’ and certainly nothing that was deliberately in place to ‘enhance’ the viewing experience. If you liked cricket, you watched. If you didn’t, you didn’t. I loved it, so I watched every ball I could. Black and white or not, the heroes of the hour made for compulsive viewing. But I don’t recall ever thinking that the television coverage made the game either beautiful or exciting. Colour television came to our home in the early 1970s, but the BBC kept the rhythms of the cricket broadcast pretty much the same as they had always been. As the former England all-rounder and then BBC Test Match Special summariser, Trevor Bailey, pointed out on the day Channel 4 was awarded the rights: ‘Cricket is not a thrilling and exciting game all the time. It’s essentially a situation game and it’s the situation which creates the excitement, not the television.’ True and not true.
Our aim was to bring the game to life for the viewer. We were modernists but realists too, eager to respect the game’s history and translate its archive. We took the housekeeping out into the sunshine and, when the rain came to challenge us, we turned the studio into a theatre. We recruited the players to tell their story and the administrators to explain theirs. We invited sportsmen and -women from other fields, musicians, actors, writers and even politicians to share their joy in the game. We ran clinics and masterclasses, demystifying the inner game and busting jargon. We took cricket to the towns and villages of middle England and even to Northern Ireland. We ran competitions and offered guided tours of our private space. We even beat Tim Henman, playing on court number 1 on the middle Saturday of Wimbledon, in the ratings. Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, said we changed the perception of the game at a time when the British public and the national cricket team most desperately needed it. He added that the team’s performances improved concurrently with Channel 4’s overall sense of optimism. We tried to be both inspirational and aspirational and, mostly, we succeeded.
Superb camera men gave us lovely, soft pictures, and the audio team created the ambient sound techniques used so successfully by Channel Nine in Australia to bring the ‘sound’ of cricket to the fan at home. Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5, which made it to Number 1 in the pop charts, worked brilliantly as the title music. The titles themselves and the graphics had the right blend of artistic appeal and practicality. Some of the innovations worked and some did not, so we kept plugging away. We ran a live highlights show every evening that was a nightmare to get on air and not to everyone’s taste. We used the Saturday-morning Cricket Roadshow to have a bit of laugh and demystify cricket’s introspection. Sybil Ruscoe proved that women had a place in covering a game too often associated with men. Live bands played in lunchbreaks and the channel threw money at community projects and big-screen cricket events in parks and town centres. We advertised, marketed and promoted. It was a love affair with cricket and we stopped at nothing to make the lover special and everyone else appreciate her.
Gary Franses, the producer, Hughes and I put hours into Hawkeye at the Roke Manor Research Centre outside Romsey in Hampshire, where they more usually developed technology for the military’s guided missiles—weapons that could consistently hit their target a mile away. We figured they could manage 22 yards’ worth of lbw. By the time Hawkeye was ready to go to air, hundreds of balls had been bowled in the nets at Lord’s. The result of each one was recorded and matched against Hawkeye’s data. It was perfect, every time.
Meanwhile, the resourceful Hughes was developing another important part of the Channel 4 coverage—an appliance and brand he was quickly to make his own, the Analyst. Initially, he shared the role with Dermot Reeve, but lateral thinking and a unique ability to bring something to air on television without the slightest hint of ego gave him a seat that has been much copied since but never bettered. If anything, an endearing self-deprecation came through and enhanced his message. From a tiny corner of a dark broadcasting truck came many an Analyst’s moment of magic.
Of all the gizmos aired on Channel 4, the least convincing was the Snickometer (having said that, Snicko has improved out of all recognition since 1999 and is now a valuable part of both the viewing experience and the umpires’ decision-making process). But people loved it, mainly because Benaud loved it, and what Richie says . . .
Benaud was hired by Channel 4 when he was 68 years old. He stayed until we went off air, by which time he was 75. He spent most of these seven wonderful years behaving as a colt and encouraging us to push t
he boundaries. Only very occasionally did he miss a beat or, indeed, suggest that we had. He has been cricket’s greatest salesman and its finest television communicator. ‘Never forget,’ he would say, ‘that you are a guest in people’s homes, so don’t irritate them.’
I would put Ian Smith, the former New Zealand wicketkeeper; Bill Lawry, the proud Victorian who captained Australia after Benaud and Bob Simpson; Ian Chappell, who followed Lawry as Australian captain; and Tony Cozier, the informed and understated Barbadian, in the premiership with Richie. Right up there with them are two figures, both larger than life, whose colourful lives have been the subject of many an interpretation.
You are either for Geoffrey Boycott or against him. He does only black and white, no grey: his fans, or otherwise, offer the same in return. I am conclusively for him. We got him into a seat on Channel 4’s coverage eventually but it took some persuading and, strangely, it was adversity that helped sway opinion. Boycott’s recovery from severe throat cancer was a thing of monumental character, like his batting. The difference, though, was that when at the wicket he felt he had to prove himself to the world. In the battle with cancer, he was proving something to himself while, at the same time, fighting for the love he has for his wife, Rachael, and daughter, Emma. This mellowed him.
During a tea-break in the 2003 Lord’s Test, I interviewed him live, the first time he had spoken on television about his illness and the journey to recovery. It was tender and real, showing a man who had travelled the long road home. Even the naysayers were struck by his warmth and the gentle hints of self-deprecating humour. By the start of the next summer, he was one of the Channel 4 number. He did not disappoint. We work alongside each other to this day, in the Channel 5 box with Michael Vaughan and Simon Hughes, and spend most of our days laughing.
Greig had hoped to work for Channel 4 since he heard the rights had left the BBC back in the autumn of 1998. Initially, the key executives in the corridors of power at Channel 4 wanted a younger look, from a broader base of the game’s multinational society. If they couldn’t find that in Britain, they were happy to look elsewhere, but not to Greig. Greigy had been brilliant for Sky in the early days of satellite TV, cranking up the model (a remarkable contradiction for one so wedded to Kerry Packer’s free-to-air Channel Nine) and sprinkling stardust on even the dreariest day of Test-match cricket. He was convinced he could do the same for Channel 4 but the channel was not for turning.
A Beautiful Game Page 27