Sport – Has this now been made the new British vice?

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In this Olympic year, the BBC is showing too much sport, says critic Milton Shulman

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A GLOSSY brochure has landed on my desk proudly announcing the BBC’s plans for sport coverage on TV during 1968. Just, as two years ago, the diadem in their sports programme was the World Cup, this year the Olympic Games in Grenoble and Mexico will be the crowning glory.

Among other compelling events to come perspiring into your living room will be the Test matches between Australia and England; Wimbledon tennis; the Open Championship for golf; Amateur Boxing Championships; motor racing; international athletics; National Swimming Championships; women’s hockey between Britain and Canada; the Royal International Horse Show; Horse of the Year Show.

This you will see in addition to the BBC’s regular programme on sport — Grandstand, Sportsview and Match of the Day — and such national events as the Derby, the Boat Race, the Grand National and the FA Cup Final.

And just in case you have not had your fill of sport’s personalities there is Quiz Ball on Mondays, which pits representatives of soccer teams against each other in what is euphemistically described as a “battle of wits.”

I am not surprised then that when the programme planners totalled up this bonanza of sports coverage they could gleefully reveal that over 1,000 hours of muscular competition would be seen on BBC-1 and BBC-2 during the coming Year.

Temptation

As someone who will watch any games on TV except all-in wrestling (I just cannot believe a moment of this clutch-and-grab drama) the temptation to be glued to the small screen afternoons and evenings during the spring and summer will be tremendous.

But, tempering my enthusiasm is a nudging doubt about my right to indulge myself in such pleasures in 1968. There is no doubt that I cannot watch TV during the day and work at the same time.

Should I be writing an article or a book that will earn the nation valuable dollars or should I be fretting about Mary Rand’s jumping or the chances of Laver winning Wimbledon?

In a year when productivity ranks with patriotism as a national virtue; when stenographers are treated like Stakhanovite heroes because they are working half an hour a day extra; when unions and management have been exhorted by Government and Press to put in extra effort and extra time at the bench and the desk, the BBC blithely proclaims its intention to devote almost 25 pc of its output to sport — a good deal of which will be shown in the afternoon as a counter-attraction to work!

Keen sports fan that I am, it seems a serious mistake in judgment to devote over 1,000 hours to sport in 1968 when the BBC’s total output will be little over 4,000 hours.

The thought seems fleetingly to have occurred to Peter Dimmock, chief of BBC Sport, who, in his brochure, asks the question: Is there too much sport on television?”

The answer, according to Mr. Dimmock, is an emphatic “No. Why? Live TV is the best shop window that any sport can have”, he explains, “and the audience figures demonstrate the demand.

“In these days of a wide choice in leisure, major sports need TV to remain ‘fashionable’ and keep people interested so that to-day’s viewer becomes to-morrow’s spectator or participant”.

In other words, the BBC has a duty to perpetuate sport for sport’s sake. Nothing about competing forms of entertainment that might also like to become “fashionable” such plays, discussions, documents, satire or pop.

Nothing about why sport should be awarded 25 pc of the BBC’s TV hours and the rest of the multitudinous activities of the British people should be crammed into the remaining 75 pc of screen time.

Nor nothing about whether the national interest is served by this concentration of sport aimed at encouraging us to become either players or watchers.

Passion

If I were Chancellor of the Exchequer I might be asking myself whether there was any correlation between our stagnant rate of production and our growing passion for sport and its concomitant activity – gambling.

There can be no doubt that the televising of horse racing has increased the volume of betting on horses. Any day that racing is televised, the gross takings of bookmakers goes up substantially.

The recent ban on racing, due to the foot-and-mouth epidemic, coincided with an unprecedented spending spree in the shops before Christmas.

The orthodox explanation for this spree was the fact that buyers feared increased purchase taxes and were stocking up while goods were cheaper.

Another explanation was that something like £60m. [£890m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] which would normally have been turned over in racing during these few weeks, suddenly landed in the handbags of housewives whose husbands found themselves with an unaccustomed few pounds in their pockets.

No one suggests that horseracing should be banned. But a more logical approach to the nation’s needs would be to concentrate racing on two days of the week — preferably Saturdays and Sundays (when Sundays become freer) — and to see that TV does not unduly encourage the betting habit by too many televised meetings. This is also a reason for discouraging the Pay TV channel, which would undoubtedly extend its racing services if it were allowed to survive.

Impossible

How many working hours the BBC will cost the nation this summer by its televising of Wimbledon, the Test matches and the Olympic Games is impossible to assess. But it will certainly be considerable.

Is there not a case — this year, at least — for cutting down the BBC’s obsession with sport rather than intensifying it?

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