THE BIGGEST question of the week was what bright spark decided todetonate the Match of the Day controversy bang in the middle offootball's best major championship for years? It has been difficultto concentrate on the proceedings at Euro 2000 when being blastedwith news and views about what television channels are going tobring us our football ration in the 2001-2002 season.
Do they think we care that much that we couldn't wait untilnearer the date to get worked up about it? This is typical of thetelevision sell. They spend most of every evening trailing what isto be seen on subsequent evenings. Even last week, BBC and ITVwasted valuable discussion time getting Des Lynam and Gary Linekerto plug their coverage of last night's England-Germany game like apair of rival barrow boys.
They're entitled to be competitive, but I'm not sure many of usmind which channel we watch it on. Some will base their choice onwhich presenter or panel they prefer, but that pulling power is opento question. Lynam certainly seems to have retained the edge in thatcontest.
Lineker is a bright and appealing man but it is easy to beconfused as to who exactly he is; a crisp-eating muscleman, a stoogein a cheap and smutty sporting comedy quiz or a serious footballpresenter and wisdom- spreader.
Lynam hams it up at times and also does a TV ad - it's forfertiliser, which doesn't remove him far from his core job - butthere can be no confusion in his persona as a rock-hard anchormanand opinion-engenderer.
As for the panels, I am tending towards the ITV's three veteransof the international furnace, Messrs Robson, Venables and Hoddle.Not that any blinding flashes of illumination are necessary as mostof us come to our own opinions, but a few minutes of half-timecomment and chat are always welcome.
In common with any sports fan worthy of the description, I am atthe moment keeping tabs on the football, the Test match and the USOpen, and as long as I get access to each I am not very concernedwith who is delivering it or whether I am paying for it throughsubscription, annual licence or having to watch adverts which, attimes, is the most irritating price.
We have a traditional tendency to watch the BBC when it is aquestion of choice, but it has turned out to be a treacheroustendency as far as the Beeb are concerned and has undoubtedlycontributed to the arrogance that has preceded the catastrophic lossof each of a series of major sporting events. The tradition card wasstill being played last week when the director general, Greg Dyke,did his dance of frustration when they were outbid for Match of theDay by ITV.
It was an understandable reaction but they had only themselves toblame. If the BBC prized MotD that much it is strange that theydidn't take better care of it. Later events were to suggest thatlosing their flagship football programme was more the result of anegotiation goof. They judged that ITV wouldn't challenge them forthe highlights rights, but would instead make a big attempt toretain the FA Cup.
Hence, the BBC kept their largest bid for the FA Cup and a shareof England matches. They succeeded in that move but lost MotD in theprocess. Had they attained both they would have been justlyapplauded but, as it is, they have got the inferior end of thebargain. We don't know how accurate are the reported figures but atpounds 60m a year MotD is better value than pounds 70m for the FACup and England matches.
What makes it so newsworthy is that MotD has carried an impact onthe nation's Saturday nights for well over 30 years. Whether youwatched it or argued about watching it, there was little chance ofescaping its presence.
When it was first introduced, the programme was a treat forsupporters who were deprived of live football, apart from the Cupfinal, on the dubious grounds that watching the game live ontelevision would ruin their appetite for visiting the grounds.
For years it kept us entertained and well-informed about the gameto the benefit of both football and the BBC. When live TV footballwas permitted and eventually given saturation coverage on satellitetelevision, the days of a highlights programme would have seemednumbered. It was not so.
To those without a satellite dish and others who still preferredthe expertly edited and presented Saturday-night show, MotD retainedits attraction. But by then the BBC's grip on sport had beenloosened to the extent that it seemed to play no part in theirstrategic planning. Long before Lynam departed for ITV he had beenwarning that by edging it later into the night - some nights itdidn't finish until well past midnight - it was losing viewers'attention.
This was the Birt Era, however, and whatever priorities they hadin his day, sport was nowhere near the top. You didn't need to be asports fanatic to recognise its importance in building andsatisfying a mass audience. Rupert Murdoch saw that fact only tooclearly. Even Channel 5 used football to muscle their way into thepublic awareness before soft porn became more attractive to them.
The BBC resolutely deprived sport of the funding it needed tocompete and chose instead to favour big investments in such as theappalling News 24.
But not even Birt should be blamed entirely for the BBC'sattitude to sport. Although every sporting event they covered wasdone so extremely well, the organisation never seemed interested insport as a subject. They covered events but they didn't cover sport;not adequately, anyway. Their coverage of Wimbledon was brilliantbut tennis barely received a second glance during the rest of theyear. A cricket Test series in England would get exhaustiveattention but they never covered a Test in the West Indies, forinstance.
There's more to covering sport than pointing a dozen cameras atit. You may need a dedicated sports channel to provide thediscussions, the analysis and the background programmes thatmillions of sports fans relish, but the BBC hardly bothered to try;neither did ITV for that matter. Without the competition fromsatellite services, it was all too easy for them to cherry-pick.
They had started to lose MotD long before the bidding envelopeswere opened last week. Lynam's departure was more of a tombstonethan a milestone. Had they listened to him and positioned it earlierin the evening - and had they broadened it out from its old format -they might have greatly improved its appeal and made it worthfighting harder to keep.
When it first began in 1964, the programme went out at 6.20,which was a good time to catch the homecoming fan before he went outfor the night. I will be very surprised if ITV don't make it anearly-evening show.
The BBC have every right to regard MotD as their own creation butthey should have learned that they don't own sport, much as theylike to feel they do.
There remains the opportunity to redeem themselves as a purveyorof good sporting television. There's still plenty of other footballto be used as the basis of a decent magazine programme they couldput out on Saturday. It would need more editorial nous than theyhave hitherto displayed, but the viewers are still there to be won.It's just a harder job than it used to be.
