I'm in general agreement with Justin Clouder's points about TV coverage of
track. However... (you knew that was coming)
<<<
It's weird for us Europeans to see our coverage held up as some sort of
panacea, since most of us think it's largely crap, for the same reasons you
criticise NBC. When the coverage contract in the UK was held by ITV or C4
(national commercial channels like NBC) they tried exactly the same trick -
broadening the base. We track nuts hated it, but it was the only way they
could exploit track's unique attribute - it's one of the very few sports
with a genuinely family audience, covering men and women and a broad age
range.
>>>
Except that ITV and C4 failed. The exercised extreme control over the way
the sport was presented and staged, to suit their schedules and
preconceptions. The sport did all and everything that was demanded by the
people who paid $16m for four years' exclusive rights in 1985.
For example, the 10,000m was dropped from its traditional Friday night spot
at the AAA Champs in 1985, the year ITV took over the contract, because a
28min event did not suit the commercial breaks. The 10,000m has never been
restored to the championship programme, and British 10k running took a dive.
Now we have a situation in some meets - like the recent GB v US yawn-fest -
where the longest event on the programme is the One Mile...
Any way. ITV eventually walked away from the sport because they did not want
primetime slots clogged with sport - athletics did not deliver the audience
they demanded (record ITV audience was 10 million on a Friday night for
Lewis v Christie at Gateshead in 1993).
And to make matters worse, whenever ITV went head-to-head against BBC
coverage, the BBC always got the bigger audience share for its more
"traditional" style of coverage. In the end, ITV only showed events staged
in Britain, abandoning coverage of World Champs or Olympics.
Athletics on the BBC still delivers decent audiences. Last year, when Paula
Radcliffe (a woman!) was racing in the oh so dull 10,000 (a distance race -
no one will watch that!) at the World Championships, against a batch of
Africans (that many had never heard of before!), the BBC pulled 9 million
viewers. That was that night's biggest audience share.
The lesson? Don't patronise people. And don't try to make the sport what it
isn't.
