A glance to the cameraman. Yes, Rishi, we’re live. A throaty holler to Emms. Denied. A second yell, louder this time. She looked up, startled and, like a rampaging bullock, Persad, 25, pounced. Millions of BBC viewers eagerly awaited that first, incisive question to Britain’s gallant badmintonistas.
“I just don’t know what to say to you,” blurted Persad to Emms and Robertson, “you must be disappointed.” Thanks, just what we wanted to hear.
Okay, the hapless Persad was trying his best, the pressure was on and it was his first Olympics. But his fluffed interview is one of a catalogue of groan-inducing episodes that raise uncomfortable questions for BBC executives.
Is the national broadcaster doing justice to the greatest sporting event in the world? Why is its coverage, which is costing licence-payers about £30m, so amateurish? And, above all, why has it inflicted the gormless Craig Doyle upon us for two weeks? Doyle presented the Holiday programme until recently; it’s a shame he isn’t on one now. Maybe he thinks he is.
Doyle is symptomatic of the BBC’s dumbing down of Olympic achievement with production values that represent travelogue television at its cheapest and most banal. Studio interviews are fatuous and location shots and features are so uninformative that they have to be spiced up with distorted camera angles and background music, including She’s The One by Robbie Williams. Going for gold are you, Robbie? Pity the poor British Olympic team, who have sweated and mastered all sorts of back-breaking and obscure sports in the hope of bringing home glory. Night after night they are being horribly Doyled — subjected to the kind of patronising guff the handsome Irishman specialises in.
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“A silver medal — that’s very good indeed!” was as deep as his post-victory analysis got with Robertson and Emms after their badminton epic. “Medals going all over the place — fantastic!” His banal flirting on the studio sofa with Shirley and the two Sarahs — the British sailors who took gold in the Yngling-class sailing — would have appalled even Alan Partridge. This is the Olympics, not hospital radio.
“Why Craig Doyle?” wailed Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who serves on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. “Is this just because he is the best-looking man the BBC could come up with? I think some of the anchor presenting is just patronising. You get the experts who know everything about sport but can’t put it into English — and then you get Craig Doyle.”
But it would be unfair to place all the blame at Doyle’s feet. Not when Suzi Perry, the presenter of Superbikes turned Olympics roving reporter, is competing for the prize.
She is beautiful and charming. But an expert on dinghy sailing she is not. There she was down at the marina about to interview the patient Shirley and the two Sarahs, who were preparing to receive their gold medals. She was linked to Hazel Irvine in the studio.
“Oh, Hazel, you know, it’s been absolutely heavenly down here at the sailing, it’s been great news,” before turning to the winners with the killer question: “Shirley — double Olympic gold medallist — do you like the sound of that?” And rather than helping us understand their sporting achievement, Perry just reminded us endlessly that “the mathematics for working out the scores are pretty complicated”. Are they that complicated? Now that everyone’s got an A in GCSE maths, couldn’t she have had a crack at explaining? Where was the drama? Where was the sense that three gritty British women, skin hardened by years of practice sessions on freezing English waters, had triumphantly crushed their sobbing rivals like a trio of Boadiceas in wetsuits? Don’t wait for Perry to tell you. There she was winding up an interview with Campbell Walsh, the talented Scottish kayaker: “I’ll let you go and focus your energy and channel it.” Eh? But to be fair to Perry, at least she didn’t say: “You can’t get a gold unless you’re in the final.” Or “they’re all trying their hardest today”. Or even “indecision is never a good thing in this sort of sport”. But three of her highly paid BBC colleagues did.
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Viewers shocked by this pathetic coverage have been quick to post their disappointment on the BBC’s website.
Stephen Tierney summed up their anger when he condemned the sailing coverage as “shockingly poor . . . brief, vague and neither showed nor discussed any of the key moments in what was a vital day for team GBR. The dim attitude of the presenter seemed to find more interest in the Danish crew member who briefly fell out of her boat (. . . ooh, what a laugh)”.
So what does the BBC say in reply? There are 400 BBC workers in Athens, broadcasting 1,300 hours of coverage of the two-week event. Martin Hopkins, the BBC’s executive producer of the Olympics, and Peter Salmon, the head of sport, said that pleasing everyone is difficult.
Hopkins’s priority is to pull in as many viewers as possible, rather than catering to the fans of minority sports. He wanted a “touchy feely” approach and brought in younger presenters with less experience to broaden the appeal of the Games.
“That was a deliberate attempt to reach everyone out there, not just committed fans,” said Hopkins.
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Salmon argued that the Games will hot up this week with the track and field events. “I think the other events are like getting a few presents before Christmas Day.”
To be fair to Hopkins and Salmon, they have also taken some professionals out to Athens alongside the “touchy feely” team.
Sue Barker is convincing, Clare Balding asks thoughtful questions and Steve Rider has authority and rarely wastes a word. Adrian Moorhouse, Andy Jameson and Sharron Davies bantered well at the swimming. Michael Johnson, the multi-gold winning American sprinter, has a great voice and Colin Jackson is perceptive. Even so, there’s frequently insufficient information to understand what’s going on.
“There’s not enough technical stuff — even with interactive television,” said the frustrated Bryant. “With judo they say someone’s won a ‘yuko’, and you don’t know what it is. Also, because it’s a rolling event, you should have what you have on 24-hour news — a bar on the bottom of the screen with updates on it.”
Marcus du Sautoy, professor of mathematics at Oxford University and a keen surfer and footballer, believes that learning about a new sport is one of the pleasures offered by the Olympics.
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“Weird sports start to take one’s interest. The gymnastics is fascinating, but I can’t understand the scoring system. I’d like to know why the scoring is sometimes so low when the routines look fantastic. It’s fun working out the rules to a new game,” he said.
“And basketball — I’m intrigued. What does it mean to be ‘travelling’? And this complete obsession with European and American defence systems — I don’t get it, what’s going on? What’s zone defence?” Ellis Cashmore, professor of culture, media and sport at Staffordshire University, is infuriated by Sally Gunnell, the former Olympic 400-metres hurdles champion, who is helping to present the athletics coverage.
“Sally Gunnell’s questions are all: ‘How good does it feel?’ It’s crass; it doesn’t tell us anything.”
Cashmore thinks the problem of having former athletes on the commentary team is that “they are all too nice to each other”. He also believes the BBC’s cheery coverage ignores the more sinister side of sport — such as the psychology, and sometimes drugs, that drive athletes to push their bodies to the limits.
“The serious analyst could say there is a darker side you don’t see — behind, say, these elfin gymnasts,” said Cashmore. “They could explore the serious side of the Olympics.”
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Perhaps, though, the BBC can be forgiven for bringing us the touchy-feely Games — if only for a soundbite that will go down in Olympic history: “This is big trampolining . . . nice . . . full in, full out, consistent bouncing there.”