UK TV VIRTUALLY IGNORES FLYING THE FLAG FOR BRITISH WBC CHAMPION
Tonight at the Foxwoods Casino, Connecticut, USA Britain’s only real World boxing champion will defend his WBC Super-Middleweight title against former World Middleweight champion Jermain Taylor.
UK TV VERSION OF BRITISH FLAG
Yet, with TV saturated with doom and gloom stories on the global calamitous financial situation and with Great Britain struggling in the murkiest depths a window of opportunity to tell the World Britain is still great and is still capable in modern times to produce the World’s best in human terms, the only TV showing of this interesting championship contest will be on ITV 4 tomorrow afternoon and on ITV at 11 p.m. Sunday night.
This situation may only be described as disgraceful and everyone involved in presenting this showcase of the best of Britain needs to take stock. Publicity sells hamburgers, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and it also sells fights.
The manner in which Froch versus Taylor has been ‘sold’ to the public leaves much to be desired but this is a matter that needs to be dealt with post fight.
Tonight the focus has to be on the WBC championship defence by Carl Froch and it is worthy of the attention of fight fans.
Carl Froch is not a pub pint of beer, meat pie binger but is an intelligent boxer that is a credit to boxing and does credit to the WBC as their Super-Middleweight champion.
While others were grabbing the headlines as so-called champions in the world of Mickey Mouse, Carl resolutely refused fights for tinsel titles and made it his sole ambition to be a loyal WBC World champion – and succeeded.
He has a vocabulary that does not allow a point scoring opportunity over his opponent to be wasted; he does not resort to debased insults that only disgrace boxing and expose the defective mental capacity of the boxer croakers.
To allow boxing to be entitled the ‘Sweet Science’ but for boxers to use the language of the gutter leaves boxing open to ridicule.
It is absolutely correct that Carl to hit the money jackpot should have exposure in North America but the shortest route to universal stardom is to win over Las Vegas. If you make it as a boxer in LV you will make it across the globe. The LV publicity machines of the telecasters and casinos have to be turbo charged to ensure House Full notices and they are.
Carl Froch is quite capable of winning over USA fans and media. A virtually unknown Kelly Pavlik graduated from being an unfashionable ‘The Ghost’ to becoming really hot in the USA and elsewhere until the bubble was burst by Bernard Hopkins and the apparition title seemed to be accurate.
UK TV Companies have badly let down Great Britain Limited and whilst Audley Harrison has to take blame for souring BBC when he took over a million sterling pounds for walks in the park that were paraded as ‘exciting’ boxing, he only did what the BBC allowed him to do.
Had Audley been wiser he would have ensured BBC and fights fans had some value. This would have seriously bolstered his career and made him far richer. Instead he chose to gambol in springtime and miss out on a long summer and enjoy a bountiful harvest.
The illiterate and pathetic manner in which BBC dealt with Audley made it transparently clear that their representatives putting together the Audley deal were woefully lacking in experience.
Following upon the Audley fiasco BBC with seriously burnt fingers retired from serious telecasting of boxing.
ITV stepped in and in a short blaze of publicity promised grand scale boxing and did a deal with Frank Warren. The words were inspiring and after a promising start, and supported by sponsorship by Mitsubishi the car manufacturer, the action failed to match the promises.
It was not expected that every ITV boxing programme would be quality genuine championship boxing it was fully expected that contests involving British boxers for WBC and the three other sanctioning organisations, would also be shown at, at least, a reasonable time delayed time.
For ITV or BBC not to have secured the Froch – Taylor fight for a delayed showing on Sunday morning at a reasonable breakfast time hour clearly indicates that there is no latitude in the cast in stone TV programme scheduling and satisfaction for viewers that might upset programme scheduling and thereby cause extra work for executives, is embargoed by TV programmers.
This has to stop. Without occasional surprises and disappointments TV becomes a grinding machine of pap. TV is a creative industry and has to be robust in the way it attracts viewers.
Many years ago when radio and newspapers were the communicators for the people radio programmes would be interrupted for important news flashes. In newspapers when a story was about to break the shout from the Editor would be, “Hold the front page.”
This comfort zone for TV executives causes viewers to live in a darkened room with boring unchanged wallpaper and rickety cheap furniture on which no one wants to sit.
Can you imagine Tesco, Harrods, Selfridges, the Philip Green Empire of retail shops and other highly successful stores having a policy of no change in their presentations and shop windows?
Such nonsense imagination might be possible in closed minds but in creative minds impossible.
UK has its good share of entrepreneurs and our advertising agencies are World leaders but the country is badly let down badly by the TV industry by not leading the World in the commissioning of outstanding programmes.
Cheap goods are often nasty when compared to quality products.
The daily fare of English TV is gruel and whilst a hungry Oliver Twist asked for more, TV viewers have had more than enough of gruel and need refreshing, wholesome entertainment.
TV is also failing to bring much needed foreign currency into the presently cash strapped land of hope and glory
The replacement for Michael Grade as the executive principal of ITV needs to be a person with flair, drive and initiative. UK TV does not need a shake-up but needs a time bomb placed under it and unless serious changes for the better are made then it should be detonated. ~
