Source: FOOTYMAD
World Cup TV Coverage Is Being Dumbed Down
Whose intelligence is being insulted. Have you been thinking how basic the coverage of the World Cup by BBC and ITV is? Are the likes of former Coventy City managet Chris Coleman, Mick McCarthy, Alan Shearer etc, not technical enough in their analysis of the matches they are talking about? Well, according to Jonathan Wilson, author of "The Pyramid - A History of Football Tactics" and "The Anatomy of England: A History In Ten Matches", television, it is the fault of television programme producers.Writing in the latest issue of the The Football Supporters Federation's 'The Football Supporter' magazine, Mr Wilson says: "I can't name names, but one of the best known football presenters, who isn't an ex player, told me those involved in their coverage would love to do more indepth stuff but TV producers are terrified of scaring people off and losing viewers. "According to his producer, the fear is that a housewife doing the ironing looks up and sees a load of tactical diagrams on the telly, she'll turn over and watch Emmerdale. "The World Cup coverage is completely different simply because it's on terrestrial TV - both the BBC and ITV are trying to pander to as wide an audience as possible, they're trying to be inclusive. When you watch football on Sky, things are done differently because they know they are dealing with a specialist audience who already understand the subject."If you watch football all the time, have grown up with the game, even played it to decent levels, let's say for the sake of argument, say that puts you in a situation where you understand implicitly 85% of what is going on in any given game. In that case, what you are really looking for from ex players is an insight into that 15% you don't understand - you want to learn something you didn't already know, not to be tld what you already do. But terrestrial TV producers are attempting to pander to everyone - it's dumbed right down, which is why recognisable ex professionals are the people in demand as pundits, because they have the broadest possible appeal. "Anti-intellectualism is rampant in British Society and that's reflected in TV producers' reliance on faithful old formulas and faces."
