JM: “I want be…I would love to be where people love me to be…”
GC: “We’ll take that as England, gotta go!”
And with that short exchange, Gabriel Clarke and ITV infuriated a nation of football lovers. Where did you have to go Gabriel? The toilet? Seriously though, Gabriel Clarke was not at fault. He was made to look the idiot by his bosses, much like James Corden was when he was ordered to cut Adele’s winning speech short at the Brits. The similarities? Both were on ITV. The difference? Mourinho was about to sell his soul to Gabriel Clarke. He was going to tell him everything. Afterall, ITV form part of the English media that Jose so loves. With Adele? She was about to reel off a long list of people who helped her make an album. Thrilling hey?
Cutting Mourinho off last night was a crime against sport and another black mark against ITV’s coverage of football. Remember when they missed England’s opening goal of the 2010 World Cup? No? Me neither because I’m not fortunate enough to have HD television, however, they definitely did cut to an advert just before Steven Gerrard slotted in! The Champions League is split between ITV and Sky Sports. There’s absolutely no way Sky Sports would have cut the Special One off in order to hit the adverts/news on time.
It would almost be like President Obama giving a news conference to the written press. “Gentleman, we have identified the target the terrorists want to hit!” “Oh stop there please Barack, my pen has run out! Sods law. We wish you the best of luck in protecting that place though! See ya!”
As a man who works in the world of sports broadcasting, albeit on local radio and not on national television, I feel strongly about last night’s cock-up (if you can’t tell). I’m going to let you into the depths of my professional life as I vaguely explain to you how things like this work.
You have to hit the news on time at the top of the hour, and usually this is no problem. As a studio producer for live football games, I am in the studio pressing the buttons and chatting to the presenter instructing him about timings etc. Everything is done to the second so we can opt in to the news on time. For night games we have less time on air after the full time whistle, so timings are tighter and it’s sometimes a struggle to fit everything in, but we’re always keen to hear live from the Derby manager Nigel Clough, particularly if the result is an important one or something huge has happened. The listeners deserve it; they have invested their time listening to the game and want to hear the manager explain himself if the Rams have performed abjectly (it does sometimes happen ya know). Sometimes he will turn up at 21:57 and our programme finishes at 22:00. Three minutes is not enough, so what do we do? What we do is what ITV should have done. Go to the news late. It’s a decision that the senior man usually makes, which in this case is usually my good colleague and presenter Owen. I will then work out the best way to end the programme and get to the news or the next programme.
It’s not fantastic, but it’s the right thing to do. We live in a world where news is readily available. Everyone with a TV has access to a 24 hour news channel. Everyone with a phone or a computer has access to the internet. If they are so desperate for the news, they can find it. Last night, the person producing/directing ITV’s coverage should have had a) the knowledge to realise they were on to something big, and b) the balls to keep the programme on air for an extra 2 minutes. The ironic thing is, by cutting the programme short to go to the news, THEY MISSED THE NEWS! Mourinho was the news.
I understand that the pressures on a national television broadcaster are much greater than those on a local radio station, but what would have happened if the News at 10 changed to the News at 10:02? Would anyone have died? You’d hope not – this is not North Korea! ITV would obviously have had a contingency plan for if the game went to extra time, so there was an opportunity to stay on air later. Unless of course their plan was Adrian Chiles signing off saying “So folks, great game and we have extra time. If you want to know the result, check the papers tomorrow. We’re off to the news. Night night!”
Sky Sports News got the in depth interview with Mourinho afterwards, but the damage was done by then. The excitement had gone. We knew what Mourinho was going to say. ITV had the chance to get a world exclusive, and they cocked it up, sadly, not for the first time.
I hope you have found this insight into the production of broadcasting interesting. I guess everyone makes mistakes hey, but last night’s was avoidable. So yeah…I expect an 880 word complaint put on my desk next time I press the wrong button on 104.5, 95.3 and 96FM.
And if you want to see what I’m talking about, here’s the link
http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/the-tweets-itv-cut-off-jose-mourinho-just-as-the-special-one-is-about-to-open-up/
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