‘Tennis on BBC makes for hypnotic television’
Sir David Attenborough tells Charlie Eccleshare why special relationship has endured 90 years
Wimbledon is not exactly lacking in traditions. The sparkling white kit, the guzzling of strawberries and “plucky” British hopefuls being unceremoniously dumped out in the first three days – they are all so familiar as to have long since entered the realm of summer cliche.
Yet few are as long-standing as the Championships’ relationship with the BBC. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the first Wimbledon broadcast on BBC radio, making the partnership the longest-running sports-rights agreement anywhere in the world; 80 years since Wimbledon was first shown on BBC television; and a half-century since BBC2 broke new ground by transmitting the first regular colour TV broadcast in Europe with the 1967 tournament.
The trio of milestones is celebrated in a new exhibition, On Air: Wimbledon and the BBC 1927-2017, at the Wimbledon Museum where visitors can trace the evolution of the tournament’s partnership with the BBC. The journey has been one from crackly radio broadcasts listened to by a few hundred people to 17.1 million people watching Andy Murray win his first Wimbledon four years ago.
Fifty years ago, the BBC had just three cameras showing the action, and Sir David Attenborough, the controller of BBC2 at the time of that pioneering first colour broadcast, recalls having to push for the balls to be changed from white to yellow so that they would be more vivid on television.
Yet he was always convinced that tennis and television was a particularly happy union. “With only three cameras we found that you could get hours and hours of TV footage because what makes tennis on TV so exciting is that you don’t want to look away and for the action to stop,” he told The Daily
Telegraph. “You have two opponents and you have a wide shot and that’s three cameras. And you can broadcast that all day.”
Attenborough also revealed that he had an extra incentive for ensuring that BBC won the race to show colour TV that summer. “I was keen on the date because, in a pretty childish way, America and Japan had colour TV, but there was no regular colour TV in Europe,” he says. “I wanted the BBC to be first, but the Germans had got colour television and I knew that they were planning to come out with something soon. Could I beat them to the punch?”
Those early broadcasts sowed the seeds for the modern tennis televisual experience, and Wimbledon’s relationship with the Corporation has remained rock solid ever since.
“There’s no other tournament and broadcaster that’s had as long a relationship as this, and both have always encouraged innovation from the other,” Attenborough says. “I still remember the thrill of seeing Wimbledon in colour.
“The reason commercial TV has never been able to make a dent is because tennis is continuously dramatic, and you don’t want to cut away. You want to see the players when they sit down. Is he worried? Has that injury to his leg come back? What’s he planning? Why’s he doing that with his hand? Is he changing his serve? So, it is the element of the great dramas. Two heroes in the dawn come to do battle. And you don’t want to miss a minute. If you cut away for a commercial, the audience won’t stand for it. It’s one man against one man. It’s hypnotic television.”
Thankfully for advocates of commercial-free sport, Wimbledon’s latest contract with the BBC runs until 2024.
Of the countless memories shared by the BBC, a couple stand out for Attenborough. “Murray winning the title for the first time is my most spectacular memory,” he says. “But Rafael Nadal against Roger Federer was one hell of a match. It was breathtaking, with the great quality of Greek theatre. Two heroes, two kings meeting at sunset and only one could win.” On Air, Wimbledon and the BBC 1927-2017 will be at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum until March 4