Let’s give our TV football a glossy finish
GROWING up in the ’70s and ’80s, Archie Macpherson was the man. The oracle of the Scottish game. BBC Scotland’s Saturday night Sportscene was the highlight of the week. Players of the calibre of Willie Miller, Davie Cooper, Danny McGrain and Andy Ritchie were beamed into the nation’s front rooms for 30 minutes a week. And it felt like a privilege to watch them. But sports broadcasting has moved on. Slick, live satellite coverage on Sky Sports, BT Sport, Al Jazeera and beyond has revolutionised how people watch football. Production standards have shot through the roof. Under-resourced and neglected, Sportscene has fallen behind. Highlights of some games are perfunctory and short. Camera angles are minimal. Key incidents are missed. These days, watching Sportscene feels less like a privilege and more like a chore. The BBC are usually blamed for all of this but the big broadcasters pool and share highlights. And too often the corporation are at the mercy of some twobit, two-camera production company hired by the SPFL to cover lesser games. As part of a new four-year deal, BBC Scotland and the SPFL have vowed to work together to improve this. There may be little they can do to fix the embarrassing spectacle of rows of empty seats behind goals. But clubs have a better chance of filling them if they help to make Scottish football a bit more glossy and professional. Sportscene is a window to advertise the game. If it looks cheap, no one will buy it.