English TV: Channel 4's real test is behind the cameras (6 November 1998)

6 November 1998

English TV: Channel 4's real test is behind the cameras

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

CHANNEL 4's double raid on Sky Television to sign Mark Nicholas as the presenter of Test match coverage from next season and Mark Sharman as head of sport will hasten the appointment of a suitable production company, without which all the talk of a brave new world is empty.

It is the backroom boys - the cameramen, technicians and above all the director - who set the tone of all televised sport and who dictate to commentators and presenters the limits of what they can discuss.

Four companies are in the running. The favourites are the globe-trotting Trans World International (TWI), the television arm of Mark McCormack's International Management Group.

Still run by the American producer Bill Sinrich, they have become the biggest players in the field, having pioneered overseas cricket coverage for Sky and produced highlights for the BBC, an exercise which has often looked rather too obviously a case of getting a quart into a pint pot.

Their chief cricket director is now Simon Wheeler, an operator of wide experience.

Their rivals will include Sunset+Vine, a relatively new company, whose chief producer is Gary Franses, himself formerly with TWI.

So far concerned only with Channel 5's football productions since moving, Franses, 42, would leap at any chance to return to the production of live cricket and he is said to have ideas which would appeal to Channel 4.

Chrysalis, who now produce Formula One for ITV, are also likely to tender for the job. They have never produced cricket but nor had they touched motor racing until recently.

It is rumoured that the Bangalore businessman Mark Mascarenhas, whose WorldTel company has had lucrative television contracts in Sharjah and who are vying with TWI for future production of Indian matches, is interested in a liaison with Chrysalis.

The fourth player could be Sky themselves, who have their own production team and might suggest some tie-up with their new friendly rivals. But Channel 4 executives might be uneasy about too close a relationship. All this will have to be weighed up by Sharman, 48 and highly regarded in the business, most recently as No 2 to Vic Wakeling, head of Sky Sport.

Sharman moves to his new job on Monday week and he will not be short of offers from all who feel they can deliver the mix of tradition and innovation which both Channel 4 and the ECB say they want.

As a cricket-lover himself, a Derbyshire supporter known to have been frustrated that he has not often been able to get to cricket, Sharman will no doubt make his choice of production company with some care.

Channel 4's marketing director David Brooke is keen to stress that the highlights package every day before 8pm will be almost as important as the live coverage."Both children and people coming home from work will be watching," he said.

"We are keen to get the key players from the day's play on that programme and to improve the highlights package all round. It will be a live programme."

It would be no surprise if the Sunset+Vine group win the day, if only because their main director is Franses who was the mastermind behind the ground-breaking productions from the West Indies in 1990.

In islands where camera positions were largely non-existent, even on the main grounds, his planning was outstanding and many a logistical problem was overcome before an overseas series could be shown in full for the first time in Britain.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)