all hail David Attenborough, and his TV genius (edited)

[abendgules]

I'm doing something I always swore I'd never do.

I'm watching tennis on TV.

I generally avoid pro sports. But actually being in London makes watching London events (marathon, Wimbledon, boat race) more interesting. It's sort of charming to find that the same rain shower outside is slowing play in South London (though not as of next year, apparently, when the domed roof is finished).

However - these sports weren't always televised.

We have David Attenborough to thank for wall-to-wall coverage of both Wimbledon and, of all things, championship snooker.

When he was controller of BBC2 in the late 60s, colour TV was just coming in. The cameras were huge, clumsy, and expensive, and BBC could afford just two of them.

Sir David hit on setting them both up at Wimbledon to offer coverage of what was otherwise a small-scale but high-prestige tournament. So the BBC broadcast Wimbledon, in all its colourful glory - green grass, white clothes, and yellow balls.  It was the first colour broadcast on BBC.

He did the same thing for snooker - here again was a venue where colour coverage would make a difference to the viewers. He developed a show called Pot Black which ran for over 15 years(1). Better yet, you didn't have to move the cameras.

And the content was free.

So what, for Mr. Attenborough, were excellent schedule-filling sources of cheap content have developed into major events with life of their own. 

I find it amazing that even when doing a job he didn't enjoy (Attenborough couldn't get out of the controller job fast enough, to get back to tramping the world and peering at critters) the ideas he introduced are still going strong.

Edit - added ref for snooker story.
Edit2 - added ref to colour broadcast.

1. Scroll down the ref on the Guardian to see Mark Lawson's remark about his commissioning the show.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

re: David Attenborough

Thank you for that, that's brilliant! (Do you have a linkable source for that information?)

And yes, I find watching tennis and snooker nice and restful (the only other "sports" I watch with any regularity are Formula One and poker!)

[bend-gules.livejournal.com]

I've added a ref for the snooker anecdote.
The bit about Wimbledon was from an interview w/ him about the history of BBC2, run in the past couple of years.

If I find a link I'll add it.