On the fallow day between England’s failure to defend a total of 299 on Tuesday and their even more woeful attempt to get a similar total on Thursday, both at Trent Bridge, I had the pleasure of spending some time with the Producer of Test Match Special Adam Mountford. Now attentive readers will know that I have a wee bit of previous with Mr Mountford but he, to his credit, offered an olive branch and we eventually got together deep in the heart of the Vale of Belvoir for a spot of lunch. And very enjoyable it was to for whatever the doubts may have been when Mountford took over from the long-serving Peter Baxter in 2007 can there be any doubt that this has been a bit of an Annus Mirabilis for the programme and its producer?
Test Match Special (TMS) is one of the very few iconic programmes on the Radio where the programme brand is its strength and where the presenters or performers may come and go but the core values of the brand stay constant – or should. The “Today” programme, “Woman’s Hour”, “Desert Island Discs” and of course “The Archers” are among the few in this category and TMS is up there with them. But one of the problems with icon status is that listeners are fiercely defensive about the programme and often very reluctant to accept changes. This was certainly the case with TMS and Mountford was accused of dumbing down and of being too willing to adopt the tabloid style culture of Radio 5Live. These accusations were mainly attributable to the choice of commentators and summarisers that he made in his first months in charge. Radio 5 has been criticised for having “homogenised” voices with one presenter’s accent and tones being indistinguishable from another. There is some truth in this gibe and when Adam Mountford introduced similarly cloned voices to TMS there was adverse comment - can you distinguish your Mann, from your White from your Pougatch? Not to mention the estuary tones of Phil Tufnell – a celebrity superstar replacing our much loved old grump Mike Selvey! Oh my Johnners and my Arlott of long ago – how you must be looking on at it all from on high with horror!
Those of us who remember the early days of TMS can recall how the programme gradually evolved from rather stilted and formulaic cricket commentary into what Jonathan Agnew has described as a “roomful of mates chatting away”. Would this survive in the new regime and in particular how would the Ashes Tests of 2009 be produced – would strict ball by ball commentary endure and would those carrying it out be our old chums – Aggers and Blowers and Jenkers? (Christopher Martin-Jenkins really was called “Jenkers” by Brian Johnston but somehow this didn’t survive the great man’s passing!). So when I sat in my seat in Sophia Gardens on Wednesday 8th July, the first day of the 2009 Ashes, and tuned in to TMS’s build up to that first day’s play it was with some trepidation. I needn’t have worried. At Cardiff we had all three of the TMS heavies as well as the hugely experienced Aussie game-caller Jim Maxwell. Not only that but the “A” team of summarisers was there as well – Boycott and Marks and the superb Ian Chappell. And when Tufnell took his turn he held his own admirably and soon showed that he is a clever reader of the game with an engaging communications style and a strong voice – albeit one that now seemed a bit more “Radio 4” than I remember from when he was crowned King of the Jungle! Mountford says that four commentators is probably one too many in any one match – although it was certainly justified for the first Test. So for the foreseeable future we can expect some rotation between Aggers, CMJ and Blowers and also the occasional match for the very good Simon Mann. The experiment with Arlo White and Mark Pougatch as Test match commentators is unlikely to be repeated – although they will continue to work on limited overs matches. And the summarisers rota will comprise Boycott, Vic Marks and Phil Tufnell – to whom can now be added Michael Vaughan, something that was finalised by the BBC at Trent Bridge where the ex England captain made his debut on TMS.
The Ashes listening figures were, Mountford believes, around six million – more than three times the number of viewers for Sky’s television coverage. It is surprising how vague the listenership figures are for BBC radio and it is virtually impossible to be anything like precise about the numbers that tune in to TMS. Within the BBC itself the programme is high profile with senior suits from the DG downwards listening to and taking an interest in the programme. I sensed that Mountford rather relishes this even though the degree of attention must be a bit wearing at times. Perhaps the uniqueness of TMS and that fact that it is one of Radio’s Jewels in the Crown has ensured that if there ever was a risk of serious dumbing down and absorption into Radio5 Live this has not happened. The innovations are really quite modest, Tuffers for Selvey, on pitch interviews before the start of a day’s play and greater responsiveness to listeners who text or Email the programme. The much reported interviews with Lily Allen and Daniel Radcliffe may be seen as an attempt to go pop but there has always been a tradition on TMS of interviews with those who are famous for other reasons and have an interest in the game - and Aggers is very good at these interviews and for most listeners I suspect that there is no problem with them. Mountford said that 75% of the messages after the Lily Allen interview were positive and given that a fair number of the traditional TMS listeners had probably never heard of her this was a good result.
As with any live unscripted programme there are elephant traps for the unwary and Mountford has had one or two dodgy moments. My own personal moment of disgust came during the New Zealand Lord’s Test Match in 2008 when former New Zealand captain Jeremy Coney said of incoming batsman Ross Taylor that he was “From the South Pacific in the sense that he is not a New Zealander at all” and moments later couldn’t identify “which of the islands” Taylor came from. In fact Ross Taylor, whose mother was from Samoa, was born in Lower Hutt in North Island and is very much a New Zealander. Mountford describes Coney as having made an “error of judgment” and there the matter rests – although I am sure that I am not alone in feeling that there is no place on as iconic a programme as TMS for an expert summariser who reveals prejudice or ignorance, or maybe both, on air.
But whilst errors of the Coney type are unacceptable that does not argue for blandness or over-sensitive political correctness. You want some creative tension and we did get this year from time to time – particularly between Boycott and the commentators and especially Jonathan Agnew. CMJ, Aggers and Blowers are mostly very polite to one and all and so was Jim Maxwell. Vic Marks and Ian Chappell were also very courteous – as was Matthew Hayden who summarised in the later Tests and did an excellent job. The genial Tufnell didn’t really wind anyone up or try and start an argument and on his Trent Bridge showing nor will Michael Vaughan – good though his debut was. So for the future Mountford, who has clearly been treading rather carefully this year, might want to have a bit more attack from time to time in the box and move a little bit away from the blandness-risking “Radio Old Chum” style.
BBC Radio has negotiated a home matches broadcasting contract with the ECB that will keep TMS going until 2014 and most overseas tours will be covered as well. But the upcoming Champions Trophy in South Africa will not have ball by ball and listeners will have to rely on updates from Alison Mitchell on Radion 5Live – or watch Sky. The international matches against South Africa will have the full TMS treatment though and the core “A” team will be in the Republic for the Test matches along with the local commentator Gerald de Kock.
Adam Mountford resents the suggestion that he was a parvenu who was out of his depth when he took over from Peter Baxter pointing out that not only that he had been Baxter’s assistant for five years but that during that time he had produced a number of matches and tours himself. Nevertheless I sense that he was seen as a bit different by the rather cosy, public-school educated and supremely self-confident TMS team that he now had to lead, and that this was a bit of a problem. It may be that he has had to rein in his instincts for change in order both to keep the team together and to deflect the critics who had him in their sights for a while. But his success in 2009 has surely silenced some of the doubters and raised his credibility and profile both within the corridors of power in the BBC and with his TMS “chums”.
No comments:
Post a Comment