Paul Fox and Sportsview: Television’s Sports Page

Abstract

In 1953, a publication called Dear Viewer… by MP Christopher Mayhew made a case against commercial television on behalf of the Fabian Society. His case echoed the view of the Labour Party and the critique was aimed at the ‘motive which underlies it’. Mayhew’s summary of the matter was: ‘The apparent aim is to give pleasure, the real aim is to sell toothpaste.’1 This was a common criticism of what commercial television might bring to the British culture of broadcasting, and Mayhew’s fears stemmed from experiences and observations people had made of television in America. Gravitating towards the American commodification of television and its programming seemed inevitable, but the main problem, he suggested, was that ‘American TV is horrible not because it is run by Americans but because it is dominated by commercial interests.’2 As television entered the middle of the decade, the prospect of ‘sponsored television’, funded through advertising and based on regional franchises, was secured by the Conservative government, who saw a need to break the monopoly of the BBC in order to broaden the consumer boom for television sets and other consumer goods more generally. The end of rationing, increasing wages, increased car ownership and mobility, and the dream of modernity at events such as the Ideal Home Exhibition were the signs of affluence that led Harold Macmillan to claim Britons ‘had never had it so good’ in 1957. The development of ITV in 1954 was a considerable threat to the BBC, and although many in the Corporation knew competition was coming, they did little to prepare for it. One area where the BBC did not rest on its laurels, however, was in the coverage of sport. In his review of the BBC’s response to commercial television in the 1950s, broadcast historian Asa Briggs remarked that sport became one of the BBC’s principal weapons against competition from ITV, with Peter Dimmock and editor Paul Fox singled out for being ‘exceptionally vigilant and enterprising’.3