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Academy Profile
BATTLEFORSATURDAYS
BATTLEFORSATURDAYS
ITV’s early evening Premiership coverage got off to a very shaky start but, as ITV sports supremo Brian Barwick tells John Morrell, just watch this space.
Brian Barwick, Controller of Sport and Director of Programmes at ITV2, is a marked man. Soccer at seven on Saturdays indeed! For the big man, who has had a good run since he left the BBC in 1998, these are testing times. His new programme, The Premiership with Des Lynam, was soundly thrashed by Anne Robinson’s Weakest Link when it made an unseasonal debut on August 18.
“ITV’s Own Goal” ran the gleeful head- lines. But if Barwick, 48, is worried, he’s far too battle-hardened to show it.
Remember, this is the man who defected to ITV after 18 years at the BBC and prompt- ly fixed the transfer of Des Lynam to ITV in ’99, pulled off ‘Snatch of the Day’ in 2000 by winning the Premiership rights the same year, and launched ITV 2 in 2001.
And, if his luck holds, he will win the Seven on Saturdays ratings battle with The Premiership by Christmas.
The ebullient Barwick leaned forward in his fourth floor glass-panelled office at London’s Network Centre: “Look, it would have been easy for us to get the Premiership rights and go on 15 minutes earlier than the BBC but we’ve come right out there . Bold, innovative; daring to be different at seven o clock.
“David Liddiment (ITV’s channels chief) believed in the ‘Fashion of Football’. He believed it was entertainment in its own right,” he added.
And if it hasn’t worked by Christmas could The Premiership slip to say, nine o’ clock? “There is no Plan B. Now, in an ideal world, you would probably never start a
major new season on August 18. But that’s when football starts. And week two, weath- erwise was a scorcher. But the figures crept up. By week four up to a peak of 5.4... and the evenings are closing in. You just wait.
“You don’t get innovation without a fair share of criticism. I always knew we would
have to pull the wagons round in a circle for a while. Stoic, that’s the word.”
You can tell he thrives on it. “Football stars are now front page, back page and cen- tre page news. That has been a major change in my lifetime. You’ll recall that when Billy Wright married a Beverly sister way back, that was front page but nothing like David Beckham and Victoria. They represent high fashion statements. They’re cat-walk people, pop people.”
Has Beckham made the difference?
“No, creating the Premiership from the old League system made the breakthrough. Then Sky’s money and how they marketed football. Soccer was riddled with hooligan- ism in the 80s, then came the tragedies at Hillsborough and Heysel which led to all- seater stadiums; plus the renaissance of Manchester United. Safer grounds have moved it on from a football match to a sell- out event.”
He enthused: “From the commercial per- spective, it is one of the
few products that gets ABCs as well as Ds and Es. Everybody’s got a team,
from the man who delivers the milk to the guy who drinks it and the youngsters who put it on the cornflakes.”
But not perhaps the mums or young girls in the family?
“We’ve got to win them over. Gabby Yorath is a terrific presenter. As an expert on football steeped in the history of the game, she’s at the heart of what was a man’s world. And Posh Spice at matches does no harm either.”
At home in Twickenham, his own two sons, Jack and Joe, have all the team strips; Jack, “Liverpool like his Dad.” Barwick chuckles: “Sadly, Joe supports Aston Villa, but he’s seeing the doctor for that.”
Barwick is an infectious mix of irreverent Liverpool (he went to Quarry Bank, the same school as John Lennon) and BBC trained pro- fessional. He recalls his own footballing days: “In regional newspaper language, I was ‘hard- working half-back Barwick.’”
Now at the very top end of his business, how will the man who spends north of £350 million of ITV’s money each year judge suc- cess for The Premiership?.
“The programmes look healthy and strong. Over the first few weeks we stripped away a lot of stuff. We’ve got a better sense of where to place the commercial breaks. The watchword is action and lot’s of action.”
He reflected: “Success will be when I get the words ‘struggling and troubled’ out of the prefix to pieces on The Premiership.”
Until then, will he relax?
He leaned forward again: “Now this is really sad. I’m a nutter for sit-com. My wife Gerry and I go to bed every night and listen to tapes of Tony Hancock shows. I’m word perfect on The Blood Donor.” ■
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