04/09/2011
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
The scenario is familiar. It is late at night. Drink has been taken. One is alone and the initial euphoria has given way to maudlin depression. A telephone is to hand and there is the need to speak to someone. Recently, I was on the receiving end of such a call and what surprised me was that the caller was my old pal, Turk Thrust.
Readers will remember that Turk (right) is the perma-tanned Hollywood script doctor and the man behind FOSU (Formula One Script Unit) which used to give us down-to-the-wire World Championships.
Turk was feeling sorry for himself. 'Mike the phone hasn't started ringing. There are all these moves in Formula One and poor old Turk has been left out. Who came up with the idea of Piquet Junior crashing at Singapore to give Alonso the race and so guarantee funding for the following year? No need to answer, Mike, you know who.
'Bernie has gone ahead with the Sky deal and you'd have thought they'd have been on to me. I've got ideas for Sky, solid Rupert Murdoch ideas. Ideas the BBC haven't considered it being uptight and British. Sorry Mike, but you know what I mean.'
'No offence taken, Turk,' I say, 'but how would you improve on Auntie's coverage?'
'Martin Brundle does the grid walk and you know who he always ignores? The girls who hold the umbrellas over the drivers. Girls with long legs and short skirts. They have to have special insights, they get to hang around with drivers.
'They deserve their slot. You know, telling what it's like to hold an umbrella, there's an art to that. They should have their place. We make a space for these girls, give them challenges, like mud wrestling. Good, good family entertainment of the sort that Murdoch has given so many countries.
'Murdoch introduced horoscopes to The Sunday Times. Okay, it's in the Fluffy section along with news on moisturisers, aromatherapy and frocks, but it is still there. Nobody with two points of IQ to rub together has believed this shit since Galileo proved that the universe was not terracentric. Even the Voodoo Vendors of the Vatican concede that Galileo was right, also Copernicus, whom the Vatican tortured and burned alive. It is all shite, but it is Murdoch's brand of shite.
'We have someone called, say, Psychic Cheryl, casting horoscopes. She comes out with shit like, 'Sebastian's guiding planet, Jupiter, is in decline whereas Mercury, which rules Jenson, is in the ascendant. Venus, who rules tyre degradation, smiles favourably on HRT. There is a 50/50 chance of rain.
'See where I am going with this, Mike? We make Formula One attractive to knuckle-dragging drongos and bubble-brained bimbos. It is the Murdoch formula.'
I want to interrupt, but Turk is on a roll. 'The BBC has put together a crack team. Tony Jardine claims that Sky will do things better. You may not remember Jardine, but he was in the ITV team for most of the time, a man with the charisma of week-old lettuce. He wants to be part of the new set-up and, I guess, so do most others with a track record.
'The roll call of who is competing sounds like the legion of the lost, the cohort of the damned, to borrow from your own Rudyard Kipling. Everyone from Eurosport, for a start.'
'Remember Beverley Turner? She styled herself Queen of Speed and wrote a hard-hitting book accusing Formula One of being fuelled by testosterone. To the Fluffy media this was a revelation and she went on air to promote this unique insight. The Exploited One failed to mention that she had preened and pouted for FHM.
'I ask you, Mike, what in principle is the difference between that and umbrella girls mud wrestling 'for the lads', as I believe you say in Blighty?'
It was late at night and though I have much time for Turk, I was getting a tad tired, but I have been there myself and let him continue. Turk said, 'Of course Bernie has lost the plot with Bahrain, but not in the way you think. Introduce a Murdoch company into the equation and you have a new vista.
'The European GP has been held in a number of countries, why not have a Troublespot Grand Prix? Libya would be ideal, it has a rich motor racing history, it used to hold the Tripoli GP.
'To the usual drama of pit stops, strategies and all the usual boring stuff, we could add possible kidnapping, float the notion that a sniper may be on the roof of a grandstand. That's Entertainment, Mike.
'Castro's men kidnapped Fangio on the eve of the 1958 Cuban GP. We could work with that, sign up some terrorist cell in need of a headline. I know you, Mike, you will say it is a sick idea, but Bernie wants to run a race in Bahrain and there will be protests, what could be more sick than that? I say, let's get the action inside the stadium where it can be seen.'
'One thing I do know is that the World and his Dog wants to sign for the Sky coverage. Mr Charisma, Tony Jardine, has already opened fire. Maybe we could get the special thing which once was active between Steve Rider and Mark Blundell. Rider would say something and the tub of lard would loyally respond with. 'That's right, Steve.' What riveting viewing that was.
'Then there was Louise Goodman, wearing Nomex to prove that she was part of the action, and her one question: 'What went wrong today?' Ever seen Ron Dennis in Nomex?'
A TV insider tells me that he thinks that Sky will find that it has bought a pup. After more than 30 years of free to view, many British fans are not going to buy a dustbin lid for their houses. I am certainly not going to. My insider reckons that Sky will be lucky to get 2 million British viewers, the BBC has more than three times that number, plus an untold number across the English Channel who watch BBC for free.
Sky says that it will not interrupt races with ads, but it has to broadcast ads, that is its source of income. There will be many opportunities to brew a pot of tea in the build-up to a race and its aftermath. There has to be ads. ITV interrupted the action with ads, and then did replays. That part of the coverage became accepted after initial huffing and puffing. What never became accepted was the line-up of utterly useless presenters and pundits.
Anyone remember a single insightful comment made by Jim Rosenthal? I rest my case.
I get worried about Turk. 'Still here Mike, just hunting for an umbrella and a plastic seahorse to complete Thruster's Tequila Tremourblaster.' One thing I like about Turk, he has class.
We have seen claims that Sky's F1 coverage will be of benefit to F1-related advertisers. I thought that the whole idea of sponsorship was to use television to avoid paying for advertising. In my small city, within 50 yards of each other is a branch of Santander and a Vodafone shop. They both have pictures of Lewis and Jenson in their windows and they are carrying the message to everyone who passes by, not just those who watch Formula One.
Lewis and Jenson are household names in Britain because they are associated with Santander and Vodafone.
There was a time when top motor racing teams received trade support from oil companies, tyre manufacturers, and so on. The problem was that they then had to buy advertising to proclaim their involvement. Overt sponsorship solved that problem and we all know, for example, that Shell is with Ferrari. Sponsorship is now established so why should Shell, Santander or Vodafone buy air time?
The bid from Sky does not appear to make any more sense than Bernie accepting it, though he has wisdom I would not like to fathom.
Sky will add a few more viewers, but not enough to justify the bid. It will not get the advertising revenue it hopes for. It will not attract even half the number of viewers that the BBC does. That is guaranteed. It has pledged not to show ads during a race. All in all, it amounts to the daftest bid I have ever seen.
It will offer huge sums of money to established presenters, some of whom may sign and, in the fullness of time, sincerely wish that they had not. It is not much fun sitting at home and being paid until the contract runs out.
Turk has found his phone, 'I wanna say, Mike, I wanna say that poor old Turk has been ignored. The potential of mud wrestling among the girls who hold the umbrellas has not been explored.' My line went dead, Turk had returned to his natural state.
The future of the Murdoch Empire is not as assured as once it seemed to be. In America the FBI is involved, in Britain the public face is Parliament, but you can bet that other organisations are taking a keen interest. Special Branch is not the direct equivalent of the FBI, it tends to be more sneaky and less accountable. There is a stack of court cases ranged against the Dirty Digger who has publicly stated that he is a born-again Christian, a sure guarantee of integrity.
The British state of affairs re: Murdoch is most familiar to me, but I would be surprised if it were not replicated in many other countries. The News of the World was the most profitable newspaper title on the planet. It accounted for one per-cent of Murdoch's income, no wonder he could close it to make a gesture.
My sources inside the business tell me that the Sky bid is doomed to failure. Huge salaries are being offered and they will never be justified by the viewing figures. Sky will start by losing money and then things will go downhill from there. Civil actions and investigations by the FBI and Special Branch will damage the Murdoch Empire and prison looms for some. Unless of course they wish to be significant witnesses.
Once the big name police forces get involved, others will be anxious to join them. Nobody wants to be left behind when New Scotland Yard is on the case. Every ambitious copper will want that association in his file and so information will pour forth. You are a young copper in the sticks, Scotland Yard contacts you and asks for your help. What are you going to do?
The Murdoch Empire is going down and the Sky coverage of Formula One will be among the earliest casualties because there is no way that the figures add up. I hope that none of the current presenters get carried away by greed because I want to continue to enjoy them. Sky will be a journey to oblivion, it has a plan which could not work even if some of the major players were not removed from the scene, via prison or resignation.
Mike Lawrence
mike.lawrence@pitpass.com
To check out previous features from Mike, click here