This October marks the 15th anniversary of the launch of Europe’s first truly-dedicated 24-hour sports news channel.
Sky Sports News began broadcasting on 1st October 1998, the launch date of BSkyB’s new digital satellite service and had the distinction of being its first digital-only channel.
Since then, it has left an indelible imprint on the consciousness of all sports fanatics, in particular football fans, through its wall-to-wall coverage of Transfer Deadline Day and ambitious one-off events such as the recent 92Live.
To mark this significant 15-year milestone, Sport On The Box welcomes back its regular contributor Vernon Grant to look back at the channel’s decade-and-a-half on-air.
Vernon has been a producer of a number of televised sports programmes for major broadcasters since the 1980s, including Sky, ITV and Channel 4, as well as several independent production companies.
He now runs the sports news, interviews and betting website VG Tips and is well placed to give an insight into the inner-workings of Sky Sports News, having worked on the channel’s production team for four years from its pre-launch in the summer of 1998 through to 2002.
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Follow Vernon on Twitter – @lecrin
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Few on air cock ups make me laugh out loud. Not while I am on duty. But one day, at Sky Sports News, I could not contain my amusement.
Barcelona had played at home to Real Madrid and the edited highlights of the goals were being transmitted.
In those days a colleague would often have to write on a scrap of paper the words that should be on a caption. He or she would then hand it to a graphics operator.
I had some great times with the guys and girls in graphics in those days.
We shared many a Saturday night and Sunday morning of mutual moaning and merriment.
But not all of them knew their football.
My colleague delivered them a note with the words: Barcelona v Real Madrid. Camp Nou.
The footage came on screen and there, before my very eyes, was the caption that read: Barcelona v Real Madrid. Camp November.
You see, the eager to help graphics operator had presumed my colleague had written an abbreviation.
I checked my 1998 diary this week. It is 15 years since I was asked to supervise the ‘young turks’ who made up the first production team for Sky Sports News.
It was a time of so called ‘dry runs’. Pretend programming produced with the intention of ironing out any technical faults.
While there were chaotic queues outside edit suites on the first weekend of real programming, the young ones needed no supervising.
They stepped up to the plate in fine fashion. It was manic and there were mistakes made, that was inevitable. But the energy and enthusiasm on display impressed me.
Many of the young ones had never worked in live television before. I had. At that time career in live TV went back 18 years. Some of these new colleagues of mine weren’t even born when I first produced live television.
They coped admirably with the inevitable confusion that surrounds the launch of a new televised service.
I expect those at BT Sport know what I am on about. They are the latest to launch something new, knowing all the time that the media world is watching, waiting for them to make a mistake.
And, unlike when Sky Sports News launched, we now have a forum for all those who watch televised sport from the safety of their couch.
Thanks to Twitter I’m now led to believe that almost everyone can produce TV better than those who actually do.
Sky Sports News has become a bit of a running joke. Young men on Twitter type missives with one hand while using the other to express their desire for the latest busty blonde to present the rolling sports news service.
I was producing Sky Sports News, and associated programmes for Sky Sports, from that heady summer of 1998 until 2002.
In those days you arrived for work not knowing if there would be a Sky, let alone a Sky Sports News.
The company was losing money on a mind boggling scale.
But the powers that reside outside of the UK decided, rightly as it turned out, to invest big in the installation of satellite dishes, support Sky Sports News and make cuts in other programming.
Once viewers had the apparatus on their roof, and were offered enticing new packages, Sky went from strength to strength.
As a consequence the then free Sky Sports News flourished.
I see it rarely these days, but the improved location and studio set is a world away from 1998.
Then anyone shouting across the production floor to a colleague would discover their “are you going to the pub later?” or, worse, “she was a great shag” utterances were heard in pubs, clubs and homes all over the land. Even I was guilty of such a sin.
‘Soccer Saturday’ was in full flow and the much missed Rodney Marsh said on air: “Do you know what Jeff? Sheffield Wednesday remind me of a man with diarrhoea who can’t drop his trousers in time.”
No sooner had you heard this Owls fan laugh out loud than the viewers witnessed Wednesday striker Paolo Di Canio push referee Paul Alcock to the floor.
I believe the online abbreviation for what I was heard to say live on air is OMG!
The brilliant, joy to work with Jeff Stelling gave me a look that would have stopped a charging herd of buffalo in their tracks.
Despite all my experience, I had committed the cardinal sin of forgetting that, although I was working in an office, it was also the live set of a television programme.
I was not the first to forget that. And I was not the last.
As a producer I was constantly annoyed that some colleagues ‘crashed a red light’ and walked on to set carrying coffee, bacon sandwiches and regaling each other with reconstructions of the great goal they scored when playing 5-a-side the night before.
I grew weary of admonishing people who thought they were working in Top Shop. Too often I sounded like Victor Meldrew: “In my day, you never walked through a red light.”
The wonderful Jim White would not make such a mistake.
Jim working himself into a state of excitement on transfer deadline day is often mocked on social media sites, but Jim is the real deal.
I overheard so many telephone calls in which he charmed a reluctant manager, player or agent to reveal to him a secret that Jim could broadcast first.
A service such as SSN is only as strong as the number of staff they have whose middle name could be ‘gravitas’.
Nick Collins went viral on YouTube recently when he inexplicably fell from his perch while talking to Jim live on air.
A rare moment of television gold that will turn up on blooper shows the world over.
Collins is another reporter whose very consistency and professionalism these past decades has made SSN all the more credible.
Sadly there was a period where the only qualification required for getting a job at SSN, be it on or off air, was to be related to a former player, current manager or in some way come from the same gene pool as a sportsman or women.
I lost count of how many nieces, nephews, sons and daughters I was asked to invite into the production gallery so they could watch live television in action.
A week later they might be a runner, researcher, reporter or even a presenter.
Nepotism in TV was not invented by bosses at Sky Sports News. It’s been around since black and white days. But my former bosses only encouraged it.
Some of the best presenters at SSN were among the first to read autocue. A few are still there.
Kelly Dalglish is, of course, the daughter of former Liverpool and Scotland legend, Kenny. But Kelly is not there because of who she knows.
She is a leading presenter because she is very good at her job, knowledgeable, pretty and has an ideal on screen manner. She knows when to be serious and when to have a laugh.
I had some fun Saturday nights in the company of Rob Wotton and Julian Walters.
Both professional presenters who know that television is not brain surgery and that having fun while you work comes across positively to the viewers.
I recall Kirsty Gallagher having an audition. She will not mind me saying that even she doubted that day that she would master autocue and presenting while producers spoke in her earpiece.
She soon became one of the better presenters and, of course, easy on the eye for the heterosexual male viewers.
As did the likes of Claire Tomlinson who is very professional and who coped well when one manager still at work in the Premier League refused point blank to be “interviewed by a girl” post match.
Times were changing on TV, but not always in the offices of those working in football.
If the bosses at Sky Sports made one on-screen mistake it was when they decided to put looks before ability. And too rarely marry the two.
I recall the day one gorgeous blonde walked in for a job interview. It seems she had done some presenting elsewhere, though I’d never heard of her.
The secretary of the boss turned to me and asked me to predict the outcome.
“What do you think, Vernon?”
Without missing a beat I replied: “She’s got the job.”
After all, it was clear to everyone that the two greatest assets she carried with her were not a CV or showreel!
I know that the Sky Sports News audience is overwhelmingly young and male. I also know that television is a visual medium, so presenters must look good.
But I climb the walls when it is obvious they are on air purely for their looks and not their ability or knowledge.
For one reason or another, Sky Sports lost many capable presenters.
I am delighted Jill Douglas has gone on to enjoy such a good career at the BBC, covering sports she knows and cares about.
Gabby Logan has also not looked back since she left Sky. In both cases the BBC gained and Sky lost.
As was the case when my former colleague Carrie Frais left to work for both the BBC and ITV before moving to live in Barcelona, within sight of that November Camp!
Carrie had her place on the in house blooper tape for saying: “More come after the break.”
A former boss at Sky Sports, famed for his abusive outpourings, was responsible for the loss many on screen and off screen talent and was the reason I turned my back on the offer of a staff job.
Had I taken it I would probably still be there, as are the majority of my much missed colleagues from 1998-2002. Good people.
Production staff who put up with all sorts of nonsense from the management, yet deliver a service that is watched by millions.
I don’t miss the Sky Sports ethic whereby management believes the louder you are, the better you are at your job.
There were people at SSN who proved the old maxim “empty vessels make the most noise” to be 100% accurate. They were promoted for so doing.
I don’t miss the attitude from bosses that only Sky matters.
It raised its head each summer I was there, producing the half hour show called ‘7 Days in Sport’.
The programme looked back at the highlights of the sporting week through the eyes of the press.
Some years it looked as though Tim Henman would win Wimbledon.
Had he done so it is safe to say that you would not have heard it first on Sky Sports News.
Each Wimbledon fortnight, I had these instructions my boss.
“Whatever you do Vernon, don’t mention Wimbledon.”
“But what if Henman wins?” I countered.
“Don’t mention Wimbledon. If it’s not on Sky, it’s not sport”, came the reply.
They still believe that if Sky doesn’t have the contract to cover the event, it isn’t real sport.
Cycling didn’t matter to Sky until they sponsored a team.
Such arrogance has been contagious in the corridors of power at HQ since the days that the very first Rupert Murdoch trained henchmen ruled with an iron fist.
I don’t miss them. I do miss the colleagues on the shop floor. I miss the laughs. I miss the buzz of producing live television – for that is what I was born to do best.
I don’t see Sky Sports News these days. Like many, I get my breaking news via social media.
But those of you who have stayed loyal to Sky Sports News would miss it were it not there.
I am proud I was in at the start of something. And those who work there today should be equally proud of the service they deliver.
Especially the person who, only the other night, ensured the caption for the Barcelona home game read: Camp Nou.
That’s progress!
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VG Tips: Visit Vernon’s sports betting/news/interviews website – www.vgtips.co.uk
