First Europe, now the world

THE giveaway was the 200 foot hoist, rising up above even the highest pines. For the most part, however, the television compound for the English Open was hidden discreetly by trees, in a secluded corner of Hanbury Manor. Only the curious passer by who decided to look upwards, would have known it was there.

Closer inspection revealed a fascinating sight as many as 10 vehicles gathered together in a self contained environment. My visit was during a break in transmission and some of the crew of 80 were sitting in the catering area, talking animatedly over cups of tea. It might have been the set of a Hollywood movie.

This is televised golf 1997, more than £5 million worth of state of the art equipment, the best that money can buy, all spanking new and liveried in the distinctive dark green of PGA European Tour Productions.

I was there to see the producer, John Phillips, a tall, softspoken Scot with an infectiously easygoing manner. With an economy of words, he supplied his CV: born in Crieff in Perthshire, quite close to Gleneagles; started in newspapers in Scotland in 1965 joined the BBC in 1968 in London and stayed with them until 1991.

"I worked on all the major sporting events, including the Olympic Games," he, said. "Having started as a projection assistant, I graduated to full outside broadcast producer and then, for 10 years, I edited Grandstand on Saturday and Sunday."

Meanwhile, some dramatic developments were taking place in the coverage of golf on this side of the Atlantic. A key man in the operation was George O'Grady, who had been appointed managing director of the newly formed PGA European Tour Enterprises in 1984.

Ten years previously, the BBC began their TV coverage of European Tour events and in 1979 they signed a long term contract to do about six specific tournaments per year. ITV, who were also involved at that time, abandoned live golf coverage after the European Open at Sunningdale in 1988, allowing the BBC to dominate the market.

"Towards the end of the 1980s we saw the emergence of Screensport and Eurosport, said O'Grady. "They were not host broadcasters but took pictures generated by others. For instance, Eurosport did tournaments on the Continent, fed by the BBC.

"Then, in 1988, the European Tour formed a non network alliance with Trans World International, the television arm of Mark McCormack's International Management Group and the largest, sports coverage television company in the world. The objective was to develop pictures of tournaments that had hitherto been ignored and then give those pictures international exposure.

Initially, the process took the form of a highlights programme, which would wrap up four days' play in 55 minutes and which, incidentally, is still available. It was presented, ready made, to a broadcasting station which had the option of putting its own commentary on the feed."

In Britain, ITV bought it for late night screening but the BBC weren't interested. As is largely the case to this day, they stuck rigidly by their policy of not showing anything that they, themselves, had not generated.

Screensport, a London based company, became a major player and its success led in 1991 to the formation of PGA European Tour Productions a 50-50 joint venture company with TWI. In turn, this paved the way for an evening, high lights programme from Eurosport in four languages - English, German, French and Swedish.

The next major development came in 1993 when the Tour signed a three year television contract with Sky, including the rights of the 1995 Ryder Cup. Though no figures were mentioned at that time, it was reputed to be worth around £30 million.

At that stage, Sky had only secondary rights whereby they could broadcast on the evening of a tournament. But everything was to change utterly in September 1995.

During the Ryder Cup at Oak Hill, European Tour Productions signed a four year television agreement with Sky, to include the 1997 and 1999 Ryder Cups, along with exclusive live broadcasts of 26 tournaments each season from 1997 to 2000. The deal, which was a year in the making, meant that the genie was now well and truly out of the bottle.

Though the Tour and the BBC reached a new, four year agreement last year, extending their partnership to more than 25 years, Sky were very clearly in the driving seat. So it is that this year, for instance, all tournaments bar a limited number of BBC events, are being broadcast on Sky.

Meanwhile, from having no American exposure a few years ago, Tour events go into 7.5 million homes in the US through the Golf Channel, which takes nine hours of coverage per week. Their commentators are Renton Laidlaw and Peter Oosterhuis.

Laidlaw said: "John Phillips is in control of providing pictures for three separate units - Sky, the Golf Channel and the rest. Taking the English Open as an example, Ewen Murray and Bruce Critchley were the commentators for Sky. In the next box Peter and I were doing the commentary for the Golf Channel, using the same pictures.

"Beside us were a further two commentators, Steve Beddow and David Jones, doing the world feed for a market which includes former Eurosport customers. Sometimes there could be as many as eight commentators."

O'Grady then talked about money. "Every week's production costs are about £200,000," he said. "So, who pays? Well, first of all there's Sky, then all the other, smaller broadcasters along with the Golf Channel in the US. In Britain, Sky pay the costs of production, otherwise it is the host broadcaster in whatever country happens to be involved.

"TV rights is a very complex process, but it's the most profitable part of the Tour's operations. You find the money wherever you can and when costs are covered, the profits are divided up. The tournament promoter usually gets half; Sky take a percentage and the Tour take the rest. In the case of the Volvo PGA Championship, the BBC have the broadcasting rights which means they produce the pictures and pay a fee for that right."

As it happens, discussions are currently in progress with RTE regarding coverage of this year's Murphy's Irish Open at Druids Glen in July. "Nothing has been finalised for the Irish Open but we (European Tour Productions) would like to do it" said Phillips.

"It's a big, exciting event and we're used to doing this week in week out. Our trucks go all over the Continent, but we don't want to steal anybody's thunder at RTE. I realise there's a lot of pride at stake in doing an outside broadcast but if RTE feel it would take the heat off them, we'll do it."

A decision has already been taken whereby Tour Productions will be doing the Smurfit European Open at The K Club in August with a full OB unit, involving as many as 20 cameras covering the whole course. "RTE, who have a deal with Sky for the event, will be doing what we call an add on," said Phillips. "They'll have their own studio presenter and use our pictures.

He went on: "We would like to think this equipment will be at Druids Glen and we'll do it as well as anybody in the world. If that's acceptable to the customer then we shall do that. But as the host broad caster, it is clearly RTE's choice to do it themselves.

Meanwhile, as a further development, the tour produce a weekly television magazine which is transmitted to almost 60 million homes, as far afield at Taiwan. As Phillips put it: "We are now a grownup TV company - a kind of circus with customers in every part of the world."