“Car crash TV” and “rabbit in the headlights” were some of the descriptions afforded to the coverage of the World Athletics Championships on Channel Four, chiefly down to the curious decision to employ ex-children’s TV presenter Ortis Deley as main link man and host. Now I’m not going to join in the feeding frenzy over his performance, I don’t need to, you can see for yourself on YouTube but I am going to question the wisdom of a decision to put a square peg into a round hole.

If you need some plastering doing around the house you tend to call a plasterer, ditto for re-wiring, carpentry etc etc but in the broadcast media, qualification for the job takes some strange twists and turns. It is now accepted that comedians were born to do Radio, something that backfired spectacularly on the BBC with Ross and Brand changing the culture of the organisation forever, but not changing the ongoing policy of hiring the inexperienced, the latest being Miranda Hart’s clumsy handling of shows on Radio 2. In sport it’s even worse, Jamie Reknapp’s extraordinary ignorance of anything outside the top four Premier League clubs does not restrict his role as pundit on Sky, claiming that West Brom struggled to score goals last season despite that fact that they were amongst the top scorers in the division. Talksport appear to have a policy of recruiting the pig ignorant, and Robbie Savage must have some sort of hold of the BBC management such is his omnipresence lately across their football coverage. He may well have something worthy to say about football but decides the listener would rather hear about Robbie Savage.

Here in the Midlands a gold medal was deemed enough of a qualification to present the Sports News on Midlands Today but the hapless Denise Lewis was quietly sidelined as hundreds of journalists tore up worthless degrees and took to the running track in search of a job.

All this evidence seems to have escaped Channel Four who alongside Deley, recruited some other lanky gonk from their teenage strand T4 who would have been viewed as a disaster, but given Gadget Show presenter Ortis' performance, now comes over a like a modern day Richard Dimbleby. There are plenty of experienced live sport presenters around who, coupled with an in depth knowledge of the subject matter, would have enhanced what is generally a good team in Deagu. Rob Walker and John Rawling have been excellent as commentators and despite a few blips the rest of the coverage has been sound. But I’m afraid it will all be overshadowed by the baffling decision to eschew qualifications and experience for looking good and knowing nothing.

Richard Nevin .

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