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FOR 48 years it was part of the fabric of society . . . a Saturday afternoon staple that either left you glued to your sofa for a six hour stretch or made you curse the day indoor bowls was invented. Now, the final whistle has been blown on Grandstand . . . and while its demise might generate a Mexican wave of nostalgia in some parts, for its Dublin presenter, Craig Doyle, it means little more than a gear change in an already high profile career. "I knew it was in the air, " he told the Sunday Tribune the morning after the BBC announced that its flagship sports programme was to be scrapped. "This was always going to happen. There'd been cuts across the board and there just wasn't the support there."
Doyle was appointed anchor of the Sunday Grandstand programme at the start of 2004, after impressing sports editors with his coverage of rugby and golf. When the Sunday show was red-carded last year . . .
"again, no real support" . . . he was absorbed into the presenting staff of the Saturday programme, where he found himself (happily) back fronting rugby and golf. Now, having signed a new two year contract with BBC Sport earlier this month, he will simply continue as before, but without the Grandstand banner behind him. "The likelihood will be that we'll do the same amount of sport on Saturday and Sunday as before, but it won't be packaged as Grandstand. I'm now an anchor for rugby and I'll probably front the triathlon series, but the problem with this review (of free-to-air sports) is that we don't know exactly what we're going to get."
It is the whole thorny issue of payper-view that Doyle blames for the demise of Grandstand. He is not alone:
in announcing that the programme was to be axed, BBC Director General Mark Thompson admitted Grandstand had become a victim of the digital age. "Once Sky Sports came into the picture, then Grandstand was probably on borrowed time, " says Doyle. "Who do you know who sits down and watches a whole afternoon of Grandstand anymore? Nobody."
While Doyle's work roster in the BBC still has to be sorted out, the 35 year old will continue to spend his weekends in London for the foreseeable future . . . he presents a popular Saturday morning music and chat show on Capital Radio. Back home, he's building a house in Wicklow and spending his week days chasing round after his two young children, and working on commissions for his own TV production company, Boxer.
A one-and-a-half hour documentary show based around The Sunday Times Rich List will be broadcast by RTE during the summer.
He also has a certain rugby match to look forward to . . . but as a spectator rather than a presenter:
"Sky Sports do the Heineken Cup well, but that's a perfect example of what Grandstand was up against. We talk about inspiring young people to play sport and then make it inaccessible to them.
That really should be on terrestrial TV."
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YOU ARE HERE: 19 March 2007 / tribune.ie / 2006 / 04 / 30
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