English rugby exposed by embarrassing media leaks

AFTER three and a half years in one of the most pressurised hotseats in sport, Martin Johnson elected to stand down as England’s rugby union coach last week.  Johnson, who had no previous coaching experience before this role has made the decision after a dismal World Cup in New Zealand, which included off-field issues involving captain Mike Tindall and Manu Tuliagi jumping off a ferry.  Quarter-final elimination at the hands of France was the final straw for Johnson, whose decision gives Rob Andrew and the RFU the chance to find a replacement in time for next year’s Six Nations.

     At a press conference to explain his decision, Johnson said; “While we’ve had our most successful season with ten wins from 13, we are disappointed with how we ended it with the World Cup.  I think it’s the right decision at this time.  It’s a thoughtful and considered opinion.”  On Twitter, former England captain Will Carling was disappointed with the final outcome; “Sad for MJ, the man was an awesome player, an incredible captain and one of the greatest England players.” 

RESIGNING: Martin Johnson has decided to leave after World Cup failure

      As a player, Martin Johnson had considerable success with Leicester Tigers at club rugby level and England on the international stage.  He won 84 caps in test rugby, with the big moment seeing Johno captaining England to victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup.  In his 38 game reign as coach, he only won 21, coming out with a 55 per cent win conversion since succeeding Brian Ashton in 2008.  Under Johnson, England did beat Australia home and away last summer and won the Six Nations in 2011 for the first time in eight years, but even that success was tempered by being denied the Grand Slam in Dublin by Ireland.

      Rob Andrew now needs to look for a replacement, but that looks like being a difficult challenge.  New Zealand World Cup winning coach Graeme Henry ruled himself out of the running in midweek, saying he only wants to be involved in an advisory role with a Heineken Cup team.  Jake White, who won the Webb Ellis Trophy with South Africa in 2007 and former England boss Sir Clive Woodward have already said they aren’t interested in taking over the reins.  The favourite with many seems to be Northampton Saints coach Jim Mallander, who already looks after the careers of England stars such as Chris Ashton.  Mallander has indicated that he is interested in the role, but the RFU seem reluctant at the moment to make a decision.

       What seems to be a more pressing concern for the RFU is the damming leak to The Times newspaper of player comments made by the squad during the disaster in New Zealand.  The leak contains information that would normally be handled in a confidential manner and will leave Andrew being asked some serious questions over his already tricky position.  We don’t know how much The Times got hold of, nor how many players views have been published, but some of the comments below make for grim reading for the RFU;

“The man-management was absolutely terrible.”

“There wasn’t enough focus on basic skills.”

“I really can’t believe we lasted as long as we did in the tournament. We played like c##p.”

“To go into World Cup games not having a game-plan, any structure or clear idea of what we were going to do in attack was astonishing.”

“Coaches did not put enough trust in players on the field.”

“We just wanted Johno to have the b######s to take action, especially after the Tindall night. He was too loyal and that was his downfall.”

“It was amazing how some players who couldn’t play due to an injury were doing back flips into the swimming pool and playing golf.”

“It’s our own fault we came back so unpopular.”

That is only a selection of what has been released, but it is hugely embarrassing for everyone connected with English rugby.  At a time where there is no structure in place, players are trying to win back reputation and multi-million sponsorship contracts from the likes of Nike and O2 waiting for urgent renewal, this comes at the worst possible time.

      While we say goodbye to Martin Johnson and wish him the best for the future, English rugby has got a lot of soul searching to do in the nine weeks before the start of the 2012 RBS Six Nations.

TV classics - TV-AM

By Jason Wright (Entertainment Expert)

THE seventies and early eighties had massive restrictions on television broadcasting hours.  For example, ITV could only broadcast between 9:25am to 1am each day, with the downtime hours being taken up by a test card with the continuous deafening tone.  That changed in 1979, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) ruled that breakfast television should come to ITV.  The following year, several companies showed interest and in the end, a nine-year license was awarded to TV-AM.

     A purpose-built studio was used on the London borough of Camden along the banks of the Regent’s Canal.  Broadcasting was initially due to start in the summer of 1983 but was brought forward in response to the surprise announcement of a rival breakfast service from BBC.  On February 1, 1983, TV-AM took to the airwaves with “The Famous Five” consisting of Michael Parkinson, Anna Ford, Angela Rippon, Robert Kee and David Frost.  The programme was split into two separate blocks; Daybreak, ran for the first hour of the programme and concentrated on the morning’s news headlines whilst Good Morning Britain was a mixture of news along with special reports and interviews with politicians and celebrities.

     Just months into its birth and cracks immediately began to appear.  Peter Jay, the man behind the company was forced out when he refused to make any snap changes to early criticism.  Jonathan Aitken took over and fired Angela Rippon and Anna Ford, replacing them with Anne Diamond and Nick Owen.  He also axed the Daybreak strand and Good Morning Britain ran throughout the programme’s duration.  Aitken also began to target younger viewers with children input, most notably by introducing Roland Rat, a puppet with an hip attitude and would often be seen throughout the summer months.

  However, money was disappearing quickly and in 1984, TV-AM was on the verge of administration when it was purchased by a private Australian business investment.  Bruce Gyngell took over the day-to-day running of the show and built on changes that had been made by Aitken before cost-cutting measures were forced.  Gyngell decided to make weekends permanently for children’s programming, hence beginning the start of Wacaday and an array of popular cartoon series.

     In 1987, the Unions began a mass dispute with the company, beginning a long and bitter strike.  Gyngell worked extra hours to ensure that programming was affected at a minimal risk and somehow, this proved to be more popular than its normal schedule.  Months of rowing finally resulted in Gyngell firing all of the striking staff and replacing them with non-union staff.

     Come the 1990s and operating at a reduced staff rate, TV-AM was pulling in double the audience of BBC’s Breakfast News.  This was mostly down to a more dedicated and core presenting team of Mike Morris, Richard Keys and Lorraine Kelly whilst Ulrika Jonsson began her career on the station as a weather forecaster.  Under the 1990 Broadcasting Act, the ITV Breakfast Franchise went up for competition in 1991 and unlike before, cash bids were now the essence in maintaining or losing the license.  With a bid of £14 million, TV-AM were confident of success, but the license went to Sunrise Television, a consortium of LWT, The Times and Disney UK, with a higher bid of £34.5 million.  Bruce Gyngell responded by making an ill-mannered and heat of the moment comment to the press:

“I do not believe that Sunrise is a profitable company.  I predict that Sunrise will go bankrupt by 1994. It’s an extraordinary decision!”

     Eventually, TV-AM had to admit defeat and throughout 1992, they began selling off their shares in the company which included their news service being loaned out to Sky News for the year.  December 31, 1992 saw TV-AM grace the screens for the final time and was replaced the following day by GMTV, having been forced to change its name from Sunrise after Sky threatened to sue.

     In its 9 years on air, TV-AM had its fair share of ups and downs but its warm charm and rare approach to make any drastic changes to its format made it a very popular programme and the way it was forced to depart was a very sad and untimely circumstance.

News of the World Heads Down The Online Charging Route

Following the successful changes to the Times’ website and the charging for online content this summer, News International are spreading their wings further, with the announcement that the News of the World will go down a similar route from the beginning of October.

Some sensationalist exclusives in recent years have rocketed up the popularity of the News of the World, as it is now the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK.  Its trend follows off the Sun, which is the biggest-selling daily newspaper in Britain.  To continue accessing the website, readers will be charged £1 a day, or can sign up to a four-week subscription for £1.99.  To go along with the new charge in income, the NOTW website will get a complete new look, with the aim on providing the stories quicker as they matter to the general public.

The editor of the News of the World, Colin Myler has backed the idea, calling it a “significant change in the newspaper’s history, for the right reason.”

"The paid site makes the most of our heritage, presenting our unique content with a real focus on exclusive video and pictures,"

The News of the World has broken the stories of the John Higgins alleged snooker match-fixing, the shamed Pakistan cricket players caught also under a match-fixing storm during their recent test series in England, and the shaming of England striker Wayne Rooney’s private activities.  It becomes the third partner in the News International Corporation to go into a subscription-based format, following The Times and Sunday Times announcement back in March.  You must feel that The Sun will go a similar route rather soon, as could Sky News award-winning website.  I’m not a fan of paying to view news content, but if it’s a working profitable gain for the global corporation, then they are always going to continue with the successful experiment.  Let’s see what developments will happen in the coming months involving News International’s dealings, because it could be very interesting.

The Times Goes Subscription Based - Is This The Future For Online Journalism?

As news broke on Friday of News International’s latest monkey-making scheme, there are many questions that have been raised by Rupert Murdoch’s decisions, which is risky to say the least.  From June 2010, The Times and The Sunday Times Websites will go subscription-based.  Online viewers will have to pay £1 a day or £2 a week to access the news stories from their sites.

Both newspapers feel that the decision they’ve made was inevitable, largely thanks to the consistent fallings in newspaper reading circulation and the rapidly growing competition from the Internet.  What it does give is a possible outlook to how online journalism may operate in the future.  Competitors such as the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail have already voiced their concerns over this latest development, both thinking that there is a major danger that the Times may price itself out of the online market. 

To date only specialised papers like the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal charge consumers to view their online content.  Therefore, this is a risky strategy, as The Times is such a popular source for hard-hitting news stories.  James Harding, the current editor of The Times has admitted that this move might not work out, but is confident that the behaviour of people on the Internet will change, so consequently, the switch will be made for the better.   It will leave people with food for thought, whether they want to pay the pound to access The Times’ website, or look at similar articles for free on competitor’s websites, such as The Guardian, The Independent or the Daily Mail. 

Murdoch has taken some major gambles in the past, but by being a successful media mogul, most have paid off, such as the launch of BSkyB in February 1989.  He insists that for quality journalism, free doesn’t work anymore, especially with the falling newspaper sales.  There is an also strong possibility that Murdoch’s other newspapers underneath his News Corp empire, The Sun and The News of the World may end up going to a subscription based website.  The next few months for the entire journalism field will watch with waited breath to see whether this gamble will pay off, with either winning results or an experiment that won’t go up successful avenues.