Athletics in the UK: The Rise and Fall of the BAF

103 THE END OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP? The world of ITV was changing. John Bromley had worked in television for 25 years and had been head of ITV sport since 1981 and his place was taken by Bob Burrows, also steeped in TV sport but who was to find life uncomfortable in the new culture. Paul Fox, a former well known figure in the BBC, commenting in the Daily Telegraph , offered advice to Rugby that applied equally to all sports. Remarking that Bob Burrows and his colleagues were honourable men, he underlined that a contract would not be with them but “ with those faceless schedulers in Grays Inn Road (the location of ITV’s offices) whose priorities are different from those who have sport‟s interests at heart ”. Key amongst these was Marcus Plantin, Director of Programmes. Andy Norman, Malcolm Jones and I, who had been regularly meeting TV and marketing contacts, were already picking up these vibes and realised that we had to rethink strategy. We needed to bring the BBC back to the table and to investigate other potential partners such as the emerging satellite broadcaster Sky Television. We had also realised that the BAF’s package of events had remained substantially unchanged for too long and that new ideas were needed. When John Bromley resigned from ITV in late 1989, he had joined former BBC producers Mike Murphy and Brian Venner as chairman of Television Sport and Leisure Limited (TSL) a production company and television consultancy based in London. Bromley knew the TV sports scene better than most and could see clearly the problems that lay ahead. He wanted to maintain a business relationship with British athletics and kept in touch. The BAF itself was searching for ways to strengthen its hand in its dealings with television but knew that, to have a good chance of success, it needed to boost its programme of events, either in number or quality or both. The leading European international meetings were the Weltklasse (Zurich), Memorial Van Damme (Brussels), Bislett Games (Oslo) and Istaf (Berlin) and they had been co-operating in marketing under the banner “Golden Four”. Through his contacts with the organisers of each of these