Self-censorsip at the cup final

The after-match interviews with participants in the FA Cup Final were highly revealing: not for anything that the players or coaches said, but for the way in which the questions were put. "How sweet is this moment?" the triumphant Portsmouth boss, Harry Redknapp, was challenged, while his goalkeeper, David James, was asked to "describe your emotions at this moment?"

Behind these exchanges lies an intriguing story of TV self-censorship, says Mark Lawson. For years, TV critics and letter-writers to listings magazines ridiculed the habit of asking sweaty athletes, straight after their event: "How do you feel?" Survivors of high-school shoot-outs or earthquakes would also be prodded for immediate feedback on their feelings.

In a relatively rare example of satire changing behaviour, the complaints eventually resulted in on-the-scene reporters recognising that these four words had become unacceptable. Hence, now: "Describe your emotions."

But such translation is the linguistic equivalent of repainting the walls in a doss-house. Equally, "how sweet is this moment?" is not inherently a better question than "How do you feel?" and may, in fact, even be a worse one because it assumes a positive response, whereas even the now-discredited four-worder allowed the interviewee to say that they felt shitty or angry.

Another solution is to use a boring formula but try to defuse it. So, after Ryan Giggs received his latest Premiership medal, Sky asked him: "It's a cliche that the first one is the sweetest but how does this compare with the rest?"

This was another good example of the nervousness about hackneyed phrases. But switching from inanity to inanity that's apologised for is a small step. The problem is not the language but the format. No good interview can be drawn from an athlete who is exhausted and desperate to celebrate, so the only possible question is a stupid one, however phrased. How would they feel about dropping these breathless encounters completely?

ITV hopes for £10m Euro final payday

ITV could make more than £10m in ad revenue from tonight's all-English Champions League final, with major brands flocking to the event - including Ford, which is launching a $60m (£30m) pan-European TV campaign. Huge interest in the first all-English final, between Manchester United and Chelsea, has led ITV to speculate that viewer numbers could hit 13 million across around two hours of live coverage.

The broadcaster has lined up an array of top-flight advertisers for the final including Nike, Heineken and Audi - as well as some more unusual names, such as BlackBerry, which is thought to be running its first TV campaign in the UK. Ford Europe is using the event to launch a TV campaign, created by Ogilvy Advertising in London and Stockholm, to launch the four-wheel drive "crossover" car Kuga, which will compete against models such as Toyota's Rav4. The car manufacturer, which is launching the multimedia campaign across 21 markets, is committing around £30m to the campaign, around £6m of that in the UK market.

ITV will make close to £9m from TV advertising during the final, and more than £10m if the match goes to extra time and penalties, according to Havas-owned media agency MPG. The advertising bonanza compares with between £2m and £3m in ad revenue for a typical Wednesday night schedule and between £3m and £4m for a Champions League final with no British presence, said MPG.

Advertisers have been flocking to book Champions League final ad spots, which have rocketed in price from between £100,000 and £150,000 for a 30-second slot in a final with no UK teams involved to as much as £250,000 for tonight's match. "On top of a hugely valuable football fan demographic, this type of event gets people watching who are not heavy TV viewers. It is a unique opportunity," said Gary Digby, the customer relations director at ITV. "The market will pay what it will pay. We have sold out so they [the ads] are at a price the market thinks is sensible."

Digby added that the contest could easily crack a live match average of 13 million viewers because of the presence of United - which attracts more viewers than other top-flight English clubs - particularly if the match went to extra time. United's last-gasp 2-1 victory in the 1999 Champions League final attracted a peak audience of 19 million viewers.

Ford's TV ad opens with a woman waking up and running outside to find that an entire city has been covered over - from street level to the tops of buildings - as a giant white canvas. The ad states: "We keep following the same old design rules. Imagine if we could start again with a blank canvas." It finishes with a Ford Kuga rolling through the "white-out" of the city.

Ogilvy Advertising used 53,475 sq ft of artist's canvas, most of which was recycled after the shoot. The commercial was directed by Nicolai Fuglsig, who was also responsible for the Guinness "Tipping Point" and Sony "Balls" ads. Ogilvy Advertising estimates that Ford's ad will reach an audience of around 360 million across Europe when it airs during the final. Ford used last year's Champions League final to launch the "Balloons" TV ad to promote the launch of its new Mondeo model.

Last year's final, which saw Liverpool lose 2-1 to AC Milan, attracted a peak audience of 10.1 million viewers and a live match average of 9.5 million. The 2006 final, which saw Arsenal lose 2-1 to Barcelona, drew a peak audience of 12.2 million viewers and a live match average of 11.2 million. And Liverpool's epic 2005 win over AC Milan after extra time and penalties saw an average of 10.8 million viewers and a peak audience of 14.6 million.

BBC to reschedule The Apprentice

The BBC risks angering fans of The Apprentice by switching the hit business reality show next week from its regular Wednesday 9pm berth to Tuesday because of a clash with an England friendly international football match.

Next week's scheduling move will see Sir Alan Sugar go head to head with Gordon Ramsay on Channel 4's The F Word, as well as ITV1's Britain's Got Talent, which is airing every night next week, at 9pm on Tuesday. BBC2's The Apprentice: You're Fired! will also switch days to Tuesday at 10pm. BBC1's commitment to screen the England v USA friendly means the network will devote two hours between 8pm and 10pm to the game on Wednesday next week.

The Apprentice, which regularly pulls in up to 7 million viewers, is one of BBC1's most popular shows and a must-see on Wednesday nights for many fans. A BBC spokesman confirmed The Apprentice's move to Tuesday next week. "The show has been moved to make way for this match. It is quite usual for us to move programmes to accommodate big sporting occasions. That is the reason for this schedule change," he said.

Elsewhere, Anushka Asthana has labelled The Apprentice as the most moral show on television. Writing in the Guardian, she states...

He started his journey as a silly posh-boy, notable only for his thick eyebrows, floppy hair and absurd manner. Then a single act of kindness propelled Raef Bjayou, a disliked contender on the hit television show The Apprentice, into a realms of chivalry. It was a wonderful moment: the 27-year-old 'entrepreneur', dressed in a smart pink shirt, leant forward, raised his hand and demanded an end to the savage attack being carried out on his fellow contestant, Sara Dhada.

'A decision has been made,' he boomed, to the delight of millions of viewers appalled by the behaviour of the other Apprentice hopefuls who were acting like a swarming gang of playground bullies. 'Sir Alan has made it.' Soon the clip had made its way to YouTube, Raef fan clubs had started to appear on the internet and The Apprentice faithful, of which I am one, had a new hero. All it had taken was a simple moment of compassion; a moment that convinced me that The Apprentice, which sees contestants battle it out for a six-figure job in Sir Alan Sugar's empire, is a show with the stiffest of moral backbones.

People who sneer at reality television, who argue it brings out the worst in its voyeuristic viewers, who insist it provides little more than a gladiatorial stage on which people have little choice but to humiliate, disgrace and hang themselves, are missing the point. What actually happens is that over time the veneers created by the contestants in preparation for the show start to slip away and one by one their true characters emerge. Yes, we watch with glee when some of them are cruelly dispatched, but only those who have lied, twisted and manipulated their way through. The people who have played fair, meanwhile, who have been kind, decent and honest are lauded and cheered in front rooms across the country. That is why Bjayou, a man who was dismissed as comical at the start - following a 'I get on with prince or pauper' gaffe - is now a firm favourite to win.

So what does this tell us? Well, conversations about the programme have begun to take on the tone of an ethical debate. 'The Apprentice generates a moral reaction in the audience,' says one female friend, an economist in her late twenties, as we gather around the television set for our weekly fix. 'We side with the ones who we believe act in a moral way. We turn against those who are bitchy, lie or seem unpleasant.' It is true that each week we find ourselves howling at the television from around 9.45pm, urging Sugar to eliminate the least-loved character - normally the one who we decide has been a little too mean or sly.

If that is the case for us, then surely it is true for many more of the show's wide base of fans, those 7.4 million viewers who tune in. The demographic covers teenagers and the retired, men and women, rich and poor. It is even sparking encouraging discussions among school pupils. One colleague says her children, aged 11 and 13, regularly discuss whether or not the contestants have behaved morally: 'They say "he's lying", "he's bullying" or "he's cheating". They are starting to think you do not have to be nasty and pushy to get ahead. It has definitely made them think in a moral way.'

And it is not just the viewers. Even Sugar, famed for his ruthless nature, seems to be rewarding hard work and honesty this time round. His message in the boardroom is clear: lie, cheat or manipulate and you 'will get fired'. Take the example of Jenny Celerier, who has earned herself a reputation as this series's nasty. When she bribed a Moroccan shopkeeper in an attempt to hamper the other team's chances, Sugar was furious and soon sent her packing. He was equally unimpressed when she appeared to lie in order to make her fellow contestant look bad. But for me and my friends, there is one thing Sugar needs to do - and soon - finally to prove the show's morality.

The self-made millionaire must dispatch the contestant who has been most sneaky and aggressive to date: Michael Sophocles. He is the 24-year-old telesales executive who claimed on his CV that he was a 'good Jewish boy' in order to impress Sugar, before admitting he had no idea what kosher was (he thought it was a Muslim tradition) and crossing himself outside the boardroom. It seems unlikely that such morals were formed in a church, mosque or synagogue, but if Sophocles - Sophocles! - a name once better known as the author of the Oedipus cycle, gets the chop, then there will be many children picking up a sense of right and wrong from, God forbid, a reality television show.

Five of the best FA Cup Final moments...

There’s only one John Motson, and, with the BBC losing the FA Cup rights to ITV, this could be his last Cup Final appearance. It’s a sad day for us armchair fans – Motty has taken us on a “rollercoaster ride” over the years. So sometimes he makes the odd “Motty-cism”. And sometimes he stretches too far in his attempt to explain – Motty-phors? But, more often than not, he finds the right words, the bon mots, the “bon Motsons”, you could say.

So sit back and take an armchair stroll up Wembley Way with five classic Cup Final commentary moments from Motty and friends, says Chris Condron...

Manchester United v Liverpool, 1977 (2-1)

The year of Motty’s most famous scripted ad lib, “How fitting that a man named Buchan should climb the 39 steps,” a line that proves the two Golden Rules of Commentating, and why the second always takes precedence over the first.
1 Do your research.
2 Know when to keep your mouth shut.

But nearly half the nation missed it because, back in the days of Spangles and Raleigh Choppers, the powers-that-be decided that there wasn’t enough football on the telly, so we had the Cup Final on ITV, too.

Three channels, with the Cup Final on two of them. What’s not to love?

ITV’s own man with the mike was Brian Moore, a man equally capable of both brilliance and, well, talking absolute balls. He teamed up for Cup Final duty here with Jack Charlton, who was the special Statement of the Bleedin’ Obvious correspondent.

Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City (replay), 1981 (3-2)

It’s easy to mock Motty, but he has the gift of saying exactly what most of us are thinking. If you don’t believe me, go into a Man City pub and shout, “And still Ricky Villa!” in your best Motty. In those four words, Motty articulates the gnawing, inevitable, time-standing-still, “He’s going to go all the way . . .” feeling as the Argentine twists and turns the City defence before slipping the ball under Joe Corrigan to win one of the great Cup Finals.

Coventry City v Tottenham Hotspur, 1987 (3-2)

This one’s got it all. Goals, fairytale stories, more Motty-phors than you could shake a mike at . . . and the “Cov” management duo of John Sillett and George Curtis hugging and gurning like a pair of toby jugs on a massive Ecstasy bender. Oh yes, and ELO’s Mr Blue Sky.

A trio of classic Motty quotes is shoehorned in among the sky-blue madness – none of them meant literally, you hope: “Keith Houchen, the man with the Midas touch in the FA Cup, strikes gold for Coventry.”

“Houchen has written his name all over the competition this season.” “The Sky Blues are sky high.”

Wimbledon v Liverpool, 1988 (1-0)

This game features textbook Motty in his pomp, as the great man delivers the classic commentary one-two – a killer line . . . and an impression of Yoda.

“The Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club!” is the perfect example of the commentator’s art. Hardly finger-on-the-pulse from the sheepskin-coated one – Culture Club hadn’t had a No 1 hit in five years – but who would have remembered a reference to Fairground Attraction?

Jimmy Hill neatly sums up Liverpool’s season as “The club that played just one game too many,” before Motty goes all Return of the Jedi in the spring sunshine.

“Champions they are, nobody will deny them . . . but double winners this time they are not.”

Liverpool v West Ham, 2006 (3-3, Liverpool won on penalties)

Another contender for Best Cup Final Ever features Sky’s Andy Gray turning the hyperbole up to 11 and beyond. Though not strictly a commentator – the superb Martin Tyler holds the mike – Andy’s more of a really shouty bloke at chucking out time who’s going to do his prostate a mischief. He explains the effort needed to win a game, albeit in rather Norman Tebbit-esque style: “If you want a goal, you get on your bike.”

BBC to drop parliament TV for Olympics

Digital TV channel BBC Parliament's audience share is usually so small that it barely registers in the Barb ratings, but the service will get a boost this summer when the corporation ditches the politicians and replaces them with Olympics coverage.

The BBC has confirmed that it is to withdraw the BBC Parliament channel from the Freeview digital terrestrial TV service for the duration of the Beijing Olympics in August on order to replace it with action from the games. BBC Parliament's Freeview capacity will be used to "enhance" the quality of the interactive TV streaming the BBC is planning to use for the Olympics, which take place between August 8 and 24. This will mean that viewers accustomed to the channel's in-depth coverage of parliamentary committee hearings will instead be introduced to the delights of a myriad of minor Olympic sports.

The BBC said that as all the UK's parliaments and assemblies will be in recess during August, using the channel for Olympics coverage would make the best use of its capacity during a busy sports period. BBC Parliament has previously filled its summer schedule with repeats of big political and state events such as coverage of old general elections and last year Princess Diana's funeral, to mark the 10th anniversary of her death.

The BBC is due to officially unveil its Olympic coverage plans next month, but the event is expected to dominate the main BBC outlets including BBC1, BBC2 and BBC Radio 5 Live. However, coverage is not expected to leak on to BBC3 or BBC4.

The BBC will launch a number of specialised Olympic "red button" interactive streams, which it has previously used during major sporting events including the 2004 Athens Olympics. These interactive services will be broadcast on some of the DTT spectrum normally used by BBC Parliament.

The move to commandeer BBC Parliament on Freeview is because of the limited amount of spare spectrum. The channel will continue a normal service on the Sky satellite TV and Virgin Media cable TV services where there is more spectrum capacity. "The BBC is making full use of our channel capacity during the parliamentary recess to bring the best possible coverage of the Olympics," a BBC spokesman said.

BBC management had to ask the BBC Trust for permission to change BBC Parliament's content for the Olympics. The trust gave permission at its monthly meeting in March, saying a public value test was not required. But the trust added that if any of the UK's parliaments or assemblies were reinstated during the Olympics the normal BBC Parliament service should be resumed.

BBC Parliament's ratings are usually so low that individual programmes often do not register in the audience data published by research body Barb. However, it posted an average weekly reach - the number of people watching at least three consecutive minutes - of 437,000 viewers for the week ending April 27. For the week ending August 12 last year, it posted an average weekly reach of 258,000.

T.O on TV

T.O. and maybe Pacman, Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson and, of course, smiling billionaire Jerry Jones. Put 'em all together in a hotel an hour outside Los Angeles and you could have quite a soap opera. Or, HBO predicts, one heck of a reality series.

The cable network is bringing its "Hard Knocks" franchise back to Cowboys training camp this summer, and HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg already is predicting best-ever ratings for his five-show series. Even with the Olympics as competition, he's confident his weekly programme will be overflowing with juicy story lines -- with his cameras getting exclusive behind-the-scenes access. "It's fair to say this thing should go through the roof," Greenburg said.

Greenburg opened a news conference by joking about going to Cabo San Lucas or wherever else is necessary to tell the full story. It was an obvious reference to the getaway trip Romo and Simpson made during the bye a week before Dallas' play-off game in January, a vacation that didn't sit well with fans, especially after the Cowboys were upset by the New York Giants.

But Greenburg later said "this is not the E! television network," and insisted the obvious headliners will only get air time if they earn it. "I swear to you it's not going to be the Pacman Jones or the T.O. or the Tony Romo story. It just won't," Greenburg said. "They will be part of a team and part of the story, but they won't be the centre of it all. I just know that for a fact. The drama develops on its own. Unless the drama surrounds Tony and T.O. and others, it's just not going to happen. There's nothing like following that rookie trying to make the team. They're still wearing that star and they're trying to become a teammate of T.O. and Tony Romo, which is probably their dream. That's great television also."

Expect Terrell Owens to earn his share of time. "If the cameras are going to be there, I've got to be ready," Owens said during an interview to promote his appearance on Under One Roof. "It's going to be an experience initially, but once you get into practice and two-a-days, guys are going to be too tired to focus on what's being taped. It's not really any different than playing in front of people in the stadium, game being televised. It's no different than our practices being taped. It's just more up close and personal. You get all the good, bad and ugly, the sweat, bumps, bruises and tears. Other than that, it'll be good."

Training camp will be held in Oxnard, Calif., with pre-season games in San Diego and Denver before returning to team headquarters. The last time the Cowboys were in Oxnard, Owens missed workouts with a hamstring injury that some considered a ploy to annoy coach Bill Parcells. Owens spent so much time riding a stationary bicycle that tensions began to boil. Greenburg would love for something like that to happen again. "We'll be on the inside telling the story out," he said. "We're giving the part the media can't see."

Some second-tier stories that could develop include the relationship between coach Wade Phillips and his widely presumed successor, offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, and the plight of undrafted rookie Marcus Dixon, who was once featured on HBO's "Real Sports" show after being sentenced to 10 years in jail for statutory rape and aggravated child molestation for having sex with a 15-year-old classmate. No wonder Greenburg left open the possibility of stretching beyond the allotted 60 minutes. "I've taken documentaries from 60 minutes to 90 on the fly," he said. "It's how long the show works, grabs you. That's what we like to do."

This is the fourth edition of "Hard Knocks," and the second to include the Cowboys. Cameras were rolling in 2002, depicting a ragtag bunch that was coming off a 5-11 season and would go 5-11 again. Parcells arrived after that, and it's probably no coincidence that the franchise and the networks didn't hook up again. Steve Sabol of NFL Films asked Jones about a return engagement during league meetings. He didn't have to wait long for an enthusiastic yes.

Jones loves pushing the Cowboys brand, working to keep the star logo among the most identifiable in all of sports. Five straight one-hour episodes every Wednesday from Aug. 6 to Sept. 3 is terrific free advertising for "America's Team," especially with all the repeat showings and on-demand offerings. (The only surprise might be that it's on HBO instead of the NFL Network, of which Jones is the chairman.)

Being featured on "Hard Knocks" isn't necessarily great for the players and coaches who will be under the watchful eye of four cameras at every practice, plus surveillance-like cameras monitoring meeting rooms and other typically off-limits areas. Four players per day will wear wireless microphones during practice, with as many as 12 wearing them in pre-season games.

Only one of the three teams profiled so far has made the play-offs -- the 2001 Baltimore Ravens, who went from Super Bowl champions to a 10-6 wild-card team. After the Cowboys in '02, the series was dormant until last summer, when the Kansas City Chiefs allowed their training camp to get the "Hard Knocks" treatment. They went 4-12, tying for the third-worst record in the NFL. "That's why we've got skin this thick," Jones said, holding his hands about a foot apart. "That's part of playing for the Dallas Cowboys. ... I don't think it's a minus at all."

Meanwhile, get your popcorn ready: Terrell Owens is coming to US prime time Wednesday night. As an actor. T.O. will make his sitcom acting debut on the MyNetworkTV show Under One Roof as the long-lost brother of the show's star, Flavor Flav. Owens tries convincing Flav and sitcom sibling Kelly Perine that they're all brothers in hopes of getting them to invest in his Web site.

"I see dollar signs," Owens said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm trying to kind of smooth my way into the family, but Flav is not buying it. It's a lot of funny dialogue. It was a good time." It might also be a first step toward a second career. "If I'm going to really consider doing acting after football, this a great start to let me get my feet wet," Owens said. "For an actor trying to become an A-lister, I think I'm on the bottom of the pile. I'm a D-lister."

Owens always has been comfortable in front of a camera, but it's usually playing the character known as T.O. He's built his reputation through end-zone celebrations, colourful interviews (such as the time he answered questions while doing sit-ups in his driveway) and dressing up for the Tour de France just to ride a stationary bike at training camp. He showed more acting skills during a skit with one of the "Desperate Housewives" that aired before a Monday Night Football game. The scene ended with the woman dropping her towel , and ABC later offering an apology.



Owens got a taste of Hollywood in 1999, when he appeared in Any Given Sunday with a star-filled cast. A friend who is the casting director of this show has long been encouraging Owens to take on roles, something he's more receptive to after the way things went with Flav's show.

He came away with several football-acting comparisons: Cast members are like teammates, the script is like a playbook and both require lots of practice so that once the lights go on you're ready for anything. "You've got to get a feel for the flow of the show and the storyline and go with it," Owens said. "They told me they were very, very pleased with the way I played my character, just how I was getting my lines on point and on cue. That was very, very encouraging."

Viewers can see for themselves at 8 p.m. EDT on Wednesday night. Owens will be tuned in, too, because that'll be the first time he sees the finished product. And, yes, he'll have his popcorn ready, like he memorably urged fans to do upon joining the Cowboys. "I think I've got everyone I know tuned in to watch this show. I even sent an e-mail out," he said. "I guarantee you, once people see the show, I'll be getting e-mails and text messages out the wazoo. ... Believe me, it's some funny stuff. It's going to be great."

Even if the reviews are outstanding, Owens won't be giving up his day job any time soon, even if he is in the final year of his contract. "I know what's the breadwinner for me," he said. "But definitely I'm looking forward to doing some acting after football, in the off-season next year. I think I did well enough that they even may bring me back for some recurring roles. It's a start for me, and I don't like to fail at anything I do."

It's Hand of God v Iron Mike

The Cannes film festival has always been a magnet for some of the most famous people on the planet. Now it makes way for two of the most infamous sports stars: one is "the baddest man on the planet" who bit a chunk out of a competitor's ear, and the other is so venerated a church was created in his honour. Mike Tyson and Diego Maradona are the subjects of two keenly anticipated documentaries to be shown at the festival. The sporting pair are expected to draw large crowds on the Croisette when they visit over the next two weeks.

Maradona has been filmed up close by one of Europe's most respected directors, and a Cannes favourite, Emir Kusturica. The Bosnian Serb is a double Palme d'Or winner for his 1985 movie When Father Was Away on Business, a child's eye view of post-war communist Yugoslavia, and his 1995 three-hour epic Underground, which traced and satirised Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1992. It has raised eyebrows that such a revered director wants to document Maradona. The simple reason may be that Kusturica adores football. So why not one of the most naturally gifted - and controversial - footballers, filmed by one of the most brilliant directors.

An interview Kusturica has given to publicise the film is unlikely to endear him to England fans, many of whom remember Maradona for only one thing: the "hand of God". He put England out of the 1986 World Cup by punching in Steve Hodge's miscued clearance and then scoring a second goal that ranks among the all-time greats. Maradona became a hate figure in the British media, but his reputation more generally went into freefall when he failed drug tests in 1991 and 1994. With his chronic cocaine habit, drinking and noticeable weight gain he seemed like a man out of control, although he is now said to be out of the woods.

Kusturica is clear whose side he was on in 1986. "I was one of millions of people across the world who jumped for joy while watching those two goals against England in 1986," he said. "That match is perhaps the first and the last time there has been justice in the world."

The justice, he continued, was part of a wider political context with both Argentina and Serbia being victims of "western power" in the form of the International Monetary Fund. "Furthermore, in Serbia Maradona is extremely popular. Our football resembles that of the Argentines. It is also said that I am the Maradona of the cinema."

That the portrait of Maradona will be affectionate seems to be without doubt. Kusturica accuses other film-makers, as well as journalists, of bending the truth when it comes to the footballer. "Film-makers understand nothing about football," he said. "They are incapable of speaking about it."

The Paris-based director said he plans to reveal three Maradonas: the football teacher, the family man and "the politically incorrect citizen against the unilateral politics of the USA". The latter relates to Maradona's anti-Bush statements and the former footballer's friendship with Fidel Castro and Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.

"The film will be very complex to make, because I want to show the true personality of Maradona," said Kusturica. "Football is a science of great mathematic precision."

As if to rub it in the faces of England fans, the closing scenes of the film were shot in the Aztec stadium in México City: scene of the hand of God.

A similarly affectionate portrait of the boxer Mike Tyson can be expected from the maverick US auteur James Toback, whose film has been chosen for the Un Certain Regard section of the competition. While there is no question of Tyson being one of the greatest world heavyweight champions, he is also the anti-hero. The man who bit a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear in 1997 and who served three years in prison for raping a beauty pageant contestant in 1992.

Toback said he had been always been fascinated by Tyson and cast him in his semi-improvised - and star-studded - 1995 movie Black and White, which satirises rich, white liberal kids who want to be black. The funniest scene has Robert Downey Jnr's sleazy gay character coming on to Tyson: he gets slapped. "I'm from a different culture," says Tyson.

In an interview with Variety magazine, Toback said it would be an honest portrait of the boxer. "The point is not to polish his image or make a cinematic apology, but rather to get a first-hand look at a very complex and epic story."

Toback said he had conducted more than 30 hours of interviews with Tyson. "He was honest about all the things that have highlighted his life, from the bitter divorce, the ear-biting, prison, to his becoming a sex addict. He is self-aware, smart and a totally fractured personality, and he made himself completely vulnerable."

The two films are part of what is a particularly strong year for documentaries. Also showing in Cannes will be Chelsea on the Rocks, Abel Ferrara's documentary tribute to New York's Chelsea Hotel; Marina Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired; and Terence Davies' film on Liverpool, Of Time and the City.

Euro 2008 to rule TV slots - despite England's absence

Football widows and widowers hoping for unrestricted access to the TV this summer due to the failure of the home nations to qualify for Euro 2008 are in for a shock. ITV and the BBC are bracing themselves for complaints next month when live matches will dominate prime time despite the absence of any domestic interest.

Thanks to the legislation under which major international football tournaments are reserved for broadcast on free-to-air television, they must all be shown live and in full on the main channels of the rights holders. Only when they are scheduled to show two matches at the same time can they move one to a digital channel.

Between June 7, when the tournament kicks off with joint hosts Switzerland playing Czech Republic, and the final on June 29, the two channels will show 27 live games on BBC1 or ITV1, plus a further four on the digital channels BBC3 and ITV4. Of those, 23 will kick off at 7.45pm in the middle of prime time, necessitating the rescheduling of soaps and other shows. On June 7, for example, ITV's prime-time Saturday night schedule will be dominated by Portugal v Turkey. And on Thursday June 12, EastEnders will make way for Austria v Poland on BBC1.

Scheduling requirements have already caused problems for ITV, which provoked complaints last month when it dropped the second episode of the US import Pushing Daisies to shoehorn nine episodes into eight weeks before the tournament started. The decision annoyed many viewers who had been looking forward to the heavily trailed show, which stars the British actor Anna Friel.

Pushing Daisies follows Ned, a man with the ability to bring the dead back to life. Friel plays his childhood neighbour and the object of his first crush, who is resurrected by Ned. An ITV spokesman said the station bought dramas in six or eight parts, adding: "Unfortunately, given the high-profile nature of the 9pm Saturday slot, we only have eight windows at the moment."

Last time England failed to qualify for a major tournament, the 1994 World Cup in the US, most games kicked off outside prime time. But both broadcasters are confident that viewers will tune in and that excitement will build, citing the familiarity of British audiences with many of Europe's top players thanks to expanded coverage of the Champions League and the fact that many of the biggest stars ply their trade in the Premier League.

They point to a combined audience of 20.5 million for the last World Cup final between Italy and France and suggest that the lack of home interest will allow for a different take on the tournament. "There won't be the swell of optimism that there has been at previous tournaments, which is a shame. It's a big blow that England aren't there. But there is enough quality there for a very exciting football tournament," said BBC pundit Alan Shearer. "It just goes to show how lucky we are to have the likes of Torres, Fàbregas and Ronaldo in the Premier League and be able to watch them every week."

But ITV, already counting the cost of £10m to £12m in lost advertising revenue due to England's failure to qualify, could lose out further if peak-time audiences are hit and has scaled back its plans. It will have commentators and reporters on the ground in Austria and Switzerland but anchors Steve Rider, Matt Smith and Craig Doyle will host the games from a studio in the UK. The BBC, meanwhile, will send a full team, including Steve McClaren, the former England manager who lost his job after failing to qualify for the tournament, who has been signed up as a co-commentator by Radio 5 Live.

Uefa has been looking into the possibility of challenging the "crown jewels" list that reserves all matches in European championships for free-to-air broadcasters. While it accepts that games involving the home nations and the latter stages should be reserved for terrestrial free-to-air television, it would like to open up the earlier rounds to more bidders.

Ad turns Olympic torch into shock baton

Amnesty International is launching a hard-hitting ad campaign, featuring an animated character being given electric shocks, to highlight human rights abuses in China in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. The 40-second ad, one of four that will be released online ahead of this summer's Olympiad, shows an animated character receiving shocks from a Taser-like baton by Chinese security officials for holding a placard about human rights. The electro-baton is then passed on to another animated character who uses it to light the Olympic flame. The baton is then returned to an interrogation for use for torture.

Amnesty is trying to highlight the risks of peacefully protesting in China, citing the case of Ye Guozhu who protested after his house and restaurant were bulldozed to make way for Olympics construction. The ad closes with the line: "Torturing peaceful protestors does not uphold the Olympic values. Speak up now if you want human rights for China."



"Amnesty is not against the Games but we want people to know what else is happening in China - including the silencing of critics and peaceful protesters - and to join our campaign for urgent human rights reform," said Tim Hancock, UK campaigns director.

Amnesty has set up a website which enables people to send campaigning letters and emails, share content and start their own blog. The organisation is also releasing a booklet to accompany the film called "The two faces of the Beijing Olympics".

The ads have been made by animation collective Sweetworld TV and have been influenced by characters such as Hello Kitty. "The characters in the Amnesty China campaign are quite innocent and cuddly," said Yasmeen Ismail of Sweetworld TV. "When something horrific happens the impact is greater because you have built up a bond with them."

Bookies take TV racing supplier to High Court

The high court will host a legal showdown on Thursday, pitting the most powerful forces in horse racing and betting against each other. At the heart of the dispute is whether racecourse owners broke competition law when selling exclusive rights for TV pictures of leading race meets beamed into betting shops.

But the racecourses have launched a counter-claim which will see leading executives from Ladbrokes, William Hill and Betfred take the stand. It is understood that court 73 at the High Court will see print-outs of secret emails between senior betting executives, which could reveal the innermost workings of what is an opaque industry. The trial is expected to last four weeks and each side will rack up £5m in costs.

Until this year, SIS, partly owned by William Hill, Ladbrokes and Betfred, produced pictures of racing for betting shop consumption. The industry was furious when 31 courses, including most of the big ones, such as Cheltenham, Newmarket and York, teamed up with Alphameric, a technology company, to form Turf TV, which demanded that bookies paid for receiving its pictures.

Initially, the industry's big three, William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral, refused to take the service, only to be forced to cave in when customers moved to shops owned by companies that did.

Gala Coral is the only firm out of the leading betting firms not involved in the action. It accepted pictures from Turf TV earlier than its competitors. It was assumed that the two parties would settle out of court, but two months of mediation failed to find a resolution.

Chiles snubs ITV offer

Adrian Chiles, the host of Match of the Day 2 and The One Show, has confirmed he will stay with the BBC despite ITV offering him a big-money transfer.

The coveted anchor, who also presents Apprentice spin off You're Fired! for BBC2, has been persistently courted by ITV to front its expanded slate of live football from next season. But he confirmed yesterday that he was "definitely staying" with the BBC and is believed to be close to agreement on a contract lasting at least two years.

The West Bromwich Albion fan has made a success of both Match of the Day 2, the Saturday Premier League highlight show's more relaxed Sunday night sibling, and The One Show, an ambitious attempt by former BBC1 controller Peter Fincham to create a daily magazine show at 7pm. "I'm definitely staying," said Chiles at yesterday's launch of the BBC's Euro 2008 coverage. "I'm lucky, I can do lots of things here [at the BBC]."

ITV had pursued Chiles since the turn of the year, offering him a reported £6m pay package to join its sports team. But he said the prospect of having to give up the varied portfolio he enjoys at the BBC had persuaded him to stay. "It's just sitting watching football with a nice bloke, it's not a proper job. Big tournaments, you couldn't possibly call them work," he added.

After winning the rights to live FA Cup football and England's home internationals from the BBC from next season in tandem with Setanta, and recently paying £160m to share the rights to live Champions League football with Sky until 2012, ITV desperately needs to beef up its team of football presenters and pundits.

With Gary Lineker, who yesterday said he was still "quite shocked" at the FA's decision not to award its most recent contract to the BBC, and Alan Hansen secured by the corporation on long-term contracts, it will now have to identify new targets. The value of live football to ITV was again reiterated on Tuesday night, when its coverage of the Champions League semi final clash between Liverpool and Chelsea peaked with more than 10m viewers.

Separately, the BBC also announced that former England manager Steve McClaren, whose failure to reach Euro 2008 cost him his job, had agreed to join Radio Five Live's commentary team for the tournament. His first match as a pundit will be Austria v Croatia on June 8.

Angel in the outfield

Roberto Clemente, the superb right fielder of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1972, the year he died in a plane crash, exists in a baseball Eden of the mind. Cut down just past his prime and just before the free-agency era, he avoided the embarrassments the sport hands out to its greatest stars: mercenary team-hopping, years of declining performance, drug scandals, card shows. For those who can remember, he’s forever winding up for another monstrous throw to home plate.

Roberto Clemente, an "American Experience" documentary on most PBS stations Monday night, is not out to disturb this picture. If anything, it wants to put the halo more firmly in place, concentrating on his pride in his Puerto Rican heritage and his roles as a racial trailblazer and humanitarian. (He was taking supplies to earthquake victims when he died.)

"Clemente is the first athlete to transcend race and nation and culture," historian Robert Ruck says in the programme. "He's also not defined by commercialism. It's about pride. Less than a decade after Jackie Robinson debuted in the majors, Clemente embarked on what would be a noteworthy 18-year career. He started with two strikes against him. "He was coming here as an American, playing baseball in his country, but he was being treated as a black American [and] as a foreigner," friend Juan Gonzalez says. "The way he was being identified just didn't jibe with his reality."

The documentary, narrated by Jimmy Smits, follows the usual praise-by-numbers style of rare photos (like that team picture) and footage mixed with interviews of experts, pundits, friends and family, including Clemente's widow, Vera. The rags-to-riches rise - and heroically tragic death - is a familiar tale. But here, its intelligence allows for introspection Clemente himself would appreciate. This absorbing account of his life also reminds us that the picture was more complicated. Clemente faced discrimination, suspicion and ridicule through much of his career; he was a moody, private and sensitive man who had a tense relationship with the press. “I can’t say I enjoyed talking with him,” the Pittsburgh sportswriter Roy McHugh recalls.

Though the Latin American population in baseball has exploded - the 2008 Pirates, for example, have five Latinos on their 25-man roster; the Mets have 12 - Clemente likely would be even more uncomfortable playing in today's world of canned sound bytes, quoted clichés, and irresponsible irreverence for social causes. Really, what would a man who railed against segregation, welcomed Martin Luther King Jr. to his homeland, and died at 38 personally transporting earthquake relief supplies to Nicaragua think of "SportsCenter?"

"It's clear at that time, that this is a guy who's interested in what's going on around him," Ruck says. "And has opinions about that." It seems likely that if Clemente were playing baseball today, he’d join Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds in the ranks of baseball’s tabloid antiheroes, worshiped when hitting well and vilified the rest of the time. The film’s reference to his early adoption of protein shakes and other “odd concoctions” even makes you wonder what he would have done if told that the occasional shot of human-growth hormone would help his injuries heal faster.

The programme does not fall into fawning hero worship. It pointedly addresses Clemente's reputation as a "oversensitive hypochondriac" and his "awkward dance of mutual incomprehension and often hostility" with the media. "Clemente played hard all the time [and] he played all the time," George Will says. "But he talked, all the time, about how hard it was to do what he did."

The attractions of Roberto Clemente include interviews with Pirates teammates like Al Oliver and Manny Sanguillen and fascinating film of the Puerto Rican winter league when it was a haven for African-American players unwelcome in the majors. Fittingly, the programme premieres on the 21st of the month, because it supports the idea that Clemente's uniform number, 21, should be retired by all of baseball. His other numbers - two World Series championships, four batting titles, 12 Gold Gloves, 15 All-Star Games and exactly 3,000 career hits - can't begin to measure what he meant. One complaint: the emphasis on Clemente’s life outside baseball cuts into the time spent on the field. And no matter how admirable his sentiments, the true poetry of Roberto Clemente lies in the uninterrupted flight of a baseball from the warning track to the catcher’s mitt. You can’t watch that too many times.

Wright refuses to be a 'court jester'

Ian Wright has quit as a BBC football pundit, claiming that the corporation is out of touch and that he was expected to be a “comedy jester”.

The former England and Arsenal player could prompt an exodus of talent from the BBC after its loss of international matches and the FA Cup to ITV. Wright, 44, who has also presented BBC entertainment shows including the National Lottery, said that the corporation’s football coverage was too formal.

“Times are changing,” he told Broadcastmagazine. “I don’t know how long young people are going to want to sit down and watch that same old ‘jacket, shirt and tie’ format.” He added: “Fans want people who are dressed like them. They’ve got no one to relate to on TV and that’s why I’ve said to them I don’t want to do the England games any more.”

The final straw may have been the decision to dress the Match of the Day team in sober suits and ties for the first England match under the new manager, Fabio Capello, in February. The flamboyant pundit always chafed against BBC Sport’s dress code.

Wright, a forward who earned 31 England caps, said: “I feel like I’m just there as a comedy jester to break the ice with Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen, who just do run-of-the-mill things. I can’t do that any more. People want something different.” He was a passionate contributor to the BBC’s football coverage who coined memorable expressions such as: “Without being too harsh on David Beckham, he cost us the match.” He would often howl in anguish at the England team’s failings.

He had already fallen out of favour with his bosses at the BBC after accusing it of failing to nurture black talent. “I think it’s a disgrace – where are the black presenters on BBC prime-time TV?” Wright, a supporter of the Show Racism the Red Card campaign, asked last year in a newspaper article.

Wright said that he wanted to do more diverse programmes than just “get up there and smile on tap” but the BBC would not let him. The corporation said it was baffled by his outburst. A source said: “He was a freelance who only wanted to do England matches. We have lost England matches, so his role does not exist at the moment.”

The BBC denied that he was required to play a “jester” role. A spokesman said: “He was hired as a recently retired international player to give his own expert opinions, in his own style.” Wright will not be part of the BBC’s Euro 2008 team but could be a target for ITV, which is also showing an interest in Adrian Chiles, the host of Match of the Day 2, for a role in its Champions League coverage.

Wright will now present a revival of Gladiators for Sky One and co-host a Talk Sport radio show.

No delays on 'live' Olympics

TV broadcasts from August’s Beijing Olympics will go out live to the world with no transmission delays, senior Olympic officials have announced. “As far as the Olympics are concerned, the broadcasts will go out as and when the action happens,” said veteran International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Kevan Gosper.

China’s state broadcaster CCTV routinely delays transmission of so-called live events, including a ceremony on Monday on central Tiananmen Square to welcome the Olympic torch when footage was broadcast about one minute late. Fears that China would delay Olympic TV broadcasts so as to censor the coverage or would block the internet to journalists during the Games were completely unfounded, Gosper said.

Gosper, vice-chairman of the IOC’s Coordination Commission, working with Beijing on hosting the Games, told AFP there would be complete internet freedom for more than 20,000 accredited journalists covering the Games. “TV signals will be live and the internet will be open and free for all accredited media,” he said.

Beijing routinely blocks access to websites deemed indecent or critical of the Chinese government or in favour of issues opposed by the communist party. Sun Weijia, director of media operations for the Beijing Olympic organising committee, said CCTV had no role in international transmission from the Olympics. The job will be handled by the host broadcaster, Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, a joint venture between the organising committee and the IOC. “There will be no delay from Beijing. The transmission signal goes out to international broadcasters as events unfold,” Sun said.

Gosper was speaking on the sidelines of a three-day meeting between the commission and Beijing Olympics organisers taking place just 127 days ahead of the Games opening ceremony. “I have to be certain that journalists and all members of the press can report on the Games as freely and openly as they have done on previous Games,” he added.

BBC snatches F1 rights from ITV

The BBC has regained the British television rights to Formula One from rivals ITV in a five-year deal starting in 2009, the broadcaster and F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone said today.

At 84, Murray Walker is unlikely to return. But there will probably be a quite remarkable reprise for one of the most memorable sporting theme tunes. Returning after 13 years away, formula one racing will return to the BBC in 2009 following ITV's surprise decision to axe the sport with two years of its contract remaining.

The agreement will be seen as a coup for the public broadcaster, coming at a time when 23-year-old British driver Lewis Hamilton is leading the championship for the McLaren racing team after finishing last year as runner-up. ITV have broadcast the sport in Britain since the start of the 1997 season, when Briton Damon Hill was Formula One champion.

The BBC said that the deal covered all platforms and will see Formula One broadcast on the BBC sport Web site as well as on radio and television. "We were delighted when Bernie Ecclestone approached us about the return of F1 to the BBC," BBC Sport director of sport rights Dominic Coles told the broadcaster's website. "F1 is a crown jewel of sports broadcasting, so to bring the rights back to their traditional home from 2009 is tremendously exciting. No financial details were given but Ecclestone said in a statement issued by Formula One Management (FOM) he was delighted with the deal. I wish to thank ITV for their commitment to Formula One and the high quality of their coverage. It is an exciting time in Formula One and the BBC has some innovative new ideas to consolidate and expand our UK fan base," he said.

ITV said last October the 2007 title-deciding Brazilian Grand Prix, in which Hamilton lost to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen by a single point, was the most-watched Formula One race since 2000 with a peak audience of 10.6 million and an average of 7.3 million watching the entire three-hour event.

Who gets what:

ITV

Formula one - until the end of 2008 season

FA Cup and England internationals (shared with Setanta) - from August 2008

Champions League (shared with Sky) - until 2012

Boat race

Euro 2008, World Cup 2010, Euro 2012, World Cup 2014 (shared with BBC)

BBC

Six Nations Rugby (until 2013)

Formula one (2009-13)

Match of the Day Premier League highlights (until 2010)

Coca-Cola Championship and Carling Cup (from 2010)

Euro 2008, World Cup 2010, Euro 2012, World Cup 2014 (shared with ITV)

Olympics (until 2012)

Further reading: F1 returns to BBC

There was 'Black Magic' before Kobe

Proving there was 'Black Magic' before Kobe, a new ESPN documentary chronicles great players in a tough game of race and basketball writes Paul Lieberman...

In an era when posters of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James adorn the walls of young basketball fans across the States, it may surprise many Americans to learn that when the NBA was founded, in 1949, there were no black players. None. There were the "Globies," of course -- the Harlem Globetrotters -- but they could be seen as the equivalent of the old black-faced minstrel shows, playing to buffoonish stereotypes, and some of the greatest black players, including Bill Russell, wanted no part of them. On the other hand, perhaps their act was calculated to seduce the enemy, a strategy of "make your enemy laugh," as Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. argues in the documentary Black Magic, which airs on ESPN in two parts, Sunday and Monday night.

In the classic basketball movie Hoosiers, Gene Hackman plays the wise Indiana high school coach who yanks a player from a game for violating his rule that the team patiently passes the ball at least four times before shooting. But in Black Magic, that's the buffoonery, the plodding white guys passing around the rock, immediately contrasted with the shoot-in-8-seconds fastbreak, a style derided as "jungle ball" by certain whites but that may well be, the documentary argues, the way the inventor of basketball, James Naismith, intended it to be played.

Black Magic ostensibly is about basketball at all-black colleges in the days before major universities began their recruiting frenzy over the talent that would come to dominate the game. But the latest documentary by New York Dan Klores is just as much about such sensitive issues at the intersection of race and sports in America. Klores' first documentary, 2003's The Boys of 2nd Street Park, also began with basketball, but the sort he played in a Brooklyn playground with fellow Jewish baby boomers, whose lives he followed through the turbulent years of the Vietnam War and '70s drug culture. Though the film is not autobiographical, it does draw on the experiences of Klores, 58, as a student at the University of South Carolina, where he got into several fistfights after being called a "Jew bastard" and was reminded what it meant to be an outsider. Still, his experiences were trivial contrasted with those of blacks in the South, where he saw a group of whites celebrating after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., chanting "One less . . . !" -- well, the epithet is all too familiar. "I was right there," Klores says.

If you're making a film today, you know that a lot of viewers would rather you didn't rub their noses in that ugly history. They'll tell you we're over all that. But it's much like Denzel Washington's recent The Great Debaters in which a lynching provides the context for a peek into all-black colleges, which early on had to teach some students how to use knives and forks while nurturing others to doctoral degrees. Wallace, who is now a law professor at American University in Washington, says students today -- white and black alike -- find such episodes hard to believe. "I don't know whether they think I'm making it up or they just have no basis for understanding it," Wallace said this week.

Though ESPN has made an extraordinary commitment to the four-hour documentary, showing it without commercials, Klores and some of those featured admit that it is a daunting task to connect with younger viewers when, says Wallace, "they don't see Kobe, they don't see Allen Iverson." Instead, "they see all that black-and-white social history stuff that goes pretty far away from basketball." There is, to be sure, much highlight-reel basketball, most notably of two players from Winston-Salem State in North Carolina: the well-known Earl "the Pearl" Monroe, a twirling, scoring machine who went on to win an NBA title with the New York Knicks and who is co-producer of the documentary, and an earlier student, the almost unknown Cleo Hill. Hill could make hook shots -- now the tool of a few big men, playing around the basket -- from out beyond today's three-point line. But when he got his chance at the NBA, according to the documentary, he was frozen out of the action by white team-mates on the St. Louis Hawks, then he was blackballed by the rest of the league.

Though the official stats show that Hill played one year in the NBA and averaged just 5.5 points (and made only 35% of his shots), another central figure in Black Magic, retired coach Ben Jobe, calls Hill "the best of them all," at least as an offensive player, on a list that places Bryant second and Michael Jordan fifth. Jobe is part of a story that revolves around another coach, John McLendon, who learned the game from its founder, Naismith, then passed his knowledge to others, including Jobe, who in turn mentored Avery Johnson, the speedy guard who now coaches the Dallas Mavericks. But more significant than their up- tempo approach to the game is their bearing as patrician-preacher types, unabashed old-values voices in the hip-hop age.

We're told how McLendon used to teach the Four Ws, "Who are you? What are you? Why are you here on this Earth? Where are you going?" And to this day, Jobe, at 75, refuses to be paid for giving clinics ("Why would you charge for something you were given for free?") while warning about the dangers of teenage promiscuity and the insane worship of athletes and entertainers instead of, say, George Washington Carver, a one-time slave who became a great botanist.

When he finished making Black Magic, Klores thought Jobe, the son of a sharecropper, would be its breakout character. But at a Washington screening sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, another figure drew a standing ovation, Bob "Butterbean" Love, a Louisiana native who lighted up the nets at Southern University and the Chicago Bulls. What appeals to viewers is the disability he lived with: a stutter, a major reason he wound up, after his playing days, working as a busboy and dishwasher, pitied no doubt by those who had no idea what he was made of. Love comes across as a gentle soul ready with a hug for the world despite all he's been through. More important, he's someone for whom "We shall overcome" was a personal credo, in a way that brought the screening audience to its feet.

"They called my name and people yelled and clapped. I was shocked," Love recalled this week. "I loved it."

But he seems to have gotten equal pleasure out of something else, how people remembered how flat he shot the ball -- like a line-drive -- while twice averaging more than 25 points a game for the Bulls. That "really surprised me," he said. "I never knew that people loved my jump shot."

Black Magic shows a cross burning in its opening moments and later Alabama Gov. George Wallace's "Segregation forever!" speech, apt background for what happens to another Wallace -- Perry Wallace -- when he becomes the first African American to compete in the Southeastern Conference. When his Vanderbilt team went to play Mississippi State, they were greeted with a cheer, "Get the . . . ! Get the . . . ! Rah, rah, rah!"

Black Magic airs on ESPN in two parts, Sunday and Monday night.

Further reading: Recalling basketball greats held back by racism; Civil Rights on the basketball court