The Pink Report

Radio Goo Goo

I’m back, and not a moment too soon. I put my pink pen down for a wee while, turn my back and look what happens: dingbat people tampering with the very essence of our summers.

If you haven’t caught up with the news - and heaven knows Radio Sport didn’t go bellowing it from the rafters of Cook Street until a few of us media people got wind of it, Radio Sport is dropping its team of first-class commentators for this season and replacing them with “regular score updates” instead - “from a central commentary position” that may or may not be at an actual match.

So instead of “Let’s head round the country...” what you’re going to get is a numpty in a studio reading results off New Zealand Cricket’s online scoring - which, of course, you and I can look up ourselves, anytime we like. It’s not telling us anything we might not know. No more Harty and Allen McLaughlin filling us in on whether the ball is swinging, who just dropped a catch at midwicket, whether the debutant batsman looks composed or the lbw plum or outrageous. No more Ron Snowden bellowing with excitement as the catch is taken, no more Peter Sharp considering every possible thought that might be crossing the captain’s mind, no more Steve Davie reporting from deepest darkest Alexandra.

Your keen mind will detect I’m none too impressed by this decision at all. It’s no substitute for Johnny On The Spot. Rumour has it Radio Sport blew their annual budget on rugby this year - and yet cricket pays the price. Culling live commentary of the Plunket Shield must have seemed an easy target to the beancounters. Who wants to listen to some four-day cricket match in Rangiora anyway?

A lot of people, it turns out. As I scribble this blog, over 730 listeners have signed an online petition aimed at making Radio Sport see sense - and I’m sure that’s but the tip of the iceberg. Reading through the heartfelt comments, it’s clear, and gratifying, to see that while few New Zealanders have the time to attend four-day matches these days, crowds of us ardently follow the Plunket Shield through the transistor or car radio. And we rely on Radio Sport to fill us in on the games, because nobody else does.

Radio Sport holds the cricket radio broadcasting rights in this country and wiggling out of its responsibility to cover the matches to the standard that surely both New Zealand Cricket and its own listeners expected strikes me as a major letdown.  Radio Sport wouldn’t have come into being at all had it not been for cricket - the bread and butter of the old Sports Round-Up service that kept us gripped through summer days back before the former commercial arm of publicly-funded Radio New Zealand was lopped off and hocked to become The Radio Network, privatised purveyors of Radio Sport.

Live coverage of Plunket Shield cricket has been shrinking for some years, in what seems now a surreptitious move to sweep it from the airwaves altogether. Personally I think Radio Sport has long since lost the plot - but hey, I haven’t got all day to pen this column. I’m appalled they didn’t look to spread the risk across all their programming in order to deliver their core content: coverage of one of the premier competitions in our national summer sport. And, like others, I’m offended that they have tried to pass this off to us as a better, “cleaner” service for its listeners. Pah!

Radio Sport’s beloved bevy of Plunket Shield commentators have more than 150 years’ experience between them interpreting cricket. Allen McLaughlin alone has been calling the game for a quarter of a century and you won’t find many people more passionate about the grassroots game - the feeder comp, of course, to our test team. You don’t replace that rare expertise with a talking scoreboard.

I certainly won’t be tuning in for talkback, if Radio Sport doesn’t change its mind and reinstitute our traditional live sport commentary “by popular request”.

Make your feelings known by emailing Radio Sport director of sport Matt Hunt at matt@radiosport.co.nz (you’ll get a scripted reply) and signing the online petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/radiosport/