Last night I was out having dinner when STV Sport ran their story about Odsonne Edouard. It’s a good job I wasn’t in the middle of ordering something or I’d have missed it. As it was, I was just finishing and the place I was in had the bulletin on.
The segment opened with our record signing, and just as quickly as it was on it was done.
I wondered “What’s more important in Scottish football today than Celtic having spent such a large sum of money – the most any club will spend on any player in this window, probably more than the combined totals from every other club put together?”
And of course I should have known.
In STV parlance, Sevco in pre-season training is more important. Of course it is. Followed by Gerrard. Followed by more pre-season training. Followed by Gerrard. I was offended watching that, offended watching the utter contempt for our club shown by that disgraceful channel, the one that puts an anti-Celtic slant on everything that doesn’t already have a pro-Sevco one.
I was at Michael McIntyre at The Hydro after dinner, and he joked about the only difference between ITV and STV is “a Scottish guy between the programmes and weather sponsored by Nicola Sturgeon.” And I laughed, but I thought “It’s not the only difference.”
No regional English variant of ITV would treat at least half of its viewers as an afterthought, and shamelessly pander to the rest. This is a peculiarly Scottish issue; STV makes no bones about playing favourites and it never has.
Back in 2011, shortly before liquidation washed the faces of all those involved, they signed a much heralded “commercial and branding deal” with the club, much to the chagrin of some of their own journalists, and to the disbelief of the NUJ.
The Guardian Media reporter, Roy Greenslade, slammed the deal in an article. The Drum did a piece on it.
As VideoCelts pointed out at the time, the announcement was made on Rangers’ website. STV themselves were at great pains not to trumpet it on their own, although a press release from the company quoted their then Director of Broadcast Services, Bobby Hain, who is now their Director of Channels. He said, “We are delighted to be working with Rangers in the online area and believe that this arrangement will be hugely beneficial to both parties.”
One journalist there, who spoke to Greenslade, made some salient points;
“I seriously fear that our members on the STV news-desk will not be able to do their job properly, and may not be allowed to do so. For example, one of the biggest football stories in Scotland concerns Rangers football club’s tax troubles. Can they report fairly on that? Will they report it at all?”
One can only wonder who inside the organisation thought it a good idea to so compromise the integrity of the news desk that its own members were screaming blue murder. One can only surmise that person is still working there today.
Just ponder, for a moment, the statement made by the Rangers Chief Operations Officer Ali Russell, who was gushing over it. “”We are delighted to be working with STV to develop and maximise joint online brand and commercial opportunities that benefit both organisations.”
STV were so sensitive to the toxic nature of such a deal that they had their journalists denying the story; they blamed Rangers for jumping the gun.
Grant Russell got into a particularly heated exchange with a guy from the RTC site who later wrote a full blog on it for the late Paul McConville’s Scots Law Thoughts blog, blowing apart the station’s cover story.
Paul’s own thoughts on the story were that STV had signed the deal but all too quickly realised that it had blown up in their faces. He believed that the liquidation of the club had allowed the broadcaster to get out of the arrangement without facing legal consequences for breach of contract. But the idea that the deal was ever entered into in the first place stunk then and it stinks now, and you don’t have to look far to see a hint of bias in their coverage.
Last night was absolutely lamentable and it comes just a week after their website removed an article in which it tried to bum up Sevco’s Liverpool loanee based on his Football Manager profile, a quite ridiculous article that even its editors couldn’t defend.
The biggest signing a Scottish football club has made since Tore Andre Flo was given short shrift, whilst the camera got to linger on Sevco players going through their paces. There was no coverage of Celtic’s statement, Edouard’s comments on the official site or Brendan Rodgers own joy at completing the deal. There was no corresponding footage of any of his goals, and certainly not against the station’s favourite club.
He was on, then he was off, and they got down to the real bones of the sports section; slobbering all over Steven Gerrard. That channel is not for purpose … unless the purpose is the one they entered into a deal for back in 2011.
Brand promotion of all things Ibrox.