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World of Sport (British TV programme)
World of Sport is a British television sport programme which ran on ITV between 2 January 1965 and 28 September 1985 in competition with the BBC's Grandstand. Like Grandstand, the programme ran throughout Saturday afternoon.
From the programme's launch until the lifting of restrictions on broadcasting hours in 1972, sports coverage was one of the few programming areas which was exempt from the restrictions. Originally sporting coverage and outside broadcasts were provided with a separate quota of broadcasting hours per year. By the start of World of Sport this amounted to 350 hours per year. This meant World of Sport was a key part of ITV's Saturday schedules, as the time the programme was on the air did not count to the overall 50 hours a week restriction on normal broadcasting hours.
Eamonn Andrews was the first host and the programme itself was "compiled for Independent Television" by ABC Weekend TV from its Teddington Studios, with the other ITV stations contributing footage of events in their regions. Before World of Sport, sports events had been shown across the ITV network on Saturdays as separate programmes. From the summer of 1968, after ABC lost its franchise, it was produced by London Weekend Television (LWT) under the ITV Sport banner and hosted by Dickie Davies, who would remain the face of the show until it ended in 1985. Other World of Sport presenters were Fred Dinenage, Steve Rider and Jim Rosenthal. Bob Colston read the classified results and he and John Tyrrel, who read the horse racing results, were the regular results announcers throughout the duration of World of Sport, although from 1983, Elton Welsby began alternating with Colston.
Because LWT held a weekend-only broadcast franchise, Thames Television produced bank holiday editions, which were renamed Bank Holiday Sport and later Bank Holiday Sports Special. They were also generally presented by Davies, with Steve Rider occasionally presenting a bank holiday edition.
STV and Grampian sometimes opted out and showed their own version, billed as Scotsport Special which was presented by Arthur Montford from the STV studios in Glasgow, Scotsport Special did include some live coverage from England of events which were often not shown in their entirety due to the regional sporting events taking place in Scotland. Scotsport Special was also aired on Cup Final day, when the Scottish Cup Final was taking place on the same day as the Wembley event, with the Wrestling also being moved from its pre-lunchtime slot on Cup Final days back to the expected 16:00 slot in Scotland.
The 500th edition was transmitted on 7 September 1974, and the 1000th edition was transmitted on 16 June 1984.
Most of the show was focussed around three popular segments – On the Ball (a preview of the day's football action), the ITV Seven (horse racing), and wrestling with commentator Kent Walton - alongside a results section to close the programme. Coverage of other sports was mostly restricted to the part of the first hour of the programme, and the 3pm hour. The BBC had purchased the rights to as many established events as it could and a joke of the period was that the BBC were going through the list of sports in alphabetical order and had run out of money before it reached wrestling which is how ITV got it. Therefore, output often showcased sports not seen elsewhere, such as women's hockey, netball, lacrosse, water skiing and stock car racing or sports that were not popular with the British mainstream, such as NASCAR and ice speedway. It also featured bizarre sports like the World Barrel Jumping Championships, and even death-defying stunts. In its early years, show jumping, and other equestrian events, were often aired, and towards the end of its life, snooker was shown extensively.
Two sports in particular, ten-pin bowling and kart racing, benefited from television exposure to a British public hitherto unaware of them.[according to whom?] Whilst the majority of ten-pin bowling shown from 1965 onwards focused on regional league competitions in the UK, a surge in popularity in the sport in the UK in the mid-1970s led to footage from the biennial WTBA World Championship, and telecasts from the US Professional Bowlers Tour, being included increasingly in later years (Mark Roth becoming the first bowler to convert a 7 – 10 split on television on 5 January 1980 at the ARC Alameda Open in Alameda, California, was possibly the best-remembered of the US telecasts shown on the programme). British stock car drivers such as Barry Lee also greatly benefited from the show's exposure.
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World of Sport (British TV programme)
World of Sport is a British television sport programme which ran on ITV between 2 January 1965 and 28 September 1985 in competition with the BBC's Grandstand. Like Grandstand, the programme ran throughout Saturday afternoon.
From the programme's launch until the lifting of restrictions on broadcasting hours in 1972, sports coverage was one of the few programming areas which was exempt from the restrictions. Originally sporting coverage and outside broadcasts were provided with a separate quota of broadcasting hours per year. By the start of World of Sport this amounted to 350 hours per year. This meant World of Sport was a key part of ITV's Saturday schedules, as the time the programme was on the air did not count to the overall 50 hours a week restriction on normal broadcasting hours.
Eamonn Andrews was the first host and the programme itself was "compiled for Independent Television" by ABC Weekend TV from its Teddington Studios, with the other ITV stations contributing footage of events in their regions. Before World of Sport, sports events had been shown across the ITV network on Saturdays as separate programmes. From the summer of 1968, after ABC lost its franchise, it was produced by London Weekend Television (LWT) under the ITV Sport banner and hosted by Dickie Davies, who would remain the face of the show until it ended in 1985. Other World of Sport presenters were Fred Dinenage, Steve Rider and Jim Rosenthal. Bob Colston read the classified results and he and John Tyrrel, who read the horse racing results, were the regular results announcers throughout the duration of World of Sport, although from 1983, Elton Welsby began alternating with Colston.
Because LWT held a weekend-only broadcast franchise, Thames Television produced bank holiday editions, which were renamed Bank Holiday Sport and later Bank Holiday Sports Special. They were also generally presented by Davies, with Steve Rider occasionally presenting a bank holiday edition.
STV and Grampian sometimes opted out and showed their own version, billed as Scotsport Special which was presented by Arthur Montford from the STV studios in Glasgow, Scotsport Special did include some live coverage from England of events which were often not shown in their entirety due to the regional sporting events taking place in Scotland. Scotsport Special was also aired on Cup Final day, when the Scottish Cup Final was taking place on the same day as the Wembley event, with the Wrestling also being moved from its pre-lunchtime slot on Cup Final days back to the expected 16:00 slot in Scotland.
The 500th edition was transmitted on 7 September 1974, and the 1000th edition was transmitted on 16 June 1984.
Most of the show was focussed around three popular segments – On the Ball (a preview of the day's football action), the ITV Seven (horse racing), and wrestling with commentator Kent Walton - alongside a results section to close the programme. Coverage of other sports was mostly restricted to the part of the first hour of the programme, and the 3pm hour. The BBC had purchased the rights to as many established events as it could and a joke of the period was that the BBC were going through the list of sports in alphabetical order and had run out of money before it reached wrestling which is how ITV got it. Therefore, output often showcased sports not seen elsewhere, such as women's hockey, netball, lacrosse, water skiing and stock car racing or sports that were not popular with the British mainstream, such as NASCAR and ice speedway. It also featured bizarre sports like the World Barrel Jumping Championships, and even death-defying stunts. In its early years, show jumping, and other equestrian events, were often aired, and towards the end of its life, snooker was shown extensively.
Two sports in particular, ten-pin bowling and kart racing, benefited from television exposure to a British public hitherto unaware of them.[according to whom?] Whilst the majority of ten-pin bowling shown from 1965 onwards focused on regional league competitions in the UK, a surge in popularity in the sport in the UK in the mid-1970s led to footage from the biennial WTBA World Championship, and telecasts from the US Professional Bowlers Tour, being included increasingly in later years (Mark Roth becoming the first bowler to convert a 7 – 10 split on television on 5 January 1980 at the ARC Alameda Open in Alameda, California, was possibly the best-remembered of the US telecasts shown on the programme). British stock car drivers such as Barry Lee also greatly benefited from the show's exposure.