It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Just ask the BBC

Surely Salford has never looked as beautiful as it currently does from the broad picture window of the BBC’s World Cup studio, with the evening sun softly glancing off the Space Needle behind Mark Chapman’s ear and casting a lustrous glow over snow-capped Mount Rainier on the horizon. Why, you could almost imagine yourself in Seattle. Or Dallas, or Toronto, or Guadalajara, depending what day it is and which match-appropriate digital backdrop they’re using.

Contrast ITV where, out of the open windows, it’s only ever New York – magnificent, of course, and as Mark Pougatch would no doubt tell us, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, not least with a fresh wind careening in off the East River and ruffling everybody’s hair and trousers. Yet, ironically, how remote they all seem. 

Which is partly, I guess, because the Manhattan skyline no more evokes football than it does showjumping. And also, though one entirely commends the journalistic principle of sending people to bear witness, this is television. So when Mexico are playing South Africa in the Azteca Stadium, how much witness is actually being borne by Gary Neville sitting a five-hour flight away, somewhere to the right of the Brooklyn Bridge on a set resembling a hedge-fund manager’s kitchen? 

Still, one can only approve of ITV’s effort to give something back to the local community by offering shelter during matches to a Brooklyn street dweller who… oh, no, wait, that’s Roy Keane. Welcome, anyway. And it’s not all deluxe fittings and flaunted expenditure in the studio that never sleeps because, look: over by the knife drawer, there’s Emma Hayes explaining things on a blackboard with a stick of chalk – the first time most of us have seen one of those used on telly since the days of the test card. 

However, despite these imaginative stagings, real and virtual, let’s be honest: the most memorable punditry exchange of the World Cup so far has come against an entirely bog-standard newsroom backdrop. On Fox Sports, Alexei Lalas made the schoolboy error of accusing France of “arrogance” while sitting beside Zlatan Ibrahimović, whose specialist subject this is. 

“Ignorant people will say it’s arrogance,” the Swede responded, flatly. “Intelligent people will say it’s confidence.” Along the desk, Thierry Henry’s eyes widened to popping point – a collectible moment, and neither Ian Wright and Duncan Ferguson in Brooklyn nor Wayne Rooney and Olivier Giroud in Salford/Guadalajara have come anywhere close to it as yet.

When you note how well the budget approach is working, you start to think about other places in the viewing experience where less might be more, now or in the future. Like, for instance, with the host broadcaster’s player idents accompanying the announcement of the teams. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into bringing us these individual “character” spots, though I haven’t watched a single player nodding sagely while tapping his badge or doing the now slightly tiresome “chilly” arms thing without feeling that an entirely unanimated shot of their Panini sticker at that point would have been just fine. 

Same goes for the introductions to the VAR officials, who now get their ritual pre-match moment, like that bit on Strictly where we say hello to Dave Arch and his wonderful orchestra. In truth, these formalities have already had their wings clipped since a rogue Australian screen-jockey seemed to use his moment in the spotlight to send a hand signal. 

Entirely unintentional, he claimed, and Fifa apparently agreed, clearing him in the investigation which followed. Nevertheless, the “involuntary subconscious twitch” that yields a white supremacist gesture is a strangely frequent occurrence these days. Maybe there’s an ointment for it. Meanwhile, those pre-match drop-ins now find the officials already hard at work, scrutinising a game that hasn’t kicked off yet, in order to minimise the risk of further unwanted hand signals. What a world. 

Anyway, it’s another aspect of the production we could stand to lose. Other vulnerable areas? Well, the principle function thus far of Danny Murphy has been to look at replays of obvious fouls and say, “Yeah, he definitely catches him.” Further savings available there, quite possibly. But let’s see how we feel as the tournament develops.

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