THEY did it again! Like a cack-handed Alfred Hitchcock, TVB Jade managed to cut off Saturday's coverage of the Challenge Shield soccer final when the drama was at its highest.
With the penalty shoot-out reaching its crescendo and a Rangers player beginning his run up for the fifth kick, suddenly the station logo flashed up and then cut . . . end of show. Talk about botched suspense.
They obviously like cliff-hanger endings in the TVB sports department. But what about the viewers who watch a live sports event with the purpose of seeing the ending, the resolution of the drama, then and there?! Like when you watch a Hitchcock film.
It's not, of course, the first case of such unexpected sudden-death sport television in the territory.
There are some classic examples from all stations. So without naming names it's easy to recall: the famous Giants v 49ers NFC championship game in 1991 which cut off before the end of OT to make way for statutory children's programming; the news bulletin preceding a delayed broadcast of the French Open tennis final which revealed the result; a similar news bulletin before the Manchester United v QPR FA Cup delayed broadcast this season; the innumerable soccer reports on news bulletins which are hacked before the final goal is shown; the college basketball game which was cut with six seconds to go and the game on the line.
It's become such a commonplace that viewers must be developing an anticipatory defence mechanism, an uneasy feeling of: 'Oh no, they're not going to cut it now, are they? Yes they are. They did it.' That may seem a harsh judgment. It's unfortunate TVB should have been the culprits because they are by far the better of the two terrestrial channels vis a vis soccer provision, especially live action. But the frustration of Saturday's unofficial early whistle was compounded when a call to TVB was answered by a recording saying that the audience hotline only operated in normal office hours. THE fascination with motor racing, it must be suspected, is largely a morbid one - a sort of Death Wish on wheels, except the death wished for isn't one's own.