ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the changing and complex relationship between cricket and the mass media. The advice of Yorkshire and England veteran Wilfred Rhodes to Robert Hudson – ‘Paint a picture and keep it the right way up’ – seems to have been a benchmark for the radio commentators. By 1945 cricket print journalism consisted of providing scorecards and describing the main events of the day’s play. E. W. Swanton wielded considerable influence over English cricket writing since he was also editorial director of The Cricketer magazine. The Global Cricket Corporation, a lesser-known arm of the News International media empire, had a five-year contract for the global broadcasting and marketing rights to all International Cricket Conference events between 2003 and 2007, including the World Cups of those years. The people who devised Test Match Sofa availed themselves both of the new consumer attitudes to cricket and of the media technology available to those wishing either to transmit or receive cricket news.
