British television’s great scoop of 1954 was achieved by the new series Sportsview.
On 6 May their cameras covered a minor athletics meeting at Oxford and captured Roger Bannister becoming the first man to run a mile in under four minutes,
For years, the programme was a mid-week must for sports enthusiasts, coming up with all sorts of gimmicks to bring the action right into your living-room.
They mounted cameras everywhere – on a sports car at Le Mans, on a motorcycle at the Isle of Man TT races, and on a bobsleigh at the Cresta Run.
It was also in 1954 that the BBC began its Sports Personality of the Year Award (pictured below in 1966), the first winner being athlete Chris Chataway.
The anchorman on Sportsview was former RAF pilot, horse-racing commentator and a key figure in the BBC’s Coronation coverage, Peter Dimmock (pictured above with Donald Campbell).
Frank Bough took over from Dimmock as the presenter in 1964. His stint on Sportsview ended in 1968 when he moved to Grandstandand David Coleman took the reins, with the programme renamed Sportsnight with Coleman.
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