Editorial: World Cup broadcast equals presence in world

Photo: Reuters / Scanpix

Yesterday, Postimees wrote on the Enterprise Estonia Matryoshka-ads, costing €28,000. The ads cannot be used, being insulting to target group. For the new Academy of Arts building on Tartu Highway, all kinds of expenses were made; now, however, yet another house is planned, at another location. Costing money, again. So, one may say Estonia is not exactly penniless. Therefore, strange indeed to see Public Broadcasting (ERR) begging the state for half a million euros to show World Cup football. The more so that, for years, title tournaments broadcasting has been financed outside of base budget; yet, this time, ERR is told to find the money out of own means. They did find €100,000. What about the rest?

Should ERR decide that, having to choose, it needs to opt for title tournaments with Estonian sportsmen participating – that would be a logical criterion irrespective of amount of viewers more abundant with World Cup than Winter Olympics. Four years back, World Cup final was watched in Estonia by 222,000, semi-finals by 182,000 and 175,000 TV viewers. Would it be logical for ETV to send 200,000 viewers someplace else, however? Surely not.

Short-sighted indeed would it be to merely shrug shoulders and claim football to be for its fans alone; and who will watch TV in summertime, anyway... Firstly: audience size refutes that – 200,000 can’t be fans alone. Secondly; what else will ETV show, in summer, next to sports? Repeats of winter-time criminal classics, and the Estonian movie treasury. For these, with all due respect, we will not find the time, in summer. Thirdly: where will ETV and the broader Estonian public find themselves, in bigger picture, without the World Cup broadcast? In periphery – says voice of the painful truth. The world over, some 200 states broadcast the tournament, the last World Cup watched by 3.2 billion people.

The option of watching World Cup with own language comments is a matter of being present in the world. Like Estonian language computer programs: majority of Estonia’s computer users would do just fine in English; still it is important for us to think and talk Estonian regarding the cyber world. The same with football – to be mentally present at the event stirring the entire world, we’ll need to have it available in our native tongue. Then, we will also be at the party, not merely peeking in through the window.

The search for missing broadcasting money has been somewhat ugly. A title tournament ought not to be pitted against other ETV programs loved by the people; both World Cup and Õnne 13 have their audience, partly overlapping. 

And: spare a though at the uppish embarrassment of Estonian Football Association. Organising a collection is not necessarily a bad idea; even so, it feels weird trying to drag the association into a football feud between ERR and government. Somebody seems to be trying to save money not his own.