Consultants

Here are biographical notes of our consultants, who presently run their own media companies after decades of work in the world’s major newspapers and broadcasters.

PAUL MARTIN CAINER

A media law expert and graduate in Comparative Government and Law from the University of Cape Town, he has run an international media company in London for two decades, specialising in sport and in foreign affairs.

Having been involved in the administration of non-racial sport and its battle against apartheid structures in the then-white-ruled South Africa, he was exiled to Britain aged 23.  He worked hard to fight against apartheid sport from Britain, and wrote extensively about it.

From London and various parts of the world he has written and broadcast extensively on sport and on sports politics –  among others for The Times, the BBC, The Observer, the Guardian, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, SABC and Radio New Zealand.   He covered Wimbledon tennis for BBC Africa and for CBS Radio Sport.

He also made several films for the BBC and for Trans World Sport on international sports personalities and on the politics of sport.  That included two BBC radio documentaries about the role of sport in apartheid South Africa. Later he made a film for the BBC about apartheid in sport and on the behind-the-scenes international efforts to bring South Africa into the 1992 Olympic Games.

Paul was involved in the secretive and complex process of ‘normalising’ sport inside South Africa. During and after the ending of apartheid, he also had several exclusive interviews with President Nelson Mandela about the way he was using sport as a tool for racial reconciliation.

In 1999 he founded the Sport Africa Broadcasting Corporation and ran extensive coverage of major events.  For example, his company had the all-Africa radio live commentary rights to the 1999 Cricket World Cup, and also to Wimbledon, the world’s premier tennis event.  Using his legal training, Paul was able, in 2000, to secure a famous court victory for freedom of expression when the South African judiciary forced the King Commission investigating international cricket corruption to allow its proceedings to be broadcast.

Through the companies he recently founded, MediaZones and SportZones, he is enabling sports bodies and sportspeople to secure rights deals for the broadcast of, the production of, and media coverage of various sports. He has used a combination of media savvy, expertise in negotiations and the intricacies of the law relating to sports rights.

Paul  covered sport and sports politics interchangeably with another major strand in his career: as a foreign correspondent.

Better known as Paul Martin, he was a correspondent for the BBC in the Mideast and North Africa during the dramatic years of the Egypt-Israel peace accords, the era of Anwar Sadat and the first year of rule by Hosni Mubarak, the Iran hostage crisis, war in Lebanon, the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, the Iraq-Iran war, and Gaddafi’s Libya… and that was just in the first four years of his more than three decades of foreign reporting.

In that time his intrepid foreign coverage was put forward for the British Press Awards and twice for the Pulitzer Prizes. He founded and ran three London-based international production companies for television and later for multimedia, establishing working relationships with media outlets worldwide.

In 1999-2001 he also established and edited the largest non-State-controlled radio news and sports production and distribution service across Africa.   As such his contacts inside British and international media, both print and broadcast, are very extensive; and has longstanding contacts with a large range of broadcasters and newspapers worldwide.

RICHARD DOVE

For two decades Richard Dove worked as a producer, then as a senior broadcast executive, at the BBC, the world’s largest and most prestigious broadcasting organisation.

He was then hired to advise Al Jazeera International on the setting up of its current affairs programming.   In 2005 he was appointed as the founding Editor of the channel’s flagship international current affairs programme, “People & Power”.   He ran this programme successfully, establishing extensive links with a wide range of top-quality television film-makers.  During his editorship he also pioneered joint commissioning with the BBC’s main nightly current affairs television programme, Newsnight.

His experience at the BBC and at Aljazeera International has provided him with very extensive knowledge of how to develop and nurture strong reportage for television, and with a huge network of contacts within the broadcasting environment worldwide.

Establishing his own advisory company, he edited and commissioned programming to cover the 2010 Olympic Games in London, and consulted on the establishment of a network for delivery of English-language Chinese programming and reportage across Europe and within China for a major Hong Kong-based Chinese independent television company.

OLIVER WEINGARTEN

Oliver Weingarten had a seven-year tenure at England football’s Premier League (2004 – 2011) with responsibility for a breadth of legal, commercial and policy issues – including the protection of the Premier League’s broadcasting rights (notably the Murphy and YouTube cases). Whilst at the Premier League, Oliver also formed and ran the Secretariat of the Sports-Rights Owners Coalition.

In 2004 Oliver started his own sports “boutique” agency, offering clients a service on sports intelligence, brokering deals, sponsorship, broadcasting and PR advice.

He also has pioneered Fan Engagement, organising Fans’ Forums in Formula 1, for Formula E, and for the Professional Darts Corporation. Oliver currently represents the world-famous British marathon-runner Rob Young. He also works on  sports partnerships for Virtually Live – a live virtual-reality broadcast platform for fans unable to attend live events.

He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of OW Advisory, and also works with Sports Partnerships for Virtually Live.

Trained at Olswang, the leading media-law firm, he is a qualified solicitor with extensive commercial, legal and policy experience.

He was General Secretary of the Formula E Teams’ Association during its inaugural 2014/15 Season, and Secretary General for the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) between 2011 and 2014.  At FOTA, Oliver was responsible for regulating and coordinating sporting, regulatory and commercial activities.