Post by Teddy Bear on Aug 10, 2008 21:55:56 GMT
Great article!
ITV is being crushed by a busy, bloated BBC
By Dan Roberts
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 10/08/2008
How was last night? I hope you went out, because Britain's living rooms were a forlorn place.
Saturday night telly has long been pretty grim, but anyone unfortunate enough to tune in at prime time yesterday faced an excruciating choice between that 22-year-old hospital drama rather fittingly called Casualty; the umpteenth repeat of Dad's Army; televised karaoke and day 66 of the ninth series of Big Brother. And that's just on the terrestrial channels.
British television, once a source of national pride, has sunk to the level of a third-rate banana republic. In fact, today's fodder makes the soft porn of Berlusconi's Italy look a paragon of integrity.
As The Sunday Telegraph revealed last week, some of the only original programming around is nothing but government-sponsored propaganda: rose-tinted "documentaries" on the police and immigration services that are actually paid for by the Home Office to con us into thinking Whitehall is wonderful.
If you think this is junk, imagine what investors think.
ITV, Britain's largest commercial broadcaster, was last week downgraded literally to "junk" status by City credit rating agencies. Despite 18 months under Michael Grade - a former chairman of the BBC and one of the great impresarios of our time - advertisers are deserting in droves. Britain's flagship media company recorded a £1.5 billion loss and saw its share price plunge to just 38p.
How could this have happened? It is tempting to blame commercialisation: the cynical suits who treat us like morons are finally getting their comeuppance. Except that you only have to look across the pond to see what nonsense this is. The cutthroat world of American television - facing just the same advertising slump - has never been more creative.
Rather than being patronised by Casualty or The Bill, American audiences are treated to sophisticated drama like The Wire and lavish productions like Lost. Just to rub it in, these shows are chock-full of British talent.
Our actors, directors and technicians are widely seen as the best in the world; it's just our programmes that are the embarrassment.
The Americans do public service too. NBC, which is owned by ruthless capitalists at General Electric, is producing 3,600 hours of Olympic coverage over seven networks at a cost of well over $1 billion.
What's more, American media companies bestride the globe: Google, News Corporation, Apple and Time Warner are at the forefront of the digital revolution that will determine the fate of all 21st-century economies.
All of which brings us to where most analysis of the UK media scene inevitably ends up: the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Auntie is everywhere. It represents the best and worst of Britain's creative industries: our most visible national champion and the single biggest reason why we will never have a genuinely world-beating media industry in this country.
This argument may seem back to front: isn't the state of ITV and others proof of why we need the BBC more than ever? Sadly, much of the worst pap is on the Beeb: lowest-denominator schlock without any of the evil pop genius behind real mass entertainment.
Meanwhile, what the BBC is revered for internationally is under constant attack from its own bean-counters.
Thanks partly to Grade himself, the BBC has shifted from being distinctive to being ubiquitous - simultaneously robbing ITV of its natural audience and starving its own best programme-makers of cash.
It seems so perverse. Surely the role of a publicly funded broadcaster should be to fill the gaps that commercial operators leave behind: a world-class TV news service; speech radio; highbrow arts and drama; expensive documentaries and children's television that doesn't turn kids into psychotic junk-food zombies.
What the BBC shouldn't do is drive up the price of Jonathan Ross (of whom I'm an enormous fan, by the way); try to produce more karaoke than anyone else; and exile all its intelligent programming to the furthest reaches of its schedules.
Pretty much everyone I've ever met thinks this about the BBC. Everyone I know who works there thinks this about the BBC. It's as if there are simply 10 people at the top of the corporation who just monumentally miss the point.
This is the real reason why Grade has failed to rescue ITV. A BBC funded by what amounts to taxation now spends twice as much as ITV trying to produce almost identical coverage.
Any hope the private sector once had of outspending its state-owned competitor is evaporating fast in the face of the advertising recession. Instead, there is now the very real risk of the BBC driving its commercial competitors into bankruptcy.
If this sounds alarmist, consider regional newspapers: already ailing, they will be driven to the wall by the BBC's decision to cut off their future with lavishly funded local news websites. The commercial radio industry is dying a similar death.
To make matters worse, private broadcasters are swaddled in even more red tape than the BBC.
Grade estimates broadcasting regulation of various types costs ITV £320 million a year. Until it is set free from the dead hand of the state, our television will never reach its potential.
By Dan Roberts
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 10/08/2008
How was last night? I hope you went out, because Britain's living rooms were a forlorn place.
Saturday night telly has long been pretty grim, but anyone unfortunate enough to tune in at prime time yesterday faced an excruciating choice between that 22-year-old hospital drama rather fittingly called Casualty; the umpteenth repeat of Dad's Army; televised karaoke and day 66 of the ninth series of Big Brother. And that's just on the terrestrial channels.
British television, once a source of national pride, has sunk to the level of a third-rate banana republic. In fact, today's fodder makes the soft porn of Berlusconi's Italy look a paragon of integrity.
As The Sunday Telegraph revealed last week, some of the only original programming around is nothing but government-sponsored propaganda: rose-tinted "documentaries" on the police and immigration services that are actually paid for by the Home Office to con us into thinking Whitehall is wonderful.
If you think this is junk, imagine what investors think.
ITV, Britain's largest commercial broadcaster, was last week downgraded literally to "junk" status by City credit rating agencies. Despite 18 months under Michael Grade - a former chairman of the BBC and one of the great impresarios of our time - advertisers are deserting in droves. Britain's flagship media company recorded a £1.5 billion loss and saw its share price plunge to just 38p.
How could this have happened? It is tempting to blame commercialisation: the cynical suits who treat us like morons are finally getting their comeuppance. Except that you only have to look across the pond to see what nonsense this is. The cutthroat world of American television - facing just the same advertising slump - has never been more creative.
Rather than being patronised by Casualty or The Bill, American audiences are treated to sophisticated drama like The Wire and lavish productions like Lost. Just to rub it in, these shows are chock-full of British talent.
Our actors, directors and technicians are widely seen as the best in the world; it's just our programmes that are the embarrassment.
The Americans do public service too. NBC, which is owned by ruthless capitalists at General Electric, is producing 3,600 hours of Olympic coverage over seven networks at a cost of well over $1 billion.
What's more, American media companies bestride the globe: Google, News Corporation, Apple and Time Warner are at the forefront of the digital revolution that will determine the fate of all 21st-century economies.
All of which brings us to where most analysis of the UK media scene inevitably ends up: the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Auntie is everywhere. It represents the best and worst of Britain's creative industries: our most visible national champion and the single biggest reason why we will never have a genuinely world-beating media industry in this country.
This argument may seem back to front: isn't the state of ITV and others proof of why we need the BBC more than ever? Sadly, much of the worst pap is on the Beeb: lowest-denominator schlock without any of the evil pop genius behind real mass entertainment.
Meanwhile, what the BBC is revered for internationally is under constant attack from its own bean-counters.
Thanks partly to Grade himself, the BBC has shifted from being distinctive to being ubiquitous - simultaneously robbing ITV of its natural audience and starving its own best programme-makers of cash.
It seems so perverse. Surely the role of a publicly funded broadcaster should be to fill the gaps that commercial operators leave behind: a world-class TV news service; speech radio; highbrow arts and drama; expensive documentaries and children's television that doesn't turn kids into psychotic junk-food zombies.
What the BBC shouldn't do is drive up the price of Jonathan Ross (of whom I'm an enormous fan, by the way); try to produce more karaoke than anyone else; and exile all its intelligent programming to the furthest reaches of its schedules.
Pretty much everyone I've ever met thinks this about the BBC. Everyone I know who works there thinks this about the BBC. It's as if there are simply 10 people at the top of the corporation who just monumentally miss the point.
This is the real reason why Grade has failed to rescue ITV. A BBC funded by what amounts to taxation now spends twice as much as ITV trying to produce almost identical coverage.
Any hope the private sector once had of outspending its state-owned competitor is evaporating fast in the face of the advertising recession. Instead, there is now the very real risk of the BBC driving its commercial competitors into bankruptcy.
If this sounds alarmist, consider regional newspapers: already ailing, they will be driven to the wall by the BBC's decision to cut off their future with lavishly funded local news websites. The commercial radio industry is dying a similar death.
To make matters worse, private broadcasters are swaddled in even more red tape than the BBC.
Grade estimates broadcasting regulation of various types costs ITV £320 million a year. Until it is set free from the dead hand of the state, our television will never reach its potential.