Someone at the ITA is finally showing some common sense, and a little courage, I would like to think it is Lord Aylestone.

Mrs. Wilson’s Diary, the political satire about life at 10 Downing Street, has been declared clean and acceptable for viewing. It is scheduled for January 4.

The controversy that kept it off the air last month, when it was due to go on, was always pretty much a storm in a hip flask

Should the public be allowed to see an actor portraying George Brown staggering around the stage waving a bottle and singing, “Give me the rum back, I’m making a come-back”?

The ITA felt that such a scene was “contrary to good taste or offensive to public feeling.” The fact that a character named Brown had been doing exactly the same thing for many months at the Criterion in London’s West End did not, in the authority’s view, make a tolerable.

Nor did they feel that their decision to eliminate these lines should be reversed by the mere fact that almost every paper in the country, in reporting the incident, had already printed the offending lyric that was presumably against ‘good taste.’

On this major issue, Lord Aylestone or somebody dug in his toes, and London Weekend TV decided to cancel the transmission.

It is an interesting sidelight of this silly squabble that one of the major causes of the elimination of the Lord Chamberlain’s power to censor plays was the argument that TV, as demonstrated in the satire shows, had more freedom to comment on politics than the theatre.

Freedom

Now we have the reverse situation of a play that had already been seen by many thousands in London — and had been passed by the Lord Chamberlain – but could not be shown to a wider public on TV because someone at the ITA had greater sensibilities about political satire than even the Lord Chamberlain.

Second thoughts have however, won the day. Mr. Brown and the bottle have been eliminated. In its place the telly public will see instead “Mr. Brown” asking “Mr. Wilson”: “What happens if you’re run over by a bus?” which is followed up by “Mr Brown” singing the lines. If destiny calls me, can I refuse? Though bright lights appal me I’m still bloody big news.” Sung, I am assured, sans bottle.

By such a narrow margin is good taste maintained, the public saved from offensive feelings and the dignity of politicians preserved.

The larger question raised by this issue is the nature and extent of the freedom to be given to broadcasting authorities in their handling of politics and politicians.

Compared to the lethal barbs that were shot at Sir Alec Douglas Home [Prime Minister 1963-4 – Ed], Henry Brooke [Home Secretary 1962-4] and Anthony Eden [Prime Minister 1955-7] in the hey-day of the BBC’s satire phase, Mrs. Wilson’s Diary is comparatively amiable stuff.

Such, however, is the fear of politicians for the television medium that what they will countenance from cartoonists, newspapers, music-hall and theatre, they will do their damnedest to throttle on television

Yet a recently published book, Television in Politics, by Jay G. Blunder and Denis McQuail, would seem to indicate that TV is not merely the terrifying, formative monster — anarchically reshaping political attitudes – that politicians think it is.

Based upon a sample of 748 electors in the West Leeds and Pudsey constituencies during the election campaign of 1964, the authors conclude that TV only marginally influenced voters during this three-week period of intensive electioneering.

Smug

The book also revealed that the Liberal Party, given more TV time, did better because of this extra screen exposure; that party political broadcasts were useful in imparting knowledge about the issues; and that there was not sufficient hard evidence to determine just how much leaders like Home or Wilson helped or hindered their parties by their TV appearance.

While accepting the validity of these largely obvious findings, I feel that in its writing down of the significance of TV on politics the book may lead to some glib and smug conclusions.

I suspect that the reason this detailed survey has produced such undramatic results is because its area of investigation has been too narrow and too limited.

It was surely obvious that a short, three week campaign could have only marginal impact on attitudes already hardened before the campaign began.

The converted would look only for confirmation for their opinions; the unconverted — the much smaller segment of the electorate – would use TV, along with other sources, for making up their minds.

Conditioned

But what caused political altitudes to harden in the first place? What part did TV have between elections, in determining the polarisation of political opinions?

Only in two areas does this book touch upon this much more important issue. The electorate overwhelmingly rates TV as the most up-to-date, impartial and trustworthy medium in aiding it to weigh up political problems.

The survey also showed that voters have little faith in the integrity and honesty of politicians. No less than two fifth of the voters found politicians “usually” unreliable and misleading. Only 15 per cent. thought they were fairly reliable.

Since TV is to be trusted and politicians are not to be trusted, how much of the attitude is conditioned by the former?

It is the long-term impact of that is surely more important than the short-term. If a child is conditioned all his formative years to watch his leaders cavorting in a trivial and superficial environment, is it any wonder that he views the entire political spectrum with contempt?

Is not the five-year period between elections – as we watch it on TV – more significant in determining how people will vote, and their attitude to political leaders, than the short burst of three weeks’ frantic activity during an election campaign?

The post The significance of George (with or without bottle) and how you vote appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

WHEN Labour came to power in October, 1964, British TV faced a number of outstanding problems. Ever an optimist, I envisaged a TV millennium.

“The appointment of young and vigorous Anthony Wedgwood-Benn as the new Postmaster-General should presage some bold and exciting developments in British TV,” I wrote at the time.

Having outlined some of the issues I confidently expected Mr. Benn to tackle, I ended my article, addressed to him, with the following euphoric peroration: “The time has come for a positive lead from the Postmaster-General for more diversified, more significant and more adventurous TV. Will you give it?”

At the time, the future development and expansion of TV was harassed and beclouded by a host of unanswered questions. They hung over the medium like life in one of those TV commercials a minute before taking an aspirin.

Problem

The most pressing problems included the raising of the TV licence fee, the introduction of colour, the possibility of a fourth channel, the structure of commercial TV, the University of the Air, Pay TV.

Supplementary issues which might have been influenced by a dynamic and concerned Postmaster-General were the extension of broadcasting hours, a determination to prevent excessive profits being made out of a monopoly situation, an insistence that money made out of TV should be ploughed back into the medium, and the encouragement of the production of TV programmes for export.

Well, three and a half years have come and gone.

Wedgwood Benn has come and gone. Mr. Edward Short, his success as Postmaster-General, has come and gone. Mr. Roy Mason, the third Labour custodian of our TV destiny is now in charge.

What has been accomplished? After almost four years of Labour Government only two significant changes have taken place. We have colour and three new programme companies will soon be performing on Channel 9.

On the other hand, the litany of “no changes” sounds like a particularly depressing long moan. The BBC has not received an increased licence fee. There is no possibility of a fourth channel during the life of this Government.

There will be no University of the Air. Nothing has been done about pay TV except to allow an experiment to go ahead that had already been decided upon by the Tories.

There has been no increase in broadcasting hours. Nothing has been done to prevent exorbitant profits being made by those lucky enough to get commercial TV contracts. Nothing has been done to stimulate the production of TV programmes tor export. No steps have been taken to see that money made in TV stays in it.

With this desert of negative achievements to inspire him, it is perhaps not surprising that Mr. Roy Mason, our latest Postmaster-General, should early on indicate that he, too, intends to adopt the administrative philosophy that in broadcasting the less done the better.

Although he has only had the job tor a fortnight or so, his performance last week in answering questions in the Commons about broadcasting shows that the obscurantist mantle of his predecessors sits very naturally on his shoulders.

Abrupt

He was asked nine questions and to each one of them he managed to say no; he couldn’t promise; he couldn’t comment; or he didn’t intend to do anything.

Now if these questions had been asked for purely party provocative or petty purposes, one might have understood and forgiven Mr. Mason’s stonewalling demonstration.

But some of them seemed to me to raise important issues that deserved more than a dismissive reply.

He was asked by Mr. Hugh Jenkins if he would introduce legislation that could enable him to require the ITA to withdraw the licence of any programme company whose control was materially changed by acquisition or merger.

When Mr. Jenkins received an abrupt “no” to his question, he pressed on with a supplementary suggestion that since these contracts were in many cases licences to print money wasn’t it desirable that the nature of the company to which it was given should remain the same?

In other words, if Thames TV or London Weekend or Yorkshire TV received their contracts because of the nature of the men who were going to run it and back it, shouldn’t Parliament be concerned if another group of individuals bought themselves into controlling positions after the contracts had been allotted?

A perfectly reasonable question, you would think, demanding a considered reply. There is, for example, the case of EMI, which, when it was part of a consortium trying to get the Yorkshire contract was rejected, turning up again as a possible large shareholder in Thames TV because it has bought itself into ABC Pictures, which has a major stake in Thames TV.

If it was right for EMI to be turned down by Lord Hill in Yorkshire, is it right for EMI to be accepted by Lord Bowden in London? Surely a subject that should concern the Postmaster General?

But no. Mr. Mason shrugged off the question with the cryptic remark that Mr. Jenkins was concerned about “this developing into a monopoly situation” and thought it should be referred to the President of the Board of Trade.

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