Panic is clearly in the air. After only three months of operation the new look in commercial TV is being relentlessly driven back to the old look.

Harassed by newspaper reports, falling ratings, impatient advertising agencies, bewildered manufacturers, the independent companies have the frightened glazed look of a fox being surrounded by ravenous hounds.

Having assumed for so many years that they had the magic formula for popular appeal, that they alone could unerringly supply what the public wanted, they are now faced with the fact that Auntie BBC has acquired a mini-skirt and a come-on leer, and can dish out friviality, [sic] vulgarity and triviality as expertly as their show biz rivals.

Catastrophic situation

The statistics for October viewing make very depressing reading for executives on Channel 9. According to JICTAR, which has replaced TAM as the source of TV ratings, the BBC acquired 53% of the total audience last month against the ITV’s 47%.

The BBC’s own statistics, which have always marginally differed from those of TAM and JICTAR, claim that in October the BBC had 60% of the viewers against ITV’s 40%.

Accompanying this decline has been the words of woe tumbling out of the mouth of advertising agency executive – “A catastrophic situation,” said one. “The present state of things cannot continue beyond two or three months,” said another.

If these signs of discontent are designed to get the programme companies to change their schedules, put out different programmes, revise the quality of their product, then one must ask in which direction they want the companies to go and ought they to have the power to force the companies to comply.

Already it is quite clear that no one has interpreted the dissatisfaction of the advertisers as a call for better quality programmes, more serious drama, more committed or involved or responsible programmes

Such news as has been forthcoming about the company reactions to their falling ratings indicates that a return to worse, less demanding, more familiar and more orthodox entertainment programmes is now being planned for the New Year.

Classic examples

We are promised a return of variety along the lines of the Palladium Show. Back in the London area Thames TV will bring back Crossroads and Peyton Place – both classic examples of what TV can do worst.

Crossroads, the epitome of serial drivel and a perfect example of chewing-gum for the eyes, is coming back, we are told, partly because of heavy viewer demand.

The actual number of letters received by Thames TV when Crossroads went off the air inquiring or requesting its return were 480 in August, 75 in September and only 34 in October.

Whatever these figures show, they hardly indicate that some millions of viewers should be condemned to this kind of TV junk for months, and perhaps years, because of the demands of a few hundred viewers.

Judging by the decline in letters received, it seems even these viewers have now settled down to the loss of one of their favourite shows without any undue repercussions on their emotional well-being.

More comedy

Even London Weekend, which was one of the few companies making slight genuflections towards the goal of more mature viewing, has assured us that more new comedy shows are on the way to cheer up their audiences and, presumably, their advertisers.

But when we speak of Channel 9 returning to more popular shows, we have to ask ourselves what are they really returning from? Why only popular shows!

The truth is that hardly anything much has changed, in terms of peak-time viewing, over the whole ITV network since the new companies have taken over.

The basic reliance on serials like Coronation Street, variety shows like Opportunity Knocks, comedy shows like George and the Dragon and hours of old films has barely been questioned.

Can anyone have watched London Weekend’s fare on Saturday and Sunday and truly say they were in anyway affronted by anything remotely highbrow or unpopular or adult during its peak-time hours?

Yet, in spite of all that is being done to provide more and more popular programmes, the BBC still seems to be clobbering ITV mercilessly in every region but Lancashire.

In the London area the BBC shows that have reached the top spots — seven out of 10 — have nearly all done so against opposition that was once considered impregnably popular.

Marked change

What, then could possibly have happened? If the ITV is producing much the same diet before against the BBC’s very similar menu, why has the taste of the public shown such a marked change in a matter of a few weeks?

Could it possibly have something to do with the manner in which the taste of viewers is measured? Is there any likelihood that some of the mystery may reside in the way in which ratings are now acquired compared to what had taken place previously?

The fact is that when the new companies came on the air so did a fresh audience measurement system. TAM, the previous company gave way to AGB and JICTAR.

Although the methods of gathering the ratings are much the same – electronic meters attached to a sample of sets which record the programmes switched on – the actual people having the sets have been changed. In other words, there are now in the London area 350 different homes equipped with these special sets: 350 other homes had them when TAM was in business.

Although the method of selection of these homes, designed to represent a cross-section of the London audience is the same, could it be that with such a small sample changes of three or four per cent in the sample taste could account for the statistical switch of hundreds of thousands of viewers?

Accurate reflection

Could it be that the fresh group of viewers now being asked for their preferences is a more accurate reflection of the nation’s taste than the old sample that had been used by TAM?

Is it possible that commercial TV never had the long lead over BBC that they had claimed over the past number of years, and that nothing has really changed with the advent of the new companies but a different standard of measurement?

And on such uncertain statistical evidence is it right that the standard of TV programmes should be pushed even lower than they now are?

The post The case of the vanishing viewer appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

SINCE this year began I have written 20 weekly pieces on television. Looking through them the other day to answer a reader’s letter I was surprised to find how much they concentrated on BBC programmes and how little on those seen on commercial TV.

In 1968 I have only written three columns which concerned themselves primarily with ITV programmes. Two of them dealt with the ethics of certain discussion techniques on The Frost Programme and The Eamonn Andrews Show.

Contracts

The other was an attack on the Government and the ITA for the arbitrary method by which they made certain people rich through their handouts of commercial TV contracts.

The BBC, on the other hand, has been pushed through the critical sieve with a vengeance. I have vigorously questioned its obsession with sports; its current policy of attracting viewers by plumping for peak-time mediocrity; its curious view that no more jokes about Mr. Harold Wilson should be permitted on light entertainment programmes.

The individual BBC programmes I have discussed have included At The Eleventh Hour, Dr. Barnard Faces His Critics, Talkback, Man Alive, Till Death Us Do Part, the Val Doonican and Rolf Harris shows, the Smothers Brothers, Don’t Count The Candles, Dee Time and a Spoonful of Sugar.

Now the only thing that these programmes have in common is that none of them has been consistently on TV for over three years. Even Man Alive, which is the oldest, has recently undergone a face-lift which changed much of its style and approach.

By comparison programmes on Channel 9 tend to cling to schedules like desperate limpets. It now requires on my part a fierce effort of will to switch over from the BBC to the independent network.

Circus

The general impression of the commercial channel is that of a grey, unenterprising circus where the ringmaster announces the same old acts – year after year — because there are always enough customers to fill up the tent.

Searching for a fresh idea, for a programme that hasn’t been grinding on for six years or longer, for something that isn’t an almost exact replica of a hackneyed formula, is a task that has long ago exhausted my patience.

Although the ITA has never divulged its reasons for demoting Rediffusion as a programme contractor, one of the factors that they must have considered was the tenacious manner in which they stuck to programmes like Double Your Money, Take Your Pick and No Hiding Place for something like 12 to 13 years.

Now that Thames TV has decided that it will not be taking Double Your Money after July of this year, Mr. Hughie Green has said that he is shocked that a minority of people should be able to take off a programme which is so popular with the majority.

One would think that after having had the longest run in TV — a run that has seen him mature from youth to middle-age with his grinning bon-homie as glacially intact as ever— Mr. Green would have bowed out gracefully with a few grateful words about the powers of tolerance and resignation of the British public.

Instead, Mr. Green is now arguing that, since some 6,000,000 homes still tune into his programme, that it is almost anti-social for a “minority” to take him off.

Who this “minority” might be and how they managed to get their views to Thames TV, is not explained by Mr. Green. Since decisions of this kind are usually taken by minorities of one, two or three men who control programmes in the various companies, does Mr. Green think there ought to be a “majority” of 6,000,001 executives before anyone dare drop Double Your Money?

Justified?

Ot course. Mr. Green will claim that the mere size of his audience justifies its continued existence. That is evidence of “what the public wants” — and who dare defy the will of statistics?

But if the public is offered no choice, how do we really know what it wants? If Double Your Money continues to occupy a prime slot for 13 years, how do we know that there is not a better panel or quit game in somebody’s imagination that would not be more popular than Double Your Money?

If the BBC had not taken off some very popular comedy shows, how would we ever have known that Steptoe and Son or Till Death Us Do Part would be more popular?

And has Mr. Green ever considered that stultifying effect that programmes like his, with their unchanged routines year after year, has on the creative talent that has to put them out?

And has he ever thought of what these long-running programmes do to audiences? It cocoons them in a world of routine where their ability to make an individual choice is eventually atrophied.

Conditioning minds to be unselective, undemanding and unadventurous is hardly the purpose of TV. Yet that is what its end result would be if programmes were never changed, never altered just because they were preferred by millions too lazy or mentally unequipped to do anything but enjoy what they enjoyed before.

Eamonn

Now every commercial company has had its share of programmes that have on too long for anybody’s eventual good. ATV had Emergency Ward 10. ABC looks like turning the Eamonn Andrews Show into another runner in the eternity stakes.

But the company that has displayed the most resistance to change on the commercial network is, surprisingly enough, Granada.

I say “surprisingly” because Granada has always had a reputation as an aggressive, social-conscious, vigorous programme company. It is a reputation that needs some drastic re-justifying.

Granada’s main contributions to the network include Coronation Street (over seven years old). What the Papers Say (12 years old). All Our Yesterdays (seven-and-a-half years old). University Challenge (six years old). Cinema (tour years old) and World In Action (five years old).

Individually, there is nothing much wrong with any of these programmes. They all tackle their particular subjects with reasonable professionalism and skill.

But to have any company content with a schedule in which over 80 pc of its main programmes are between four and 12 years old indicates a smugness or apathy which is somewhat disturbing.

The dynamic Sidney Bernstein who will, unbelievable as it may seem, be 70 next January, may be preparing the end of some of these hoary programmes when the new contracts are taken up in August [Actually the end of July – Ed].

Whether Mr. Bernstein will be leading his company into the new TV era remains to be seen since, according to the new 1TA regulations, all company directors must retire at the age of 70, unless there are exceptional circumstances to justify their staying.

A positive demonstration of his continuing youth and vigour would be the drastic pruning of some of the ageing programme vines that are now choking his TV schedules.

The post The dreariness of the long-distance runners 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.

The post Latest in the long line of No-men! appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.