Happy Birthday ?
PROVINCIAL newspapers used to have a con- vention whereby variety shows at the local theatre were not covered by a critic. The tickets would be given to some old reporter, who would write a brief laudatory notice— 'pleasing' was the adjective most in favour— before he left the office, in order to avoid having to come back after the show. This practice was designed to secure the goodwill, and the advertising, of the theatre; but it also grew up because experience had shown that most variety shows were below the level at which criticism, properly so called, can begin to operate. Below that Plimsoll line in enter- tainment, a critic can lay around him angrily; but he will have no more effect than if he is threshing around in a quicksand.
The same difficulty confronts anybody who has to write about commercial television's first year. From a critical standpoint the pro- grammes offered on Channel Nine have declined, after a bad start, almost into a nullity. Take, for example, last week's. I can- not speak of the afternoons, nor do I propose to say anything more about Independent Tele- vision News, whose praises I sang last week. But in the evenings Associated Rediffusion, on the weekdays, had only four programmes which came above the Plimsoll line : the Monday night play; two documentaries (This Week and Look In On London); and a forty- five-minute programme of music and ballet —three hours in all. As for Associated Tele- vision, only one such programme was listed, About Religion, on Sunday evening— and this, I seem to remember, was put in at
the behest of the Independent Television Authority some months ago.
This week the situation has improved; but only rarely arc there more than half a dozen programmes in a week which it is possible to take seriously—and that is not the same thing as serious programmes: there have been some weeks in which, apart from About Religion, there has been no serious programme at all: At first sight, the winter schedules look more promising. It looks well to say that drama will occupy over 20 per cent., but most of this con- sists of short films made in America, or, worse, made here for the American market. And there is no prospect of the programmes improving.
What it comes to is that every evening, for the bulk of the evening, there is nothing but light entertainment. And even of its kind, this is of poor quality. Commercial television has discovered nothing new, either in presenta- tion or in personalities. I can recall only two programmes in which intelligent use has been made of the medium, the Jack Jackson Show and A Show Called Fred: and both are sound broadcasting programmes converted, skilfully. for TV—a tribute less to commercial tele- vision's initiative than to the BBC's lack of it. Otherwise almost all the programmes have obvious BBC or American affiliations; and almost all the personalities arc from the BBC or from other branches of show business.
But if the commercial programmes have little to show for themselves, at least they are revealing about their audiences. During debates on the TV Bill, Government speakers extolled the good taste of the English viewer; the Lord Chancellor, for one, told us what a much more 'mature and sophisticated' people we are than the Americans. It took commercial television about three months to find that, on the contrary, it was impossible to plumb the depths of the viewing public's tastes without falling foul of the law, the Authority, or the advertisers (some of whom, against all the evidence, have continued to urge better pro- grammes). It is hardly possible to conceive of a taste lower than that which revels in Yakity Yak, the Dizzy Show: in Inner Sanc- tum, Two for the Money, They're Oft, and Hit the Limit. Yet the fact is the public craved something still lower, in the shape of People are Funny, which added to the pleasure of seeing money given away by giving the still greater pleasure of seeing people (some of whom had nothing to do with the programme) worried and humiliated. Energetic prodding by the critics eventually prevailed on the Authority to ban People are Funny; but not before it had shown disquieting evidence of what the public wants.
Casting around for something good to say about the commercial programmes, I am forced to admit that their chief value has been in waking un the BBC. It used to be thought that the BBC created new and better standards by subtly' injecting nuggets of culture into the basic slag of entertainment. Clearly, the method did not work. Audiences flocked away from the BBC as soon as the alternative was provided : and instead of flowing back they are still drifting away. I am sure that the explanation given by Associated-Rediffusion is right: you cannot have a mixed programme; it must be one thing or the other—Light. Home, or Third.
But apart from this, the failure of the BBC
to hold even half its audiences is instructive. Secure in its monopoly, the BBC became smug; and it is right that it should be shaken up by the discovery that programmes and personalities on which it had relied shone not by their own merit but because of the absence of competition. Viewers are enor- mously gullible about celebrities. Put a man's face in front of them often enough and they will react in a way that suggests he has been clasped to the nation's warm heart—when, in fact, all the nation really wants is his auto- graph. Where now stand the programmes like What's My Line?: the personalities like Pickles? The BBC's What's My Line? did once creep into the `Top Ten' list—but only because AR had Hamlet on at the same time; and Pickles's reign is over.
The lesson of the firs{ year, then, is not that there should be—even if there could be— a return to the old ways; but that more and ' more channels should be opened up. When there are only two programmes, the existence of Yakity Yak is an irritation, as the BBC may have something even drearier on at the same time. If there are three, four, or five channels working, the chances are that, as in America, one of them will have something worth seeing. I agree with Associated-Rediffusion that it would be foolish for them to try and use Govetnment money to spatter a few serious programmes in among the entertainment on Channel Nine. This simply irritates viewers. It would be better to set up a station designed to cater for a more serious audience, accepting advertisements from those advertisers (and they are not few) who would prefer to con- centrate on that market; but also receiving a grant. I would prefer to see this new pro- gramme divorced from the BBC, unless the BBC takes the step it should have taken long ago, and divorces television completely from sound. But that is another story.
BRIAN INGLIS
• PS.—In my anxiety to give a crumb of credit to the BBC last week, I praised an interview with Kenneth More on In Town Tonight, during which the interviewer was never able to get a word in. As one correspondent puts it, I am evidently 'too bewildered with too much telly to know what day of the week it is, let alone which is the channel' : the interview was actually in AR's This Week. And in fairness I should also add that AR have since produced an even finer example of a properly conducted interview—in Son of Fred. A film star was being interviewed, and neither the interviewer nor the film star spoke. I haven't enjoyed an
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