Television

Big business

Alexander Chancellor

Iremember one of the shareholders in TV-am telling me how pleased he was that Mr Greg Dyke had been appointed its editor. This was after the Peter Jay debacle when it looked as if ITV's first experiment in breakfast television was heading for ruin. The shareholder was pleased about Mr Dyke's appointment not because he thought he would improve the quality of the programme but for the opposite reason. There was nobody, he said, more vulgar than Mr Dyke. He would be sure to find the lowest common denominator of public taste and aim the programme at it. There was thus a decent chance that TV-am might eventually make money, which was after all what mattered most to those who had in- vested in it.

Mr Dyke appears to have been living up to his promise. This week it was announced that for the first time ITV's Good Morning Britain had overtaken the BBC's Breakfast Time in the ratings. The average numbwg viewers for TV-am is now 1.5 million first pared with 1.4 million for the BBCthem in a remarkable achievement by Mr iSme time

the disastrous early days of TV-I, the th at

Mr Jay and his colleagues still Iv Richards. vaguely improving role, it coulo_wershi,. iar, more than a couple of hund mar.,'

the viewers. Nevertheless, M

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resigned. It seems that actually, spin- managers, brought in by A Kerry Packer, believe the Rh my old friend yet vulgar enough. They c njamin, looking at

why money should be wsandwiches, as we things like reporting wh -ast. We finished up be kept perfectly hamampstead Heath. studio chit-chat. It

found his sticking-point. So perhaps now is a good moment to look at his achievement. The BBC had done its best with

Breakfast Time to satisfy the lowest of tastes. It had stolen the current television pin-up, Selena Scott, from ITN and teamed her up with the cosily familiar Frank Bough, who had been well known previous- ly as a presenter of sports programmes. And in the person of the astrologer Russell Grant, it had introduced a personality of such unspeakable vulgarity that half the na- tion was mesmerised. But Mr Dyke did bet- ter. TV-am is now the programme of Roland Rat and Kevin the gerbil, of `Rusty', the loud-mouthed black cook, of `Wincey', the talkative weather girl, and of `Mad Lizzy', the hysterical PT instructress. Its presenters — in particular pert little Anne Diamond — are younger and cheerier and more flirtatious than those on the BBC. Perhaps TV-am has finally found the secret of the elusive 'sexual chemistry' which David Frost said was so important. However hard it tries, the BBC cannot avoid a certain worthiness and datedness. If the Breakfast Time studio feels a bit like a well-appointed British Railways waiting- room, that of Good Morning Britain is more like an airport lounge. For all these blessings we have Mr Dyke to thank.

Whenever a series of Dallas comes to an end, the producers go to extravagant lengths to ensure that we do not forget about the programme during the empty months ahead. In what now seems to be a tradition, the last series ended on Tuesday with a murder. In this case the victim was Bobby Ewing, who appears to have been shot by mistake in place of his brother J.R. There were at least four people who had become sufficiently consumed with hatred for J.R. during the space of half an hour to be considered possible suspects. They are very unstable, the characters in Dallas. Most of the time they put up quite calmly with J.R.'s unspeakable behaviour; then all of a sudden they become deranged, take guns out of drawers and set off to murder him. What gives the programme its ballast is their materialism. However emotionally unstable they may be, they are at least con- sistent in the priority over all other things which they give to money and property. The most moving moment in the last episode came when a white-haired tycoon ca"ed Clayton revealed to Miss Ellie, his

( tiled and J.R.'s mother, that when his ter had burnt down his house he had upset that 'I never even turned in an claim'. 'Oh Clayton,' replied . her eyes filling with tears.

', John Pilger found a genuinely Abject for a television pro- war between Coca-cola and domination of the world's et. It went out on ITV on the unfortunate title of li much less tendentious Spink & Son L ioned to have won the con- 1 ',old bores who run the Tel' 01-93" 7888hich struck me as a sur-

0 1 But Mr Pilger without a cause is a rather plodding performer. He attempted a light-hearted approach which he couldn't bring off. I think he should perhaps go back to El Salvador.