Starting the Annan debate
Grace Wyndham Goldie
So the great broadcasting debate has begun. Last week in the Lords: this week in the Commons. Lord Willis, in the Lords, dismissed Lord Annan's two and a half years' work (and an expenditure of £40,000) as a production of an academic mafia: 'this pestilence of professors who keep telling us how to run our business'. The Leader of the Tories, Lord Carrington, not surprisingly since the Conservative Party has never made any secret of the fact that its main interest in broadcasting is an extension of commercialism, thought that the 'fourth channel' should go to the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Lord Winstanley, for the Liberals, said nothing in particular, blowing a little hot and a little cold . . . Britain had a system of controlled broadcasting which was the envy of the world. . . it should be left alone. . . Yet if a fourth TV channel was to get on the air 'in the present economic climate' it would have to be commercial.
Do we, however, need a fourth TV channel at all? And, if so, why not wait until the 'economic climate' justifies the extra expenditure? The noble Lord did not raise these questions. One wonders whether the Lord actually thought about them.
But the real mystery of the debate was what on earth Lord Harris of Greenwich, speaking for the Government, meant to convey. This is of crucial importance. The Home Office has already invited comments on the Annan report from a number of those likely to be specially canvassed and wants their replies by 1 July, presumably with a view to preparing legislation. It might have been thought that Lord Harris, since legislation is imminent, would have given some indication of the Government's thinking. But Lord Harris was studiously fog-bound: the structural changes recommended by the Annan Committee were not the only others available, and there were other possibilities the Government would wish to consider. But he did not divulge what these possibilities were. He was silent about the only official Labour Party broadcasting policy yet made public (published in The People and the Media three years ago and never repudiated) which amounts to abolishing both the BBC and the IBA and putting in their place totally new organisations and totally new controls of the Party's own devising. Does this pamphlet still represent the Labour Party's broadcasting policy? Those involved in broadcasting would like to know. And every viewer and voter surely ought to be told.
It is impossible, apparently, to get a clear answer from the Labour Party. In a recent
discussion in the BBC's Tonight programme I put the question to Anthony Wedgwood Senn. He hedged. With skill and charm, but nevertheless he hedged: there were many things to consider, he said, and there was a good deal of time yet. I put the same question in a radio discussion to Phillip Whitehead, the Labour Member of Parliament who was a member of the Annan Committee and also a member of the Committee of the Labour Party responsible for The People and the Media. He did not hedge: he was personally not now in favour of the policy outlined in that document. But still the Labour Party, in the shape of Lord Harris, keeps its options open and says nothing definite about his Party's formal proposal which would change the whole nature of radio and television broadcasting in this country.
Perhaps it is wrong to grumble. Perhaps the politicians are not merely entrenched in their established position; perhaps it is not true that what we will see on our screens and hear on our radios will be determined simply by the decisions of whatever political party happens to be in power when the final die is cast; perhaps politicians are really thinking about the points Annan has made. For he, and his Committee, clearly have given thought to the problems and possibilities of broadcasting. Their views have not been lightly arrived at. Their analysis of the structures and the work, the achievements and the failings of the BBC and of independent broadcasters is brilliantly set before us. The whole report ought to be compulsory reading for anyone who is tempted to express the easy generalities about broadcasting in which so many of us indulge. If Annan has come out in favour of the retention of the BBC and the IBA it is not because this is an easy option. In a lifetime spent in broadcasting I have never seen the issues so thoroughly examined, so many obvious alternatives so faily considered and so convincingly rejected. I do not myself agree with his suggested innovations: his new Authority for local radio or his plans for an Open Broadcasting Authority to run the fourth channel. But his arguments are worth taking seriously and should be treated with more respect than the current debates about his report have revealed.
The debates on the air have scarcely been more helpful than the debates in Parliament. The most illuminating, in my view, was a radio 'phone-in with Lord Annan answering impromptu questions from listeners. He did this kindly and considerately but seemed to be shaken, as I was myself, by the passionate desire of so many listeners to retain at all costs their own local radio as they now receive it. The debates. and more 'phone-ins of this kind, should continue.
The Home Office makes things difficult by charging £7.50 for a copy of Annan, even to those from whom it asks for considered comment. And meanwhile some sections of the Press have fun with 'scandals' about the BBC suppressing an internal report condemning some of its top-heavy and restrictive administrative practices. I am sure the reports of internal resentments are true. I've often been vituperative about such practices myself. Perhaps the BBC is too slow in making administrative changes. Perhaps my Past furies and other people's present ones are a necessary part of the process of change. with the they are insignificant when compared wir" the great issues which are raised by Anri.ar: and the future of broadcasting. This pool; was made last week in the Lords by 1-°r" Wigg. He said that there was no free televi' sion: every programme had to be paid for by somebody. Was it doing the job the country needed doing? It was a medium °I infinite power. Its influence was seen in the Vietnam war. If it had been available in the 1914-18 war it would have stopped that giard in its tracks. The power of it is infinite and we have only begun to scratch at it. We oniY use it to amuse ourselves. It is God-given; We can use it to enlighten ourselves of w1/4' can use it to destroy ourselves. After that statement in the Lords 011 Friday there was little for the Commons trio add on the following Monday. They add that little at some length. Mr Willi': Whitelaw, the shadow Home Secretor): repeated Lord Windlesham's assurance' that Conservative broadcasting policy On.sisted of giving the IBA the fourth tele: sion channel. Mr Merlyn Rees, the Home Secretary, repeated Lord Harris refusal to give any precise information about the broadcasting policy of the Labour Party. (led He said that the Government need time to consider its proposed legislation ati,, that he wanted to hear the views of public on such matters as the future f. broadcasting and the use of the fourth tee vision channel. And how much time does give the public for the expression 0'itS „Te views? A month, and only a month. announced that 'the period of consul 0 on the report' would end 'at the beginillsg of July'. To be precise, on July 1st. takes two and a half .years to eu sider the future of broadcasting, and sPen A £40,000, and we are to digest all this aO .1.1
give our views in a month at our expense. ow
We've been asked for our opinions. And the step might be to demand of our Members Parliament a statement of their ownbr°ad Y casting policies and that of the parties the for support. And what their reasons are their backing of what policies. That, at 1' would be a start.
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