Measure F or Measure
I WANT to go back over the viewer-research ground, well-trampled though it has recently been, because there are still two prevalent mis- conceptions: one, that research figures, such as those which Associated Rediffusion proudly presented in a full-page advertisement in The Times a few days ago, are bogus; the other, that the verdict of the figures should be final.
The figures that TAM—Television Audience Measurement — have produced are un- doubtedly startling. They show that since AR abandoned the attempt to preserve a balance between the serious and the frivolous in their programmes, in order to concentrate on mass entertainment, they have virtually squeezed the BBC out of the evening market. The only BBC show still attracting half the available viewers What's My Line? and that is After peak hours. Not even the Grove family get a 50 per cent, audience from viewers who can choose; and poor Pickles gets only 20 per cent.
It is widely believed, however, that these figures arc untrustworthy; either because they differ from those provided by rival audience measurement concerns,, or because TAM's method, which consists of attaching a meter to a few—a very few—individual sets, is un- satisfactory. But the figures do not really vary : the differences are easily explained (though it would take too long to give the explanation here). And TAM have found that when coinci- dental checks have been applied, by other research methods, the figures so closely resemble those provided by the meter system that it is safe to assume that those published in The Times are substantially correct.
When I was discussing the meter method 'a few weeks ago, I complained that it did • not show whether TV was actually being seen. A set may be left on for convenience throughout the evening, even though some of the time nobody is watching. 1 have since been assured that there are several checks. One, not yet applied in this country, is to attach leads from the meter to the door of the refrigerator, and the taps and chain in the bathroom. TAM are perfecting a push-button which indicates whether the performance is being watched. Admittedly the method cannot tell the inten- sity of viewing: whether the performance is being watched with interest and delight, or whether the hold of the programmes is merely compulsive—like a street accident. But in general, it is safe to assume that ARTV and ATV are 'giving the public what it wants.'
All very right and democratic, is the first reaction. But is it? A few weeks ago a writer in the Birmingham Mail summed up exactly all that is wrong in this devotion to the mass appeal. The new television, he said, when it hit Birmingham, would be 'keenly attuned to public needs' by 'a proper regard for audience research figures.' which would ensure that 'Birmingham will get the items which scientific research shows the majority of people want. If that is unfortunate for the minority, this is a democratic age, and the minority is that sec- tion of the electorate which has lost. It is still • free countr), and the minority is free not to switch on' Have you seen anything quite so nauseating? The test of a democracy is not that it secures the consent of the majority— many a ruthless dictator has been able to .do that—but that it protects the interests of the minorities. Where there are only one or two channels of communication, therefore, the State has to intervene to provide minorities with safeguards. Otherwise there would be no serious programmes at all. That was what the Independent Television Authority was set up to do, and what it has failed to do. From the News Chronicle I learn that in thirty hours of Midland programmes, only half an hour will be serious; at 10 p.m. on Thursdays Professor Maurice Goldsmith will introduce a science magazine 'to meet the family interest created by science fiction.' The Halld Orchestra is rejected as too highbrow; music-lovers are to be given Mantovani. And all the 1TA can say when asked about the broad acres of drivel promised by the Midland programmes is, 'Basically, we think they arc off to a remark- able start.' Remarkable indeed!
In London the picture is equally gloomy. What is Norman Collins up to? He was intended as the head of ATV : in fact he was put in to keep Val Parnell out. The ITA felt rightly that Val Parnell had too large a finger in the show-business pie, and that he would regard television not as a medium to be developed but as a cow to be milked. When the Observer suggested some weeks ago that Val Parnell had slipped in at the back door, the ITA angrily denied the charge. Now Norman Collins has left the production side altogether, The justification is that Mr. Collins will now be able to devote more time to matters of company and television policy— in other words, that he will have time to find justifications for ATV's outrageous flouting of the TV Act. This is exactly what he is doing. He has recently, foe example, made the grotesque suggestion that there is hardly any difference between commercial television and BBC television ! No doubt he will wake up. some time, and then the sparks will fly.
The commercial television drama producers have resigned, too : they now find that there is to be no drama to produce. Commercial tele- vision, in fact, is going exactly the way its opponents said it would and its backers promised it would not. Those of us who sup- ported it in its early stages have nothing left to do but penance.
BRIAN INGLIS
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