Postscript
Beeb boob
P. J. Kavanagh
when I first heard dark murmurs that the BBC had 'lost its way' and should be put into private hands, I was dismayed. I was brought up under its insignia, as it were (my father worked for it, as a script-writer, and in those war-time days all employees wore the BBC badge, for security reasons), and I have always viewed it with affection and respect.
Then I remembered that in the 1950s my father was a keen lobbyist for the introduc- tion of commercial television, thereby earn- ing much Corporation disfavour, and some disfavour from me. I was a youthful in- tellectual snob, and I put it to him that we would get a television equivalent of Radio Luxembourg. He seemed to think this was no bad thing, was against all monopolies on principle, in his view competition would sharpen-up the BBC, at least double the op- portunities of work for actors, directors and people like himself and, anyway, if people wanted brash, empty programmes, why shouldn't they have them? People also wanted excellence and a commercial net- work might in the end provide programmes that were better than the BBC's.
So his argument ran, as I remember it, and 30 years later it is hard to say that he
was wrong. True, the ITV Top Ten reads like a cheerful NAAFI concert — Coronation Street, This is Your Life, Name the Tune, etc — but why not? They are on the whole very professional programmes, most people are flaked-out by the time they come home, the BBC Top Ten is not markedly different (though with smaller viewing-figures) and ITV occasionally comes up with things that are spectacularly good. But does, of late, the BBC?
Perhaps it does. I am not a professional television critic but an occasional viewer, like most of us, and my impression is that it does not. Whereas I have noticed that ITV puts on things like The Jewel in the Crown, an adaptation of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, which it is hard to fault.
Perhaps I have been put into a bad temper by the cover of this week's Radio Times. It consists of a large picture of Dr Kildare dressed up as a cardinal above the caption 'The Piety and the Passion'. Anybody who can't see anything wrong with that is past saving. An essay historical, theological, etymological, socio- logical — could be written disentangling the different strands of its rubbishy silliness. Heaven knows what it is advertising (not only a bodice-ripper but a surplice-ripper as well, presumably) but it stares up at me every time I pass through the room, from the cover of the house-organ of the BBC. In general this is a good, readable magazine, to which 1 am sometimes invited to con- tribute. I seem yet again to be arguing myself out of a source of income. Never- theless, what is that phrase doing there? Has the BBC indeed 'lost its way'?
Strangely enough, Alasdair Milne, the new DG, by background and conviction is just the sort of man whom Lord Reith's shoes ought to fit. There are signs that when he does involve himself directly with a programme (as perhaps in the launch of BBC breakfast TV, but I am guessing) it hits the right note from the start. Did he sharply draw in his breath, through shut teeth, when he saw the cover of the Radio Times? But he must have authorised the project. (All right, I've looked. The phrase refers to The Thornbirds. I haven't seen it, not with that marquee slogan, life is too short. But the author of the original book is reported to be unhappy.) Another strange thing strikes me: if that phrase had appeared on the cover of the TV Times it might still have advertised a good programme. In the tradition of the hustings it might be giving a titillating come-on to a product that was, in fact, quite good. Whereas when the BBC says things like that we know, because of a lingering Reithian honesty in the organisation, that the pro- duct is at least as bad as the come-on sug- gests. It is the worst side of the old tradition that remains, a patronising disdain: if 'they' want rubbish, let 'them' have it. Meanwhile ITV puts on The Jewel in the Crown. . ..To be repeated on Channel 4, that excellent off-shoot of commercialism which I hope to write in praise of soon because it is about time someone did.
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