Political Commentary
TV and RPM
By DAVID WATT The second point needs a little explanation. The difficulty is not simply that the politicians outnumbered the TV men by seven to five on the committee. Nor is it a question of election law. The committee itself has no legal authority what- ever and is simply, as one of its members re- marked to me, `a matter of convenience.' Strictly speaking, the ITA and the BBC can do what they please providing they maintain `due impartiality' in a series of programmes ('considered as a whole') and providing they display an agreed number of party political broadcasts. The real trouble is that the BBC at present finds itself in a vulnerable political situation, under heavy fire from all sides, and the ITV companies are just feeling their way forward under a new Act which gives increased powers to the ITA under a new (political) boss, Lord Hill.
In these conditions the telly tycoons are at immense pains to cover themselves and reduce the possibility of subsequent controversy to an absolute minimum. The question still remains, however, whether they are doing more than they, need. Politicians have, of course, power to de- termine the number of party political broadcasts and in any case most pundits (and viewers no doubt) would agree that the reduction from ninety minutes to seventy-five for the two major parties which they have announced is an im- provement.
Nor could anyone else but a politician decide Whether to take up the BBC's offer of 'con- frontation' programmes or not. The masterly Paragraph in the committee's final statement implying that everyone was absolutely willing to take part in these confrontations but was re- strained by high-minded consideration for the Companies, the constitution and the public is, of course, a phoney; and the previous draft (un- Published) which stated that the reasons were (a) the difficulty of having more than two Party representatives at a time and (b) 'the difficulty of the Opposition participants being too closely identified with particular departments' was not much less disingenuous. The truth was that Wil- son wanted to meet Home but didn't want to have his ancient and vulnerable 'shadow'
ministers exposed to massacre by well-briefed incumbents. Home didn't see why he should give Wilson a free public ride unless in return he was allowed to establish his claim that Labour is a 'one man band.'
All this is good, clean fun. But it is difficult to see where the committee got its authority to lay down ground rules in the statement for news coverage, and for regional programmes during the election period. Still less can there be any basis for the discussion which took place earlier this year within the committee (and of which there is no mention in the statement) about what should become of the BBC's regular political programmes. The BBC maintains stolidly for public consumption that this is not yet decided. Nevertheless, the politicians were given very clearly to understand that Panorama would continue but would be 'largely concerned with world affairs' and that Gallery and Tonight would be suspended in order, it was said, to free technicians for other election programmes. What worries and enrages many television men, not to mention the 'freedom-of-the-air' brigade in Par- liament, is the notion that all television pro- grammes dealing with the election should be forcibly treated as a strict contest while news- papers are recognised by all as being capable of treating an election (even if they do not always choose to do so) as something to be discussed and reported like anything else.
All this stems frOm a particular view about the possible effects of TV upon the masses. Mr. Wilson remarked revealingly not long ago that 'Tonight is Labour, Panorama is Conservative and Gallery is fair.' He is not alone. Practically every Conservative regards the entire BBC as a nest of reds. Both extremes of fear stem from the same fundamentally arrogant underestima- tion of the voters. It is perhaps worth reminding the politicians of what is said by the standard authority on the subject, Television and the Political Image by the late Joseph Trenaman and Mr. Denis McQuail. These two sociologists, analysing in enormous depth the 1959 campaign in two Leeds constituencies, came to a reluctant conclusion. They found that TV had a significant effect on the knowledge and understanding of lectors but that it was the universal rule that 'the electorate was not influenced directly in its voting or political attitudes either by the amount of the campaign to which it was exposed or to the presence or absence of any part or virtually all of it.'
If Mr. Heath's Bill to restrict (not, connois- seurs will note, to abolish) resale price main- tenance had been prepared, expounded and presented at almost any other time during the last four and a half years or in any other way it would now be receiving a very different recep- tion at Westminster. It is, in fact, a very skilful piece of tightrope-walking, not to say sleight-of- hand. It mollifies the shopkeeper by laying down rather loosely worded criteria for being per- mitted to retain r.p.m, which will cover the three most vociferous opponents of the Bill, chemists, garage proprietors and tobacconist-confectioners. It ostensibly protects the small man from the undercutting activities of large stores which sell at or below cost, and it makes manufacturers happy by allowing them to continue to dictate minimum prices to retailers until their cases are heard by the Restrictive Practices Court—up to two years, perhaps. Last, but not least, it soothes a lot of Tory back-benchers by postponing the real 'bite' in the Bill until after the general election.
Nevertheless, it conceals some very drastic implications behind this smiling front. The fact that the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that his dictation of prices to retailers is not against the public interest is vitally important. For with the onus this way, the very wideness of the criteria laid down (which so delights the op- ponents of the Bill) in fact becomes a fearful liability to them. It is going to be very difficult _indeed, for example, for a tobacco manufac- turer's counsel to prove not only that aboliShing r.p.m. would substantially reduce the number of tobacconists, but also that the reduction of the number of tobacconists is more important than the reduction in the price of cigarettes.
in short, the Bill will have the immediate and desirable effect to which Mr. Heath com- mitted himself last month and it ought, logically, to keep the 'modernisers' happy. Equally, because it is subtly drawn and leaves so much to the discretion of the court, Tory back-benchers who want to defend the small man but don't want to rock the party boat ought to have just enough excuses and reassurances to dish out to the pressure groups in their constituencies when they vote for the Bill. And yet the fact remains that because of Heath's tactics and the jitters caused by the election, both these groups are completely alienated.
The reformers are disgruntled because of the genuine douceurs in the Bill and because they cannot present it, in the absence of monopolies legislation, as part of a comprehensive modern- ising scheme. At the same time, the centre and right wings have been profoundly upset by the lack of rreparation, by what they regard as Mr. Heath's arrogance and by being pestered by their constituents just before the election. Reasonably impartial observers present at the meeting of back-benchers on Tuesday say that the at- mosphere had not been so frigid at a party meet- ing during this Parlianient. Mr. Heath's courage and tenacity are not doubted even by opponents, and as one admirer remarked, 'A little adversity won't do Ted airy harm,' but, nevertheless, the image of the ex-Chief Whip with the UHF politi- cal antenrne has been tarnished, and the fact may not be qui:I ly forgotten.
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