Television
Explicit
Richard Ingrams
I am warning readers in advance that mY column next week could be a little out of the ordinary in the sense that it may have nothing at all to do with television. This will be due to the fact that both channels are devoting almost all their broadcasting time to the World Cup. The situation is indeed sn bad that at some points exactly the same football matches will be shown at exactly the same time on both BBC and ITV. . It is easy to cry a plague on both their houses. However I have no doubt myself that the prime responsibility for this disgraceful state of affairs must lie with the BBC who were offered the opportunity bY ITV to work out a system of sharing the coverage but refused. They also refused to provide a spokesman on Look Here, a new LWT programme the aim of which is to give viewers a chance to air their grievances and which kicked off with a fine attack on the World Cup fiasco, pinpointing what lies behind the BBC's bloody-mindedness, namely their ruthless pursuit of ratings figures at the expense of quality. The absence of a World Cup spokesman was remarkable as the head of BBC's Variety Department, a quite undistinguished man called Ted Hughes, had already put in an appearance on the show. They could hardlY say they were boycotting the programme just because it was on the other channel. To demonstrate their impartiality Look Here allowed a very sensible woman called Mrs Evans to launch into People Like Us (LWT) for showing unnecessarily explicit sex scenes at a time when children were watching.
The apologia provided by the producer, bearded polo-necked character called James Brabazon, contained a number of interesting points. According to the Beard it is written in the IBA charter that great writers of the past have dealt with violent passions, sex etc, ergo the Beard and his colleagues reason it is quite OK for People Like Us to do the same. This argument is of course based on a fallacy. Great writers have indeed run the gamut, but they have on the whole done so without being at all explicit, to use our modern word. 'Physical detail of any kind', Hugh Kingsmill wiselY observed, 'is most sparingly used 10 imaginative literature.' It also emerged that according to the IBA book of rules it 1.5 assumed that children do not watch television after 9 p.m. and that if they do it is parents to realise that they are then in what Brabazon called 'an adult situation'. seems unnecessary to dwell on the unsatisfactory nature of this reply. To my surprlse Look Here actually produced some quite outspoken comment: I hope it will survive. An hour-long Bank Holiday tribute to Bob Hope seemed a good idea but when I started to think about it I realised it would Only be a lot of ageing Hollywood stars going on about what a wonderful human being Bob is, how much work he has done for charity etc etc. Instead! decided to have a good sneer at Parky who was introducing a collage of his interviews with famous women. With about one exception these all turned out to be actresses. I don't find Parky quite as offensive as Harty but his obsequiousness to members of the acting profession is fairly nauseating. One almost always feels that he is just gratifying a selfish wish to meet a particular film star rather than trying to provide something of interest. Diana Rigg or Glenda Jackson, let's face it, have nothing much to tell us about the human condition and it doesn't do them any good to make them think otherwise.
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