Kenneth
Roy's
Week

For the BBC, ping-pong is now the priority

On Tuesday morning around 7, I got out of bed and turned to BBC1 in the expectation of seeing the latest pictures from Gori and hearing about the bloody annexing of one fifth of a European nation. Instead I found myself watching an extended item about ping-pong. With an irritated flick of the control, I switched to BBC2 where I assumed the news had been shunted – there to find cartoons. Unbelievably, the inanities of the Olympics and the perceived requirement to keep our hyperactive children amused had pushed the war in Europe from both the terrestrial channels of our publicly funded broadcaster. If this were typical, you would have to ask: what is the point of publicly funding such pap? The next question: is it typical?
     The BBC is less repellent in character than the agency which employs intimidation to collect the licence fee; if ever an organisation deserved to be closed down in disgrace it is the TV Licensing Authority. But nor should anybody be fooled by Auntie's benign persona. Having survived surprisingly long in its employment, I can testify to its corporate ruthlessness and stupidity. My friend Ian Mackenzie, a producer of quirky innovation, told me once that the only way he was able to turn up for work was to pretend to himself that he was working his notice; he continued to work his notice for 20 years. He was one of many brave, creative individuals who somehow succeeded in making brave, creative programmes, subversively, while the politbureau's back was turned. Such people do not seem to exist in the BBC any longer or, if they do, they are reduced to manufacturing the mindless fodder which masquerades as popular television.
     The crass scheduling of the Olympics on mainstream channels, sacrificing news and current affairs for the Beijing circus, is no silly season aberration, just an extreme case of the BBC's relaxed view of its public responsibilities. To invoke Reithian principles which emphasised the importance of information and education is to risk sounding pretty ridiculous these days, but it is not too late to lament the general loss of credibility, the selling out to market forces. The management which is bringing us ping-pong and boxing for breakfast this week is also the management which destroyed the single play, once so vital to our national life that it influenced legislation on homelessness. It is the management which largely confines religious broadcasting, once a valuable forum for discussion on spirituality and ethics, to the saccharine Songs of Praise, as if that adequately addressed our deepest needs as human beings. The same management killed off the Nine O'Clock News on BBC1, relegating the main news to a slot an hour later when most working people are thinking of bed, and extinguishing any remaining hope that the BBC would emulate Channel 4 with its own, better resourced news and current affairs hour in mid-evening. These are examples which pain me personally. There are, of course, many others.
     ITV has been unable to compete with the BBC's relentless plunge downmarket. The BBC has lots and lots of lovely loot – ours – to waste on all sorts of unnecessary schemes, including the presence of 400 of its staff in China for the best part of a month, while the commercial channel has to make do with diminishing advertising revenue in a crowded market. It is an extremely uneven contest. ITV is now officially rated by the City as a junk product; if only BBC Television were subject to the same rigorous scrutiny. Unless the BBC returns to its roots, putting quality first, there must be a case for diverting a share of the licence fee to ITV.

[click here] for How I failed to qualify: Islay McLeod's midweek photo feature in St Andrews