Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls,
I’m acutely aware that I owe you a podgram and a new blessay. It’s been weeks and possibly months since I last offered you anything.
The thing is, I’ve just returned from America, having finished an epic documentary series on every single state. Having arrived back in Britain, I have hit the ground running and have spent the past eight weeks writing a book on the series plus I’ve been filming a new series of QI here in London.
In the meantime I gave a speech about the BBC and the future of broadcasting recently and for the moment, what I spoke about is all I can offer you. Please stay tuned for in the coming weeks I will have a new podgram plus news on exciting developments for the next version of Stephenfry.com.
The Future of Public Service Broadcasting
Some thoughts
Stephen Fry
Before I can even think to presume to dare to begin to expatiate on what sort of an organism I think the British Broadcasting Corporation should be, where I think the BBC should be going, how I think it and other British networks should be funded, what sort of programmes it should make, develop and screen and what range of pastries should be made available in its cafés and how much to the last penny it should pay its talent, before any of that, I ought I think in justice to run around the games field a couple of times puffing out a kind of “The BBC and Me” mini-biography, for like many of my age, weight and shoe size, the BBC is deeply stitched into my being and it is important for me as well as for you, to understand just how much. Only then can we judge the sense, value or otherwise of what I am saying.
It all began with sitting under my mother’s chair aged 2 as she (teaching history at the time) marked essays. It was then that the Archers theme tune first penetrated my brain, never to leave. The voices of Franklin Engelman going Down Your Way, the women of the Petticoat Line, the panellists of Twenty Questions, Many A Slip, My Word and My Music, all these solid middle class Radio 4 (or rather Home Service at first) personalities populated my world. As I visited other people’s houses and, aged 7 by now, took my own solid state transistor radio off to boarding school with me, I was made aware of The Light Programme, now Radio 2, and Sparky’s Magic Piano, Puff the Magic Dragon and Nelly the Elephant, I also began a lifelong devotion to radio comedy as Round The Horne, The Clithero Kid, I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, Just A Minute, The Men from The Ministry and Week Ending all made themselves known to me.
This was a world in which the BBC had a cosy and almost complete monopoly of radio. There were things called pirate radio ships, about which Richard Curtis has just written a feature film I believe, and these gave rise to Radio 1 and a whole generation of disk jockeys, but this was pop music, something that frightened and upset me then and frightens and upsets me now. That’s not generational, I’m from an entirely pop-literate, pop-loving generation, it is personal. For me comedy was all I wanted, whether in the surreal world of Goon Show reruns, the insinuendo-laden filth of Kenneths Williams and Horne, or in the grown up wit of Frank Muir and Dennis Norden. Many of the names that meant so much to me are now all but forgotten by the general public: Steve Race, Ian Wallace, Anthony Quinton, John Ebden, James Cameron, Kenneth Robinson. And in the past few years a cruel swathe has been cut through the once lush grass of great radio personalities: Alastair Cooke, Linda Smith, John Peel, David Hatch, Ned Sherrin, Alan Coren and finally, I was only yesterday at the funeral of the great Humphrey Lyttleton. Maybe this cruel swathe will be used as an excuse radically to reinvent radio. Radio 4 in particular is radically reinvented every five years or so, fortunately with no result whatever. Radical reinvention is not something that comes naturally to the British institutional mind. Indeed if you have an institutional mind, a change of stationery is seismic and upsetting enough to qualify as root and branch restructuring. Thus, altering the time slot of Woman’s Hour, allowing Gardeners’ Question Time to be independently produced and other such cosmic storms have constituted the radical and fundamental changes to Radio 4 that have allowed it slowly to evolve over the decades, matching and paralleling its core audience and providing a service so incomparable in its variety and quality as to be an actual reason for some to live in Britain. But it is ‘only’ radio: necessary to its survival has been the fact that the Associated Press, media tycoons and the political classes don’t care that much about it. Thus it has thrived. Thriven. Throven. Bethrived. I have to turn now to TV.
I may have grown up just as the Golden Age of Radio had passed, but the Golden Age of Television, that grew with me. When I was 7 my parents moved house. Well, we all moved house as a family, I don’t mean my parents left me behind, though who would blame them if they had? We owned, in those days, a television that disguised itself as a mahogany drinks cabinet, in the way they did – and they were never called just televisions, by the way, they were television sets. This one’s screen was, of course, black and white, it boasted one channel, the BBC (what we’d now call BBC1) and had a knurled volume knob in dark brown Bakelite. The set smelled the way dust always did when it was cooked on Mullard valves as they warmed up. It slid about on castors and had doors that closed with a satisfactory snick as a ball bearing rolled into its slots to secure it. The week before we moved, the BBC started a new drama, starring William Hartnell. An old man, whose name appeared to be Grandfather or the Doctor, had a police phone box of the kind we saw in the street all the time in those days. It turned out to be a magical and unimaginably wonderful time machine. My brother and I watched this drama in complete amazement. The first ever episode of Doctor Who. I had never been so excited in all my life. A whole week to wait to watch the next instalment. Never have seven days crawled so slowly by, for all that they involved a complicated house move from Buckinghamshire to Norfolk. A week later, in that new house, my brother and I turned on the good old television set in its new sitting room, ready to watch Episode 2. The TV had been damaged in transit and was never to work again. We missed that episode and nothing that has transpired in my life since has ever, or could ever, make up for that terrible, terrible disappointment. There is an empty space inside me that can never be filled. It is amazing neither of us were turned into psychopathic serial killers from that moment.
The years passed and brought with them for children Blue Peter, every Oliver Postgate from Noggin the Nog to Ivor the Engine by the way of the Clangers and Bagpuss. Mr Benn, Play School, Play Away, Rent-a-Ghost, Grange Hill and the Multi Coloured Swap Shop. How lucky our generation was. How spoiled. ITV played its part, of course it did, with Magpie and How and much else. This was a period of revolutionary drama from directors and writers such as Alan Clarke, David Mercer, Kenneth Loach, Mike Leigh, Alan Plater, Michael Apted, Stephen Frears, Dennis Potter. Play of the Month, Play of the Week, Play for Today. Cathy Come Home, Edna The Inebriate Woman, Pennies From Heaven, I Claudius, Tinker Tailor. Popular drama from Z Cars to Colditz. And comedy: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Monty Python, Up Pompeii, The Goodies, Dad’s Army, Dick Emery, Morecambe and Wise, The Likely Lads, The Two Ronnies, Porridge, Reggie Perrin, Fawlty Towers. … ITV gave us Rising Damp, and those definite article ITC adventures from Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner: The Avengers, The Champions, The Adventurer, The Baron, Man in a Suitcase, The Prisoner, The Persuaders, The Protectors and of course The Sweeney and The Professionals. And during this time BBC 2 had arrived and with it Civilisation, The Ascent of Man and the full realisation of its first controller, David Attenborough, as the world’s natural historian.
A succession of progressive, imaginative, tolerant, liberal in the loosest sense, and amiably hands-off TV executives from those legendary BBC Chairmen, Hugh Carleton-Greene and Lord Hill, downwards had created, or presided over, a cultural revolution of astounding depth, variety, imagination and dynamism. And then, just as I was leaving prison, starting simultaneously my period on probation and at University, the way you do, the wind changed and Margaret Thatcher, the new Mary Poppins, descended into Downing Street, with new medicines for us to take, but very few spoonfuls of sugar to help them go down. I am not going to blame her or make political points. The wind had changed and she blew in with it and would one day be blown away by another change. But here she was and fundamental questions were asked, genuinely radical unthinkable thoughts were thought in an age of privatisation and anti-dirigiste, anti-statist conservatism.
The first few years of that long administration in fact changed nothing. Her government was busy with a terrible recession and the Falklands war, fighting miners, that kind of thing. During exactly this time, I left University and began on what, for want of a better word, I shall call my career.
Comedy was my point of entry into television. Comedy had been my rock and roll as a child and now I was allowed to do it for a living. There is an argument that comedy is a greater public service than any other genre of art or culture: it heals divisions, it is a balm for hurt minds, it binds social wounds, exposes real truths about how life is really led. Comedy connects. The history of BBC comedy in particular is almost a register of character types, a social history of the country. Hancock, Steptoe, Mainwaring, Alf Garnett, Basil Fawlty, Baldrick, Victor Meldrew, Alan Partridge, Ali G, David Brent, the matchlessly great General Melchett – it is much harder to list character types from serious drama who have so penetrated the consciousness of the nation and so closely defined the aspirations and failures of successive generations. A public service broadcasting without comedy, is in danger of being regarded as no more than a dumping ground for worthiness. Seriousness is no more a guarantee of truth, insight, authenticity or probity than humour is a guarantee of superficiality and stupidity. Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
Meanwhile, back to history, for a moment. What was happening to broadcasting during the time I was cutting my comedy teeth? In drama, the word “play” had been all but banned. It was Film Four and Screen Two. The multi camera studio drama, such as I Claudius, had become a thing of the past, the way led by Brideshead and other single camera filmed pieces. ‘Yoof’ TV made an appearance thanks to Planet 24 and Janet Street-Porter and the Peacock Report appeared.
The Peacock Report, referred to by broadcast professionals in that way they have, as Peacock, came less than ten years after the Annan Report, which the great Noel, Lord Annan had submitted to parliament in 1977. Annan had been the first to detect a caterpillar in the perfect garden salad of the BBC’s golden age. He thought television as run by ITV and the BBC needed a shake up, it lacked a kind of diversity, plurality and edge, all happily unfamiliar words in those days. For the first time the founding Reithian tenets of authoritative patriarchal broadcasting were challenged: the de haut en bas principle in which the educated producer, presenter, writer knew what was good for the country and for the audience was under fire. The first and most direct result was Channel 4 three or four years later, specifically charged to speak for minorities and sections of society who did not want to be spoon-fed by the supercilious educated classes. The arts and documentaries, drama and comedy were still presented but in a kind of punked up style, all attitude and in-yer-face. TV went from Oxbridge to concrete, missing out red brick altogether. But the words ‘radical’ and ‘reform’ meant something quite different to a new and ideologically fired government and so in 1986 a new report emerged: Peacock.
Here was a report that really delivered a blow to the BBC’s solar plexus. Peacock began to foresee the possibility of digital diversity on an unimagined scale, it also put forward the ideas of a consumer-led, market driven broadcasting world, one in which the very principles of a licence fee funded public service broadcasting system would naturally be seen as obsolete. This suited the tenor of the times: deregulation, privatisation and a rigorous dismantling of the frontiers of the state – it was happening in the city and in industry and the utilities, why not broadcasting? The BBC, long seen as harbouring tendencies and personnel that were socialistic at best, Marxist at worst, was suddenly no longer a secure and unassailable acropolis. It was no secret that Norman Tebbit and some of the more fundamentalist free-marketeers and red-baiters of the administration would have been very happy indeed to dismantle the entire structure of the BBC. Peacock prevaricated and the charter appeared safe, but at a great price. Nothing would ever be the same again, the old certainties were dead and the harsh realities of capitalism arrived at Wood Lane and Portland Place. Whole departments were razed and working practices abolished, and something called an internal market was put in place. Radio Times was outsourced, the permanent make-up staff went, engineers, editors and set-designers were suddenly out of a job. Twenty-five percent of the BBC’s output was commanded to be produced from outside sources and a whole new independent sector was born. Companies like Hat Trick and Talk Back achieved almost instant success. Peter Bazalgette, who had been a typical BBC producer, starting life as a That’s Life researcher, then making Food and Drink and other such innocent programmes, started on the path that would lead him to Endemol and unimagined reach and riches. Men and women who had spent their whole lives dreaming up formats and broadcasting ideas as part of their job, suddenly had those ideas outside BBC premises, in their own time, because producers could now become entrepreneurs. There was money to be made and such a thing as loyalty to this new BBC was now a preposterous idea. The smell of Hugh Wheldon’s pipe smoke and tweed was finally expelled from every office, every corridor and every meeting room in the BBC. But at least the charter was safe, the licence fee was safe and the radio stations and the World Service and the general face and form of the BBC were safe and familiar. There was still Blue Peter and the Cup Final and Only Fools and Horses. The spinning globe and the logo were outsourced to Lambie Nairn, but the Beeb was still alive. David Attenborough and Bristol continued to make outstanding natural history programmes, the BAFTAs and Emmys continued to roll in for the innovative new drama and comedy.
And now … well, we know what has happened since. Satellite, digital TV, Freeview and now Freesat, the Internet and mobile telephony, BBC iPlayer for the iPhone, Mac and PC, a plethora of outlets so vast, complicated and fast-moving that audience numbers for traditional TV have plummeted. 3 million is now considered a good rating for a BBC 1 drama. Meanwhile of course ITV has morphed into a new kind of entity, more answerable to shareholders than ever before and Channel 4, always an uneasy hybrid of public duty ideals and free market commercialism, is finding it hard not to descend to freak show documentaries: “The Man With a Nose Growing Out of His Bottom”, “The Girl With Fourteen Nipples” and that kind of embarrassment for all concerned. So much so that C4’s very existence and right to continue is being questioned.
And we have a BBC that broadcasts through four major adult channels and a number of cb bb bb cb children’s channels, it has a news channel, a parliamentary channel, an HD channel (on which you will be able to watch this on Saturday!!!) . It also has a news channel in the form of its news.bbc.co.uk website, one of the most popular in the world. It has the iPlayer on its site too, streaming content to UK users only. But hell, there’s ways round that. Streaming? Hardly: anything that can be played on your computer can be stored on it and shared. A digital copy is a perfect copy. Once on the net it’s out there and will be bit torrented and Limewired and Gnutella-ed and otherwise P2P distributed. The BBC is making a lot of enemies giving away free programmes to an internet that everyone else is trying to “monetise”; at the moment it’s relying on the fact that you have to be slightly dorky to record from the iPlayer, but believe me that will change. It will soon be the work of a moment for my mother to get an iPlayer programme off her computer and onto her iPod, iPhone, or whatever device she chooses. In its digital doings, from interactivity through to HD and online resources, the BBC has been pretty much in the forefront of development, but also in the forefront of annoying those without its advantages.
Meanwhile I have continued to enjoy a happy career as actor, performer, broadcaster documentary maker and now, with an independent production company of my own, producer, so it is clear that I have had nothing to complain about: the old system was easy for my benighted Oxbridge self and the new system has worked for me too. I may be white and middle class, but hey, I’m gay and Jewish, so all kinds of minority compliance boxes are ticked by my very presence, aren’t they? Well do gay and Jewish don’t count as minorities in this business? Do you remember that scene in Mel Brooks’s To Be Or Not To Be. He and his wife Anne Bancroft play, if you remember, a theatrical couple in Poland at the outbreak of the war. As the Nazis move in more members if his company get taken away. One day his wife’s rather camp dresser, Sasha disappears. Brooks’s character really loses it. He slams his palm into his fist. ‘Enough is enough. First the Jews, then the gypsies, now the faggots. Don’t they realise that without Jews, gypsies and faggots there’s no such thing as show business?’
Anyway the point is … The point is I have of course, a kind of vested interest in the status quo. Or if not the status quo, it might easily be seen that any view I have about broadcasting is that of an insider. A member of the Oxbridge cosa nostra, the gay cosy nostra and indeed the kosher nostra. An insider moreover, who even if he had never stepped into broadcasting would, by virtue of that upbringing I told you about, be destined always to have in his heart a huge place for public service broadcasting as exemplified by the BBC.
And we most of us, looking around this room, have this problem, don’t we? We are likely, whatever our professions, to have an attachment to the kind of broadcasting we grew up with, a fierce pride in the staggering history of quality and innovation that has characterized British television and radio for fifty years. A pride, a sentimental loyalty that causes us to raise our well modulated, well educated voices loudly against any perceived barbarians at the gates. At a price, we saw off the Tebbit and print media attacks on our ramparts, a price that included many of us becoming extremely rich – damn you capitalism! – and now there is another attack imminent, at least a new report is beating its wings above us and stirring the air once more. And so once more we have to think not of how things have gone on, and how they are going on, but how they will go on. The future beckons. What will happen. As Neils Bohr, the great Danish physicist once said, “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
This new report is not from a grand panjandrum like my lords Annan or Peacock, but rather – o tempora o mores – it is an Offcom Review of Public Sector Broadcasting. A new kind of cat has been put among the pigeons. There is nothing ideologically gross for us to moan at, nothing personal, philistine or crassly commercial to deprecate with elegant disdain, but a simple honest proposal. If we still want the broadcasting landscape in this country to be dominated by grand mountains and valleys of quality programming that can inform, entertain, educate and enlarge the horizons of the British viewer then perhaps we should accept a new ‘model’ for the financing and husbanding of such a landscape. Let the income from the licence fee now be shared amongst the BBC and its rivals. Let it be sliced, as the jargon has it.
Wow. A beguiling thought. Neat. And how appealing to our political masters. The Blairite/Brownite benisons of public/private interbreeding can be allowed to combine with the wholly reasonable recognition that in this fierce new world of rich-spectrum, multiple-bandwidth broadcasting, resources must be shared – all must be allowed to wet their beaks.
I said earlier that Peacock ‘prevaricated’ in not creating a wholly commercial landscape; it might be truer to say that the BBC won part of the argument back then because it was successfully proposed, by Andrew Graham and Gavyn Davies, inter alia, that broadcasting is a special case, that the rules of the market place don’t apply. As in the armed forces, coastal defence, policing and other fields, capitalism red in tooth and claw cannot be unleashed here. If we stopped husbanding the Yorkshire Moors or the Lake District the result would be weeds, scrub or desertification, not more efficient productive landscapes from Germany or South Korea providing consumer choice and real competition. If innovative, cutting-edge, new and risky programming is not subsidised, the weeds will blow in too. This was the argument and it prevailed. But. But it was ultimately an argument that applied to a spectrum poor, low bandwidth broadcasting world. Gavyn Davies and others were able to argue that there would be no real diversity and choice in a free market dismantling of the licence fee because it was not foreseen how staggeringly multifarious the technical possibilities of programme rediffusion, distribution, ownership and rights management would be twenty or so years later. Private competition meanwhile continued to hammer home its counter-message. ‘Actually the market does work, it only doesn’t work when it’s unfairly dominated by subsidised monoliths like the BBC. Take away their distorting effect on the market and all will be well. Choice and diversity will reign.’ I remember Hugh and I wrote a sketch in which I played a waiter who recognised a diner in my restaurant as a Tory broadcasting minister. I clapped him on the shoulder and told him how much I admired his policies of choice, consumer choice, freedom of choice. I then was horrified to notice that he had only a silver knife and fork for cutlery at his table. ‘No, no, they’re fine,’ said the puzzled politician. But my character the waiter raced off and soon returned with an enormous bin liner which I emptied over his table. It contained thousands and thousands of those white plastic coffee-stirrers. ‘There you are,’ I screamed dementedly at him, virtually rubbing his face in the heap of white plastic, ‘now you’ve got choice. Look at all that choice. They may all be shit, but look at the choice!’ The sketch ends with me trying to strangle him. Heavy handed satire perhaps, but that was how it looked to me we were in danger of going: thirty or forty channels but all filled with drek. Peacock had been made to see the danger of that too and the BBC’s unique funding model was safe – for the time being at least.
Meanwhile the free market is great, it has proved just how greedy for money even the most socialistic TV programme maker is – just watch them scrabble for the millions as their production companies are floated.
And as for broadcasting, well after a mad diversion of believing that it was all about distribution, every media boss now repeats the mantra Content is King.
‘We repent,’ they seem to be saying, ‘being a media boss is no longer about owning as many stations, networks, nodes, outlets and ports as possible – it’s about production, about making things. I see that now.’
‘Hurray,’ shout the programme makers, ‘finally you’ve understood. So, give us the money then.’
‘What money?’ say the media executives, ‘there is no money. We spent it all buying up companies and their back catalogues. We needed content in a hurry, because – in case you weren’t aware … content is king, you know.’
‘Doh. Hang on … but what about new content?’
‘Good lord no. Are you mad? Far too expensive.’
The arguments for keeping the funding structures in place might be considered compelling: despite everything, the BBC is still doing what it has always been charged to do. It actually makes programmes. It pioneers comedy and popular entertainment, it reveals some of our cultural heritage to us in the form of costume drama, documentary, history and science programming; it informs, educates and entertains, it tells us about the human heart and the cosmos, the wide globe and the narrow street, it responds to new technologies and still manages to retain some sense of being the nation’s fireplace.
If it were to be forced to turn commercial, who would benefit? How would consumer choice and quality be maintained? What systems overseas provide tempting paradigms to imitate? None. Let’s stay the way we are.
All of which is arguable when looking at the BBC alone. But Offcom has wider responsibilities of course, as does government. They must balance public provision with private competition across the whole of an industry of converging technologies and diverging missions. They look at the plight of ITV struggling with its miserable ever-widening Mr Micawber gap between expenditure and income and, specifically at Channel 4 with its ambivalent position as a commercial operator with an often countervailing non-commercial remit. How ironic. Channel 4 is the perfect example of the glories of private and public and yet far from freeing it up, it’s been hamstrung by its unique constitution. How can we ensure a healthy, post digital switchover future for such networks? Where will the funding come from?
And what about other private companies who want to invest in the fabulous opportunities offered by online broadcasting: how can they compete with the BBC and its unfair subsidy? The days of claiming that the market cannot work are over, and it’s time to look at broadcasting in a new way. Thanks to TiVo, Apple TV, Sky Plus, Elgato and other forms of personal video recorder, televisions are now audio visual retail outlets that know about and respond to the consumer. Real market choice is here, there is no national fireplace, the individual with his remote, connected as he or she is, has no stake in station loyalty, no interest in network branding: show them the list of content, in categories including action, adult, arts, children’s, documentaries, drama, films: in sub-categories and nested sub-sub-categories, special interest according to age, religion, ethnicity and sexuality – who says the market place can’t tick the boxes for plurality, diversity and inclusivity?
Control is – or soon will be – the consumer’s: there is no need for a front end branded One Two Three Four, whether BBC or ITV. No need for anything but content. And if you want content to be anything more, any scintilla of a soupçon of a hint more than what market forces demand, if you sincerely want content to be occasionally uplifting, ennobling, educative, innovative, top down, nourishing and of bountiful, beautiful benefit to Britain and its citizenry, then yes, absolutely, the only source of financing for that is the licence fee.
So long as the playing field is level, the market will take care of the set top boxes, the distribution systems, the digital pipelines to the audio-visual retail outlet that is the consumer’s television, while the licence fee can – if it must and likes the idea – pay for content that can’t pay for itself in the normal cut and thrust of the marketplace. And if Channel 4 wants to (or must because of its remit) make that kind of public service programme as well as Hollyoaks and The Girl Whose Breasts Talk German, then the licence fee should cover that as well. The days of the BBC as a national institution, hosting and front-ending publicly funded content are over. The mighty oak must have some of its branches lopped off to light in on the smaller trees around it. Public Service Broadcasting is now merely the management of licence fee monies: we don’t need a BBC for that, or rather the BBC we need is a slimmed down BBC. It doesn’t need to try to be all things to all people, it can concentrate on public service and leave the commercial populist programming to the private sector.
Wow! Radical. And tempting. Perhaps. Perhaps tempting. Not to me, I have to say, but then I am not Britain or an average Britain. This image of the consumer’s home as a kind of electronic bookshop, as outlined by media business guru Barry Cox, where we move from passive viewer to active consumer may seem beguiling to some, but actually we already know that model. We know it from hotel rooms and aircraft entertainment systems.
It’s technically doable, especially when cleverly finagled with PVRs, but is it broadcasting, is it, actually, what anyone wants? Well actually, it exactly isn’t broadcasting, it’s narrow-casting. But is it wanted? I don’t know, I can’t speak for Britain, I can’t second guess polls, though I can imagine how easily they will return the results wanted by either side, according to the way the questions are framed. “Do you want to see the BBC dismantled so that you have to choose and pay for all your programmes like a hotel room film menu?” NO. “Do you want to stop paying the licence fee and being forced to watch poncey documentaries and have access to thousands of films and saucy programmes at the click of a button?” YES. GIGO, as they used to say in the early days of computing: garbage in, garbage out.
But that is nothing, nothing to the real problem. Content. Production. Programme making. TV programmes suffer from the embarrassing necessity of having to be written and made. Unlike Yorkie Bars or tennis balls or mobile phones you can’t just gear up the machinery and stamp them out in perpetuity. Every damned new programme has to be developed, nurtured, and tried out. Relationships have to be forged with writers, performers, presenters and directors, failures have to be accommodated and accepted. How this is achieved in a brave new world of post switchover root and branch restructuring, I don’t know.
Even the most immoderately free market media analyst or commentator I have heard or read would concede that there is a need for good impartial news coverage; that a nation deserves access to programmes that reveal truths about themselves and the world. But mostly they would argue too that if that is what the BBC is to provide, it can be slimmed down, the corporation can lose the need to make its Doctor Who and Strictly Come Dancing, its populist forays can be taken care of by ITV, whose audience share would concomitantly rise, narrowing its dreaded gap, while money would be freed from retrenching the BBC’s ambitions in the digital world, in film-making, in popular TV, in sporting occasions, money that could create better PSB programming and allow Channel 4 access to money that would spare us more The Boy Whose Testicles Play The Harpsichord.
Or perhaps a PSB system can be implemented on the American model of public subscription, or on the New Zealand and Singaporean models, based on a kind of central funding body. Neither of these can really be deemed especially successful, but again they free up money which can be thrown at as much public service broadcasting as anyone wants, and let real commercial players get on with making real commercial stuff.
But what would that BBC then be? Who would watch it? How could an audience be brought to a channel that showed nothing but worthy programming, no matter how excellently produced. Isn’t the whole point of the BBC as a major channel, a real player in TV production across the spectrum of genres and demographics, isn’t the whole point of that BBC its ability to draw audiences into PSB programming by virtue of their loyalty and trust in a brand that provides entertainment, pure and simple? Isn’t the slide scheduling from BBC4 to 2 or BBC3 to 1 an example of that, just as it can be from BBC2 to 1? I have been involved in programmes that have made that journey. Who Do You Think You Are? started on 2 and went to 1, like Have I Got New For You and a documentary I made recently on Gutenberg started on 4 and then screened on 2, getting I am told very good figures indeed, and staying in the top 3 on the iPlayer top ten for a week. It would not have been possible to get that audience, for what I am persuaded (well I would be) was an important and almost copybook example of PSB programming, without the cross channel trailing and station loyalty that the present all-encompassing nature of the BBC allows. In a sense the nature of the BBC as it is, ‘gives permission’ to all kinds of people to watch programmes they otherwise might not.
What is the alternative, a ghettoised, balkanised electronic bookshop of the home, no stations, no network, just a narrowcast provider spitting out content on channels that fulfil some ghastly and wholly insulting demographic profile: soccer mum, trailer trash, teenager, gay, black music lover, Essex girl, sports fan, bored housewife, all watching programmes made specifically for them with ads targeting them. Is that what we mean by inclusivity? Is that what we mean by plurality? God help us, I do hope not.
And anyway, cannot it not be understood that what we call ‘entertainment pure and simple’ is neither. It seems hardly necessary for me to rehearse the argument in comedy: Gervaise and Merchant, Lucas and Walliams, Mitchell and Webb, Catherine Tate, the Gavin and Stacey team, and before them Ali G, Steve Coogan, you name them, they all developed their arts over time, they all made minority failures, they all needed to be brought on. No one but the BBC could have made Blackadder, especially after the expense and relative failure of the first series. Does it count as entertainment or as public service broadcasting? Do we have to make a distinction? That’s the point surely. With all respect to OfCom and Barry Cox, and all the media analysts and broadcasting journalists who insist on one, do we really have to make a distinction?
I have to be personal again. I wanted to make a pair of films about bipolar disorder, did I have to believe that I was making a public service series? Could I not believe as I did, that I was making two television programmes that I hoped as many people as possible might watch? Just I would hope if I was making a drama or a comedy? Yes, those couple of films on manic depression may well have fulfilled a public service, one that could be uniquely followed up via the BBC’s resources on radio, on websites and on help-lines, but the gratifying large audience that tuned in, did they do so because it was public service broadcasting? How insulting to everyone concerned is that?
I was asked by the BBC to make this speech, if speech is the word. They hoped I suspect, but in no way insisted, that I would fight their corner against cuts, against the slicing of the licence fee: at the very least they expected I might make a case for the public service aspects of comedy, and for its importance and for the need for it to be nurtured and fostered. I have happy to do that, not out of eternal loyalty and belief in an institution that has, as much as any school or college made me who I am, but because I genuinely cannot see that the nation would benefit from a diminution of any part of the BBC’s great whole. It should be as closely scrutinised as possible of course, value for money, due humility and all that, but to reduce its economies of scale, its artistic, social and national reach for misbegotten reasons of ideology or thrift would be a tragedy. We got here by an unusual route that stretches back to Reith. We have evolved extraordinarily, like our parliament and other institutions, such is the British way. Yes, we could cut it all down and remake ourselves in the image of Italy or Austria or some other notional modern state. We could sharpen the axe, we could cut away apparently dead wood, we could reinvent the wheel, we could succumb to the natural desires of commercial media companies. Although I have an axe to grind on this, you should understand that it is personal not professional. Actually, if licence fee slicing and other radical plans do go ahead, I do not believe it would affect my career as either performer, presenter or producer, in fact I would probably profit more from the change. It is simply that I don’t want to live in a country that emasculates the BBC. Yes, I want to see Channel 4 secure, but I don’t believe that the only way to save it is to reduce the BBC. We can afford what we decide we can afford.
You know when you visit another country and you see that it spends more money on flowers for its roundabouts than we do, and you think … coo, why don’t we do that? How pretty. How pleasing. What a difference it makes. To spend money for the public good in a way that enriches, gives pleasure, improves the quality of life, that is something. That is a real achievement. It’s only flowers in a roundabout, but how wonderful. Well, we have the equivalent of flowers in the roundabout times a million: the BBC enriches the country in ways we will only discover when it has gone and it is too late to build it up again. We actually can afford the BBC, because we can’t afford not to.
> The history of BBC comedy in particular is almost a register of character types, a social history of the country. Hancock, Steptoe, Mainwaring… Ali G
Wasn’t Ali G Channel 4?
> that was how it looked to me we were in danger of going: thirty or forty channels but all filled with drek
How silly that seems now we have Freeview! A ha ha ha! Hm.
> GIGO, as they used to say in the early days of computing: garbage in, garbage out
We still say that, all too frequently.
I always wonder about the effect the removal of public funding would have on the BBC. I believe it would maintain a mantra of quality programming similar to Channel 4 before eventually succumbing to the trappings of commercialism and chasing ratings.
However, the commercial model of the US does produce a lot of quality dramas and comedies (not so much documentaries IMO) albeit with a lot more money, so non public broadcasting would not be all doom and gloom. Most of the quality programs seem to come from subscription channels, like HBO, so I think this could be a way forward for the BBC.
I would certainly feel happier to subscribe to the BBC than to being effectively forced to through ownership of a TV. Of course this would be purely ideological as I would imagine that anyone who owns a TV, in this country, would most likely pay for the service anyway.
I do think that spreading the funding of the license fee would not work, as it would be spread so thinly as to not be of benefit to anyone and where would you draw the line to exclude channels?
“radically to reinvent” – that is an infinitive that surely needs splitting!
w00t Colditz
Was a great speech, loved the iplayer bit with the whole soon even my mother will be able to download from it, (something like that, i apologize for the lack of preparation for this comment, i am simply lazy I guess)
, but knew you’d be busy. Tried to get QI tickets, but alas…I bet that Alan Davies fellow managed to get tickets.
I won’t pretend I read your speech there, but I saw you giving it (online) so it’s ok
2 months
Can’t wait for the new series (w00t F) and the America documentaries.
Oh yes and actually force the BBC to reshow Colditz, I wasn’t alive the first time round XD
I wish you would come back to the States and make a similar plea for public broadcasting here. As we speak, the local PBS station seems to be conducting a week long, continuous auction to make up for a severe lack of funding from our government. While it would be hard for me to imagine a rational America without Turner Classic Movies, the History Channel, and even Comedy Central, it’s even harder for me to admit that we as a society have sunk low enough to produce a show such as “The Hills” (don’t look it up; it’s not worth the effort).
Public broadcasting taught me to read, taught me to appreciate the environment around me, taught me to be civil to others, and, perhaps most importantly, taught me to love English comedy.
I was positively tickled that you referenced the ABoFaL sketch, for as I was reading your speech, the image of you dumping plastic forks and knives all over that broadcasting minister was on constant repeat in my mind.
Can’t wait for your next podgram, and do try to convince somebody in American broadcasting that we are deserving of QI and all your documentaries – I do hate having to watch them on YouTube.
A superb article to start my day.
I have every Satellite channel known to man, every internet content subscription that my melting credit card will tolerate and still I would estimate that 80% of what I watch/listen/read originates from the BBC.
Without the BBC (with all its faults) and its wonderful CONTENT we would be lost, my young daughters would be forced to diet on REALITY TV (not my reality) and very bad and cheap cartoons.
The licence fee is a small price to pay for quality.
I’d make one small change to the iPlayer which is to everyone access to it (no matter where they live) via a userid and password. UK residents get their login credentials for free whilst those living outside the UK pay a small subscription (perhaps £5 a month). UK residents travelling could then watch whenever they wanted and the BBC’s coffers would be greatly inflated by the millions of international subscribers they would attract.
Anyway Stephen, once again thank you for such a well thought out and entertaining article.
I do wish Canada’s national public broadcaster had a passionate champion like you, Mr. Fry.
(Hazy rantings about the CBC’s recent mistakes follow…)
Firstly, the CBC is dismantling the last operating radio orchestra in North America. The orchestra is vitally important to our national music scene as it has always commissioned new works from Canadian and commonwealth composers.
Secondly, the CBC is preparing to re-format our now mostly classical station into an all genre free-for-all, incorporating rock and pop in an attempt to “draw more listeners”. Incidentally, this attempt to incorporate popular music into CBC 2 follows the 2005 banishment of the old rock/pop programming from evenings on CBC 2 to Radio 3, which broadcasts only via web-streaming and Sirius* radio. It seems that playing rock and pop at night on the classical station was then poorly received by listeners. Will they now enjoy hearing it scattered throughout daily programming? Similarly, will the average teenager that sees their favourite pop singer advertising the “new CBC 2†give the station another try after they hear Saint-Saëns or Terry Riley the first time they listen in? Will listenership grow, or will the station eventually be completely reformatted into a pop station?
These moves will effectively kill off accessible classical music in Canada and the development of new Canadian musical talent.
* Radio 3 on Sirius: It’s publicly-funded Canadian programming, but I have to pay an American company $15 a month to listen to it. Hmmm.
Please accept my apologies for this horribly long-winded comment. In no way am I a stodgy popular-music hater; I’m a huge indie-rock geek. I have finally come to love classical music now, in my mid-twenties (thanks originally to our old-format CBC 2 and then working in the classical department of a record shop.)
I hope they dont kill BBC’s funding. We foreigners depend on it for daily dose of news (as defined in the dictionary and not as provided by the Americans).
Thank you Stephen, you are truly a National Treasure.
I now duly consider myself entertained and informed.
Britain should remember that it is a tragically tiny country that most people wouldn’t have ever heard of if it punched its natural weight. It is no longer known for its quality manufacturing, no longer the custodian of a massive empire and ever less relevant in global politics alongside the growing superpowers. One thing remains however, and that is Britain’s role as a cultural cornerstone for the English speaking world. Its programming in both radio and television has permeated the English speaking world from my father’s childhood bedroom in Cape Town to corners of Australia, India, Canada, the US and New Zealand. To think that the global reach and effect of British programming isn’t to Britain’s benefit is simply moronic. British comedy does more to win hearts and minds than any of its military follies.
The World Service is testament to the fact this was once widely understood. Has the ambition of global cultural relevance died with imperial ambition? I hope not.
Thank you for the thought-provoking article, Stephen – although now I must confess that, like some of the people who have posted above, I’m thoroughly depressed about the shoddy state of public broadcasting in both Canada (where I live) and the US both.
I think fondly now upon the days when there were only “57 channels and nothin’ on” instead of 500 plus – and funnily enough the one channel that seems to have “something on” much of the time is BBC Canada. However, due to Canadian content legislation, 30 per cent of the programming there consists of locally produced DIY and other reality shows – just like every other channel.
Strong wishes for all of you in the UK that the BBC’s funding be maintained.
Lovely to have another post from you, Stephen. Next time, why not do a documentary about Canada? Only 10 provinces and 3 territories, thus only one-quarter as exhausting an endeavour (you might want to double-check that estimate as maths have never been my strong suit!). Plus, we’re all nice polite people, or so I’m told when I go abroad…
Cheers,
Kristina
Like lydz, I confess I have not read this transcript (in its entirety-work keeps getting in the way, blast it!) but have both watched and listened to the speech online. I have to echo HeidiW’s sentiment about the state of American TV, and remind skillen while we have produced some good shows in the past few years (House certainly springs to mind here), we’ve also produced A LOT of trash, much of that in the genre of reality TV; a genre that, in my opinion, is HIGHLY overrated and nowhere near most people’s “reality.” I have given up on most American television, turned my Macbook into a Region 2 DVD player and now happily live on a steady diet of BBC and ITV DVDs. What I would like to know is if the BBC has ever considered allowing foreigners to subscribe, say to the iPlayer, so that those of us unfortunate enough to live outside Britain might still be able to enjoy the BBC. Yes, yes, I know we have BBC America but let’s be honest, it’s not the same. After all, BBCA doesn’t have QI…yet!
This would also generate yet another stream of income for the BBC. Just a thought.
Stephen, I hope you are doing well and taknig care of yourself while buzzing about from project to project. I look forward to the new book!
While I pretty much agree with what you’ve said, you missed a couple of thing.
The main thing that the BBC does that annoys me is bidding on blockbusters and football games. £10 million of license fee money shouldn’t be chucked away for a movie that’s already aired on satellite, is about 4 years old, and ITV would have bought if the beeb hadn’t muscled in. Same goes for football. Other people will, and have in some cases, show the things that the BBC pays the most money for instead of creating more content. Auntie Beeb doesn’t have to worry about ratings in the same way as the other channels as it won’t effect how much money comes in. Then they have the gall to ask for more and more each year.
If they weren’t churning out “how much money can you auction the stuff you have in the attic while we make over your house” shows I might be less annoyed, but the BBC has as much drek as everyone else. It should stick to what it does well. Original comedy, drama and documentaries. And the news. Leave all the rest for everyone else. 3 and 5 will pick up the stupid movies, 4 the smart ones (although I have no issues with art house stuff on BBC 2. Maybe even original movies? Channel 4 seem to do okay with that). And 3 and 5 will pick up the footie too.
It also annoys me that a BBC series that public money has already funded is then flogged to the same public for huge amounts. You get 14 episodes of Doctor Who for (possibly more, just using this as an example) £40 and 24 episodes of whatever US show you care to mention for the same amount. So for some reason the public funded show costs twice as much to buy, when you’ve already paid for it. Shouldn’t BBC DVDs be cost?
I will say one thing to close of though (written my own blessay, sorry Stephen :S). I’m an actor and the BBC have provided my only paid work really (2 days on Monarch a while back). And the fact that Radio 4 still does audio could come in handy soon when I start doing that professionally. I don’t want rid of the BBC, I just want them to stop trying to be a commercial channel as they’re more succesful when they aren’t. I don’t care if Celebrity Chef’s Dance Off To Win It goes away…
Excellent speech Mr. Fry, unlike some of the other commenters here I did read the post in it’s entirety. A few typos I noticed though, but perhaps it is my Canadian education that is to blame.
“As the Nazis move in more members if his company get taken away” where if => of
and
“I have happy to do that,” => ‘I have been’ ?
Other Canadian posters have mentioned the looming disaster with the CBC, there are two other items of note related to your speech. One is Bill C-10 in which politicians are proposing they have the good sense to decide which Canadian Films received federal funding, claiming (as they would) that it is to prevent such things being produced as Child Pornography. They ignore the fact of course that up until now there has been no CP produced with federal funds, but looming in the shadows of the future, protect us please politicians!
The other item, near and dear to my heart, is the proposed legislation by Industry Minister Jim Prentice to ‘empower’ Canadians with choice by enacting the American version of the DMCA. Michael Geist is a good place to start if you are not familiar with our plight.
Anyways off to look for some of the work you mentioned to further improve my Canadian education. Thanks.
The section of this speech that stood out for me, for reasons that would be obvious if you knew me, was the Doctor Who story from your childhood. I don’t know if you deal in hugs, virtual or otherwise (I suspect not) but please accept the gesture of sympathy of your choice.
Terry Pratchett has made the point, in more than one of his books, that there are some things whose profitability is not financial but derives from the fact that they exist, and benefit the community that sustains them. Alas, this point continues to escape our leaders, but if it applies to anything it applies to the BBC. There is a reassurance in knowing that my licence fee, rather than being parcelled out among a hundred tiny back-bedroom production companies who will then slap together a token adaptation of a Dickens novel each and feel their existence justified, is going in its entirety to (what remains of) the entity that brought us the Goons, Doctor Who, I Claudius and The Ascent Of Man. In a way, for me, it’s paying back as well as forward, thanking the Beeb for making me the not entirely two-dimensional human being I am today. Loyalty is not an entirely preposterous idea, even now.
Hello there Stephen! Glad to hear that you got home both safely and soundly.:-D It’s just fantastic to hear from you after several months. Every update improves my mood by several notches. Goodness knows how much I need a boost like that these days.
I haven’t finished your entire blessay. I thought I’d be able to finish it during my lunch break–I was wrong. However, the little I’ve read has made me reflect on the quality of the broadcasting companies (mostly privately-owned here in the Philippines) and I find that I have to heave a sigh. Our media industry leaders still have a long way to go, maturity-wise.
Anyway, Stephen, thanks for making my day today!:-)
A very good speech Stephen (but what else did I expect?). With regards broadcasting vs narrowcasting – whenever this debate comes up, I always come back to the point that we have had radio (broadcast) and vinyl / tape / CD / MP3 (personal choice) for decades, and yet the audience for broadcast radio has always remained strong.
This is something the advocates of ‘on-demand’ everything tend to miss – that there are a large number of people who enjoy scheduled television. There are a huge number of homes where, like The Royle Family, the TV is just on in the background, and no one is really focusing full attention on it. I now subscribe to web feeds like Monoscope or Cinedelica rather than randomly browsing the web.
And on tangential leap over to software design, a book I once read characterised the difference between Apple and Microsoft as being that when faced with a design decision, Apple will make a choice for the user, right or wrong, while Microsoft will introduce an option allowing the user to decide how they want it to be (or in the case of hardware, offer 30 options rather than 5). The book was written by someone who’d worked on designing MS Excel.
This is probably a significant reason why in the age-old Mac/PC debate, the issue of ‘choice’ often comes up – some people prioritise choice over everything else (including, as your sketch illustrated, quality). Rather a Subway sandwich of their own choice, than an Eggs Benedict.
On the subject of TV elsewhere – well it’s notable how bad most non-subscription TV is across Europe. I was surprised to find my Belgian friends often watch the BBC in preference of local programming, despite the language barrier.
And you will be delighted to know that reading this made me purchase the Blackadder DVD box set, so another few pennies in the bank.
As an aside to Macgyver – I believe Stephen covered this – BBC 1 needs a certain amount of Harry Potter films and FA Cup games to be considered a mainstream channel. Even the National Lottery Draw and the celebrity / talent shows have their place.
It’s a bit like saying Radio 1 shouldn’t play anything in the Top 40, because it was at it’s best with John Peel and commercial radio plays the charts . . . I guess you could say that the BBC is at it’s best when introducing it’s audience to original content, but the crucial part is building that audience?
Hi, I realise this is probably not the forum to write this in – but I’d just like to say to Stephen – I’m going through a bad time at the moment and I’m re-reading ‘The Liar’ and ‘The Hippopotamus’. They are making me truly gut belly laugh and I’m revelling in the prose. I know this is probably something that is written by very many people all the time (and probably in more appropriate forums than this!), but coming from someone who never posts blog entries I hope it’s taken as the really genuine compliment it’s meant as : ) Emma – Dublin, Ireland
Damn it, Fry! You come here with paragraphing unseen since the late Henry James swung his pencil in jest and defend the likes of Lucas and Walliams! It’s not a matter of how the BBC brought them on. It’s a matter of how they’re to be taken off again.
Watching from the relative Elysium of the Channel 4 afternoon schedule, I can’t help but reflect that the BBC has a lamentable record for comedy in recent years. With a few notable exceptions (‘QI’ is certainly one), it favours tired formulas or chooses to devolve production to the provinces without actually asking if the finished product is good enough. Is it any surprise that they wasted the great US comedies of recent years by putting them on at ungodly hours? They might as well have taken ‘Arrested Development’ behind the BBC canteen and beaten it with a damp noodle. The same was true of ‘The Larry Sanders Show’. And I pray for the day when the Beeb produces anything with as much wit, intelligence, and innovation as ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’.
Perhaps most indicative of the BBC’s recent failure is the success of ‘Little Britain’. I defy anybody to explain how it did anything for British comedy writing or British comedy. No doubt you will say: ‘But Richard, it brought in the cash and allowed Aunty Beeb to upgrade her tired old bloomers for something more modern’. To which I would reply that no aunt of mine should been seen standing on a street corner in a thong and bright red suspenders. As Sky TV continually proves, revenue does to denote quality. I understand that Jordan’s breasts have a massive following but I wouldn’t like to see them funded from my pocket. The only way they’d be ground breaking is should she fall over.
Being traditional does not mean you cannot also be progressive. The BBC has that rare opportunity to be innovative and take intelligent risks. It should be the place we go to enjoy brave failures, not easy successes. ‘Little Britain’ was made for the very people it set out to mock. Crass, squalid, formulaic, and utterly, utterly tedious, it mocked, cajoled, and insulted in a way that would be considered unacceptable if directed to anybody other than the working classes. It was the worst kind of school yard humour given a BBC expense account.
I will always defend the BBC and believe that the license fee is vital to intelligent programming. However, by being held accountable to ratings and political correctness, the BBC has no reasoning mind behind their recent comedy output. Is ‘Little Miss Jocelyn’ really the best of the country’s writing talent? Is it even in the top 50%?
Now look what you’ve made me do: write a long rambling comment on your blog. They very thing I’ve always sworn I would never do.
Dear Mr Fry
All I´d like to say is:
a. What an excellent speech! Read it in its* entirety when it was first published in May. * (He without sin cast the first stone, C. ;o) )
b. Your podgrams/blessays are the hundreds and thousands atop the icing on the cake
) Lovely to have them, and much appreciated – but if there is no time to sprinkle them on, the icing alone will do nicely 
) Take care. GSK
An aside back to JulesLt and to back up my point in general:
The BBC doesn’t need fittbah (sorry, Football) or movies to draw the audience in. The two most popular things on the flag ship channel? Eastenders and the good Doctor. Twice as popular as the most popular Euro match in the latest round of BARB ratings. Okay, so Engurland weren’t playing and the ratings for that would be 4 times as much but I can’t see the audience drawn in going “hey look, a Victorian drama is on next. lets watch that!” I can see ITV (for example) going “Hey look, we just got 20 million viewers for that football match. It costs us a lot but it made us more in revenue. Now we can afford to make that TV show instead of putting on re-runs and quiz phone ins”. The BBC gets 20 million viewers all it means is a lot of people looked at Gary Liniker (sorry, no idea how to spell it). It doesn’t bring extra funding, it doesn’t really lead to anything else.
That’s kind of my main problem. The Beeb does fine for viewers and it always would. People come in for Planet Earth, Springwatch, Doctor Who, Enders and the like. Bone Kickers looks interesting and I’m looking forward to it. That’s what they SHOULD be doing. Taking things that will be massively popular but could be shown anywhere is kinda bad for the industry as nobody really benefits when it’s shown on the BBC. They can use there stable position to chuck huge chunks of change at things and out bid the commercial channels who end up struggling because they can’t get viewers, so budgets are cut and they churn out worse cheap crap and viewers dip more etc etc.
I’ll stop now as I’ll get rambly and repeaty and my spelling is atrocious. Plus I use made up words…
Tangential note : have a look at this
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/08398/Stephen_Fry_speech_about_the_BBC_
Wow. Quite the tome! Bit of a trip through memory lane too.
What do we have on tv today? About half a million channels that we don’t watch, and three or four that we do. That seems to apply no matter whether you are enduring US, Canadian, UK or whatever TV.
No doubt about it, the BBC churns out some great stuff. But it’s churned out rubbish too. ITV, Channel 4, Granada TV, Thames TV and many more have also churned out good stuff and rubbish. But with my non-scientific self-study, I’d be willing to bet that these are the channels that have turned out a higher percentage of good and great tv than many others.
In other words – you aren’t fooling me into thinking the BBC has the monopoly on great tv.
But Stephen, I think you managed to bury the important new trends in your expansive dissertation. YouTube and its myriad clones are putting tv made my the masses into the eyse of even greater masses. Most of it is complete rubbis, we know, but there are enough gems on YouTube to make it worth our while to spend time there. And we can choose to watch whatever we want on a whim, any time, day or night.
Rather like iTV, SlingBox, Tivo and many others, in fact. Only better. Our investment in watching YouTube – financial and emotional – is minimal. Our brand loyalty is negligable. The variety of methods available to us that we can use to watch the numerous online video options is staggering. As are the ‘channels’. Instead of 200, or 300 or even 1000 satellite channels, we now have thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe ultimately millions of ‘channels’ available to us.
Well – obviously they are no longer channels as such. The current favourite term for all-things-shared on the internet seems to be ‘the cloud’. Seems to me we no longer have tv channels online. We have a cloud of video options, and the output of the BBC and other traditional channels is only a tiny percentage of the publicly available and essentially free content that we can access, any time any place, anywhere… like a Martini
There is room in our lives for conventional tv, but it is diminishing. How long is it since Eastenders got an audience of 26 million? How much of the Olimpics was watched on tv screens in 2000? How much will be watched on tv in 2008? How much will be watched online? And how much broader and yet more in depth wil the online coverage be compared to the tv coverage? Even with 24-hour sports channels, tv will still only be able to scrape through highlights compared to the wealth of online information.
OK…. maye I was a little premature there. I’m assuming that China is going to do what the world expects and be completely open for the Olympics; at least for the sports coverage
The iPhone, Nokia N95, PocketPC devices, and scores of other pocket electronics with Wi-fi and Internet access are going to continue to transform our online habits. Especially once they transform from being devices with just a tiny screen, to devices that can project a 10 foot hi-def picture (like http://www.microvision.com promises) or plug into our tv screens. Many of us will dump our various TV subscriptions once we can get all everything we need via the Internet. That will introduce the need for new funding models if we are to continue to get *quality* tv.
I see an intersteting video revolution ahead…
Aaaaa – wish I would remember to proof-read. Never was a great typist/spellist
What an excellent article and a well presented topic. It’s all easy to get nostalgic and patriotic about the BBC but it is a national institution and a great asset. I like the way it is evolving and needs to continue to do so without going too fast for it’s audience.
Two points: Stephen is a bit harsh on C4 – but some of the programmes quoted are very funny. I think he might be confusing C4 with C5? Or now Virgin? And without C4 we wouldn’t have the wonderful Peep Show and would have to make do with the lacklustre M&W tailor made for the BBC. Also the BBC is described as a ‘pioneer of comedy’. Maybe 20 or 30 years ago but not now. Yes the factual stuff like ‘Have I Got News For You’ and suchlike are excellent but sitcoms and comedy drama is owned by the US with very few exceptions.
Thought provoking. Who knows what the future holds for the BBC?
Come Back Soon! You make the world better. – USA
Ahh . . . a blessay.
I feel better already.
So nice to see the angels fly by.
Totally agree with CharlyF!!!
Thank you so much just for BEING!!! and of course for all those wonderfull things you’re doing!!!! It’s a real pleasure and consolation to know that somewhere overthere is living such a marvellous man!!! Please, keep on writing and acting, and take care of yourself!!! We need you!!!)))))))
“From Russia with love” (:-)))))
I agree wholeheartedly. The BBC is a Wonder of the Modern World and though it must adapt to a new era in digital/IP -casting (which it has already made impressive steps towards) it must never lose its unique and profoundly constructive means of living. It would be a shame and a tragedy for this country, a holocaust, to have it pulled apart or otherwise molested. It is one of the few British institutions I can take pride in. We must protect it with our last breath, just as we must expect and demand it evolves, improves and works efficiently. You are right Stephen, one day soon people will select all their media like the choicest fruit from a basket. Yet we will still need that fine great orchard to produce it; not a merciless intensively-farmed production line of profit. I am fond of Channel 4 also; but such channels have equal opportunity to reap the benefits of the coming digital media democracy. It is an executive failure if they cannot.
I do agree with “Richard Madeley” regarding recent BBC comedy though, it has largely been shameful. Something went very wrong there. I point at BBC 3 – the channel that has most tried to embrace a commercial style of television (unfortunately taking the reigns of most new comedy output) has been disastrous, playing with easy jabs and cheap jokes that would make Channel 5 executives blush to broadcast. In its race for economy and quick ratings, in its fast-track desperation for content content content, the BBC has lost its magic touch for finding and nurturing shows like Blackadder. These days we have Two Pints and Tittybangbang. That’s what happens when you try and make auntie a commercial style machine. This has got to stop!
Wow Stephen,
I can’t wait to hear your lovely voice again soon.
…and now I hope you’ll make an epic documentary on Europe!
cheers
take care
kisses
from
Italy
Another canadian here who groans when he thinks about what CBC does sometimes. Anywho, Glad to hear you’re working on QI once again I’m looking forward to it.
TTFN
Kyle Voltti
Ahh, Nostalgia Lane Avenue meets at junction with BBC License Players in a game of football. Oh how I wish that there was less football. On and on it goes, usurping any scheduled interesting programme. When the other Freeview channels came out I thought that football wold b relegated to those channels. Also, I thought that ther would be a channel devoted to ‘Arts’. Well, obviously I needed a whack about the face with a large fish- I might even laugh.
Seriously, this is a good blog post and yes, I remember Oliver Postgate’s soothing voice, the exotic sounds of the Clangers ( wasn’t there a radio programme that included one of the vocal artists spilling the beans on what the Clangers’ really said?). Ans, my goodness, in all my …hrrmm….’21 again’ years I have never come across someone else who remembered ‘Sparky and his magic piano’. My goodness,I wore the record out. I have a CD of it now, but it doesn’t seem a patch on the vinyl.
I have often thought that, since we watch so little television, we should dispose of it. But that’s hrowing the baby out with the bath water. When I was a student in the US, there was a hell of a lot of garbage televiion, but then there were the occasional good dramas (I recall “Buddenbrooks” Thomas Mann’s first great novel done particularly well). But the thing that really stood out in my memory was that one coud bu a television and then choose the cables/channels you wanted.
Oh, if only that could happen here, football could stay where it should do and never mingle with acquisition of knowledge old and new, and there could be motre coverage of the Arts and Humanities. The money wold be recouped by the fees for he channel. Even France has more coverage of the Arts thn we do).
And one final plea……get rid of ALL the so called reality shows.
What about some opera, plays (my wish….Alan Ayckbourn’s) and dance (and yes, I know that Stephen hates dance but does he prefer it to footie; at least there is civilised behaviour and goreous music to listen to!)
A P.S. I am tired and my keyboard wants to write its own version..sorry abot the typyos, I am too tire to fix them.
Thank you Stephen for this intelligent analysis of the BBC and the prospects it currently faces. I have listened to and read so many opinions attacking the BBC for its populist programming. In many ways, when I consider the programmes mentioned, I am inclined to agree. But that is only because I have no need to watch dancing celebrities etc. That does not mean that the BBC should not continue to produce them given their still respectable viewing figures.
I like you have always loved the BBC for the landmark comedy it has given me over the years and on this point I have been rather disappointed in recent years but I am forced to consider that tastes may be changing and that I have become an anachronism (surely not).
Yet from the point that my brain had developed to the point of comprehending the televisual medium I have been consistently served with programming which has fascinated, informed, made me laugh, made me cry and made me happy. The towering works of this peculiar institution are legion but what will always stand-out for me is the Natural History programming produced by BBC Bristol and usually involving (in one way or the other) David Attenborough. These are, in my opinion, works of international and historic importance and one only has to ask those in America or virtually anywhere to ascertain that these works have generated a vast respect for the BBC and concomitantly for Britain.
I understand the urge of many in government and the private sector to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. It is part of a philosophy which has been developing in this country for many years and, although it revolts me, I understand. I give notice now, however, that, should any attempt be made to dismantle this beloved organisation I will be willing to man the blockades in Shepherd’s Bush.
I’ve had a ruddy great cry about something in my life this evening. And, as I cried I had fields from one show and light and shadow from others flitting through my brain. What sense do we make of such reactions and of such connections. You are championing what made sense in your life and what makes it feel better. The ‘championing’ of the country is, I dare say, a championing of what strikes at your vital heart. Champion away because therein lies elements of the texture and the truth of your [and some of] our being.
As usual, I wholeheartedly agree with you. For some reason, I have a particular aversion to the word “competition”, because (in my world) it means endless telephone calls to energy suppliers in an attempt to sort out their administrative cockups, unscrupulous salespeople trying to sell me yet another telephone or television service, and bullying EULAs in computer software. For me, the BBC represents something which I am unable to find elsewhere: a clearinghouse, as it were, through which the nation’s activities may pass through without fear of interference in the name of commerce. That said, the BBC could certainly do with applying more of its funds towards community broadcasting projects versus its current focus on monolithic, glossy productions. I don’t personally think that stations should be allowed public money *and* adverts: they should not be allowed to be so greedy as to have it both ways, especially considering some of the money “top sliced” would invariably go straight towards paying already-overpaid executive producers, who already have too narrow a concept of “ratings” that could only be cursed by what would effectively be free money. I think either a move towards public subscription or a more transparent and non-restrictive series of commercial models should be Channel 4’s remedy, and not the slimming down of the BBC.
A truly sizzling performance Mister Fry. Every and any good fight to maintain the profundity of the British Broadcasting Corporation during this turbulent time is truly worthy of the highest praise and something I hope that all of her subscribers will rise to share. It seems to me that although many shall lift that greatest of British mantles, the proverbial nit-comb, and attempt to fuss and bicker over the most trifling affairs of the BBC, the battle of maintaining the spirit and the soul, the philosophy and the breadth of the Beeb is far more significant, far more worthy of our efforts.
If Wilde were God then surely Fry is the Prophet and long may he challenge and inspire us to make the world just that little more interesting, that little more serene.
Just a little note to all those questioning the BBC for showing major football tournaments, they may not be educational, they may not stimulate debate or raise issues: but, remember what dear old Oscar once said
“simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex”
Thanks for the latest blog Stephen, i had already watched the speech on the net, but there’s nothing wrong with repeating quality work is there. On the whole i agree with you but im truly sorry to say Stephen that when it comes to the bbc’s comedy of late i have to agree with ‘Richard Madeley’ (not THE richard madeley of course, that would just be silly) The Beeb has always been strong because it has always had high standards, what is happening to it’s comedy programming? (Q I and Have I got news for you, are of course exempt from my critisisms)
# davelee Says:
June 29th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Just a little note to all those questioning the BBC for showing major football tournaments, they may not be educational, they may not stimulate debate or raise issues: but, remember what dear old Oscar once said
“simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complexâ€
Oh dear, and I thought that he was talking about tea in that quote.
(Although the quote taken out of context could suggest many a naughty thought).
ksenia..I rather think this declaration is apropos to the topic. That said, several of Oscar’s gems are.
“In the world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting
what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
Yes the quote from Dorian Gray was taken purposely out of context to illustrate my point. I consider myself humbled. Although its the quote i always savagely misuse as my excuse for doing things I really shouldn’t be doing. e.g. “Why are you sitting naked upon that tumble dryer?” “Ah, but simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex, my friend.” Excellent essay by the way.
Well, I think things might have quivered in a more desirable direction had they paid more attention to Peter and renamed some of it officially The Beeb. I think it would be very hard to cut funding on a place called The Beeb, as it would have been difficult here in Australia to cut funding to The ABC had it been partially and officially known as Aunty, who’d want to cut funding to their Aunty, and with that familiar logic, certainly not to one’s Beeb, who knows what that might do.
There’s my two cents or shillings since I did last year send a radio play to the BBC World Service International radio playwriting competition, so I’m for keeping its four-tracks well greased.
Rupert
Beautifully argued, Mr Fry. Hats off.
Re: Football on the Beeb…
I like football. And I like the way the Beeb does football and I recall with a shudder the car crash that resulted when ITV nicked Match of the Day.
Now. I pay the same licence fee as those who don’t like football. So I think I’m owed a little football. And, be honest, there’s hardly an overabundance of it on the Beeb.
Ballet, for instance, leaves me cold. Opera I can take or leave but, like football, prefer it in its natural environment. On telly, it just doesn’t work for me. Soaps? Not really interested. Flammed-up end-of-pier talent shows? Bollocks to ‘em.
But here’s the thing. Do I moan? Do I bleat? Do I cavil? No. I don’t. Some people like these things that I don’t like and they pay the same licence fee as I do. So they are entitled to them. That, my friends, is Public Service Broadcasting.
Try this. Imagine a typical year’s output, BBC TV and radio. Work out how much you’d pay to watch or listen to the stuff that amazed you, enlightened you, transported you, delighted you. If, when you’ve totted all that up, it comes to less than the licence fee, you maybe, MAYBE, have a right to complain.
But if, like me, you get to £139.50 and there’s loads of great stuff left, just think. You are getting all that lovely surplus for FREE. And what’s more, you haven’t had to pay a bean for the stuff you don’t like. The people who like it are paying for it.
I’ll take Match of the Day, anything by Sir David Attenborough, Doctor Who, the news, the prodigous and prestigious output of Mr Fry and friends, New Tricks, Top Gear, Fighting Talk, Danny Baker and Still Game. You can have whatever you like from the vast BBC cakestand of non-footy sweeties. And neither of us will whinge.
Deal?
Hi stephen – here is your first response for you in July, sorry but I am new to this and I just downloaded your podgrams yesterday, and listened to them on the way to and from work. I listened to the broadcast one on the number 17 all the way back to Canon street and then on the train. Fantastic, but how long did it take to write and how many drafts did you do until you got into it’s final state? If I attempted to do something half as decent as that it would take me nigh on 6 months! Clearly this is why you are so valued by BBC to articulate why we should maintain the institution for the good of all. I love comedy also, and you didn’t mention Alfresco, which i recall the sketch of POW camp and a wooden gym horse with I think hugh hidding inside it, is that correct? long time ago now but wasn’t that ITV, sorry I hav gone off on a tangent.. Anyway if you ever fancy a chat about comedy then just get in contact
cheers
Stuart
davelee.. It’s only problematic if the dryer is wall mounted and the bracket is not flush with the wall.
Oh Stephen.
A beautiful and well-argued speech, though I must confess you are preaching to the choir here. Nevertheless, I entirely agree with you. One need look only to America to see incredibly bloody lucky we are to have the BBC we do. I desperately hope that it is not tampered with within my lifetime.
Why aren’t you King yet?
Well said. I currently live in France. Couldn’t possibly have contemplated it without internet radio, podcasts etc.
A powerful, detailed and moving account of the BBC’s history, its output, the people involved (producing and absorbing), as well as a suggestive critique of the half-way house of contracting out.
I agree that you lose much by wholesale markteering the BBC, or commercialising cultural endeavour – though arts aways seem to need a generous patron. Is there any greater than the Public?
Still, the bean-counting and jealousy of the ‘commercial’ channels for their slice of the fee does seem to be a dangerous path to take – dissecting the BBC’s output only for the sum of its parts, and missing out on the powerful influence of the greater whole (good and bad; provocative and boring; obscure and popular). The BBC as outlined above is part and parcel of the social history of this entire country; at times and through certain channels and programmes, it has touched the whole world – a virtuous monopoly of sorts, but one that probably does need the odd kick up the backside too (reports of bbc.co.uk budgeting are dangerous as they damage reputation and trust hard-won).
No answers, of course, but I suppose that’s rather difficult. Justifying value, supporting failure – being creative and artistic, it is a difficult task and no mistake – rather like with the NHS, we celebrate and sometimes neglect the achievements of the national treasures in our public landscape, and yet want them to do yet more. There are problems though – I shudder at the personality-prison of presenter-led programming, especially BBC news in recent years; and the apparent apeing of ‘commercial’ TV without real reflection as to purpose. Radio seems to hold firm in this context, I should listen more, I know…
Mr Fry’s delivery was passionate and – at times – breathless: desperately advocating the Beeb, with authority and fondness. With a stake in both the public and private aspects of the business, reflecting the changes of the past 20 years, the points raised (and rehearsed) must serve a useful purpose, or at least provide pause for thought (and appreciation).
By-the-by, I wonder how the bibliophiles in all of us should react when they read of news such as the impending permanent archiving of the Type Museum with its wonderful collection of print technology and typefounding machines, detailing the history and materialising the development of the printed word in this country from the earliest days.
http://www.stockwellpark.com/pdf/spark-2008-05.pdf
I thought with the recent programme on Gutenberg press, and in light of the pleas for the value of the BBC, it seems rather sad that we neglect the fabulous collections we have on our own front doorstep (well currently in Stockwell, until the Science Museum have to put it into storage in the closed-access hangars at Wroughton).
Dear Mister Fry
Your docu on bipolar disorder was on Belgian TV. It was highly recommended.
All-tough I’m still wondering if you did not suffer from depression tout court instead of manic-depression. The manic side was not convincing to me, and could be a misunderstanding of the perception of your creativity as megalomania. Creative people can take on huge projects, that would be merely manic, if it weren’t for the fact that the projects are realised. A creative project however looks unrealistic to uncreative people, simply because they can not see it until it is realised. Creativity also has a danger of inducing depression, because the enterprises are a long-term activity, a long term stress factor, very unhealthy and favourable to depression. Anyway I give you something to worry about. Maybe your docu was completely wrong.
For the politicians and the suites, it might be a good argument to sell the BBC as we see it here. It’s an university. And universities have their pay back in spin-offs. The Academy award winning British movies, the unaffordable prestige and goodwill the BBC emanates. For the commercial stations it constitutes a challenge, and ITV just has to have it’s share of quality programs. So as-well in money, prestige and as a insurance to democracy it is invaluable. The Fox approach to news and information did not do their society any good. Loss of lives, huge deficits and general demoralisation of the public as they eventually will see the lies. The BBC has certainly colonised a number of countries for Britain. Now don’t let them throw away that Jewel.