3 - We Apologise for the Interruption
British Television and Politics
Margaret Thatcher’s free market revolution was about to lay into the television industry. Television had always had a rocky relationship with politicians. Until the Second World War, the medium had been seen by most MP’s and opinion makers as a nonentity which was presumed to have little effect on the general public. The editor of The Listener, the BBC’s weekly journal, was telling young producers as recently as the late thirties that, “Television won’t matter in your lifetime or mine”. It was only the BBC’s live coverage of Princess Elizabeth’s Coronation as Queen in 1953, that began to persuade the politicians that television could be a friend to their cause.
Winston Churchill, Britain's Prime Minister during the Second World War, loathed television cameras. As a result, he was never to give a pre-arranged television interview. John Colville, Churchill’s private Secretary from 1940, wrote in his diary that, “Winston Churchill never looked at television, and he was not going to be televised himself if he could possibly help it”.
The Coronation, however, had persuaded him that television was gaining in popularity. Politicians can always make allowances for new technology if it provides them with an access to the population. The current British Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s love affair with the internet proves this much.
Churchill allowed the party’s first ‘television officer’, Winifred Crum-Ewing, to arrange a secret screen test. His contempt for the medium was not disguised. “I am sorry, I must admit, to have to descend to this level”, he told the camera, “but we all have to keep pace with modern improvements, and it is just as well to see where you are in regards to them.” The screen test was not an optimum success ( to use John Major’s phrase describing the 1991 Franchise Rounds), and left Churchill even more entrenched in his dislike of the medium.
Churchill’s relationship with the BBC, then the only broadcaster in Britain, was venomous. Churchill maintained throughout his lifetime that the corporation was “honeycombed with Socialists - probably with Communists.” It was an argument that was to linger throughout the post-war period, with the Government of the day accusing the medium, particularly the BBC, of sympathising with the other political extreme.
During the next forty years, very little appeared to change. The background mood of the politicians altered, however, from apathy to fear, to one of manipulation.
Fear was epitomised by the Fourteen Day Rule that was in force until it was grudgingly repealed by the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, in 1956. The rule had prohibited any mention on television of subjects that were likely to be discussed in either of the Houses of Parliament within the coming fortnight. Obviously, this removed any topicality that may have been possible within the medium. The absence of topicality was of utmost importance to politicians who wanted to avoid the belittling of their image by ill-judged on-screen debate.
By the late Seventies, however, television had gained a new status amongst politicians. They had realised that the medium had now attained widespread popular support. Television had become the most effective method of brainwashing the nation. Margaret Thatcher was quick to learn this when she led the Conservative Party into power in 1979. “In today’s world selective seeing is believing and in today’s world, television comes over as truth.”
Television had earned a brief respite as Thatcher’s government set about rejuvenating the country funded by a form of nation-wide asset-stripping. By the time of her third government in 1987, the original dragons that formed the target of Thatcher’s original manifesto had been defeated, and she was looking for another fight. The commercial television industry was ideal. Her second term had already infiltrated the BBC, which was well on the way to fulfilling her plans for it.
Burdened with huge workforces and generally considered to be a licence to print money, ITV was anathema to all of Thatcher’s free market ideals. At a ITVA dinner held to honour the Prime Minister, she had been scathing about what she saw as over-manning in the commercial sector. She recounted that, during a visit to Thames’ Teddington Studios, she had counted no less than sixteen engineers for just one broadcast. The ITV companies must compete more, she argued. It was clear that this was an early warning of her belief that advertisers and viewers would lose out if competition was not embraced fully. This was a situation that she would not tolerate.
The first indication that television bosses had of their forthcoming ordeal was at an extraordinary meeting held at 12 Downing Street, the office of the Chief Whip. The ‘Seminar on Commercial Broadcasting’ that they were attending, had been arranged by the Prime Minister herself. Forty members of the television elite - all male - bustled into a room containing five semi-circular rows of hardback chairs. The focus of the room was an elongated desk behind which six chairs had been arranged. These began to fill with the familiar frames of Lord Young, the Trade and Industry secretary, Douglas Hurd, the Home Secretary, and the Prime Minister herself. Civil Servants occupied two of the other chairs. The remaining one was left vacant for the burly Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson. He gusted into the room several minutes late, causing the Prime Minister to remark that, “It is always the boy who lives nearest the school who is late.” She made a note in her red notebook, leaving the assembly of television executives to wonder if she was giving Lawson a black mark for being late.
The emphasis moved away from the chancellor towards the television executives themselves. Thatcher launched into a full frontal assault on the way that commercial television was run. She opposed the way that the sixteen companies divided the airtime between them, thereby shunning the new rise in independent production companies. The creation of the new national broadcaster, Channel Four, in 1982, had spawned tens of new producers responding to the new channel’s remit. This specified that all of Channel Four’s output had to be made externally. This made the channel effectively a broadcaster rather than a producer. Independents had sprung up everywhere, all hoping to grab a share of the limited airtime available. However, even with this new opportunity, production opportunities were still a limited commodity. Most companies were short-lived, surviving only for one or two commissions. Still, it had opened up the field to competition, argued Thatcher. This competition had not yet entered the ITV system. The Prime Minister stunned the meeting, by suggesting that forty per cent of all airtime, excluding news, should be given over to independents.
It was clear by this time that Thatcher had big plans for the independent sector. Her sympathies seemed to be solely with the line of independent producers who stood up to complain about the opportunities that ITVoffered them. The Prime Minister rose to her full height and made her dislike of the commercial system quite plain. “You gentlemen are the last bastion of restrictive practices”, she bellowed.
But Thatcher’s reason for calling the meeting was not just to release a stream of abuse to the broadcasters. She had great plans for commercial broadcasting. The Prime Minister had already commissioned Professor Peacock to produce a report on the future of the BBC as part of the BBC’s charter review. The BBC’s licence was, like the ITV companies, reviewed every decade or so. The Peacock committee had been expected to advocate that the BBC be subjected to advertising rather than rely on the licence fee. Peacock astounded everyone, not least Margaret Thatcher by throwing the option out.
Thatcher was outraged, but was instead comforted by a side comment in the report that suggested that the ITV licences could be sold off in an auction to the highest bidder. This appealed to the rampant free-marketeer in the Prime Minister. No more licence rounds need occur. The market would regulate ITV. Poor quality companies would be taken over by larger, better quality stations.
Peacock was a guest at the seminar, but was now having second thoughts about his auction plans. His original brief had been to predict the future of the BBC. Any other comments that were made had been only ideas rather than suggestions. In any case the need for enforced competition in the commercial broadcasting world was becoming less important. Technological advances had multiplied the number of stations available to the consumer, first by satellite and cable, then by digital transmission. ITV was already going to be subject to competition whether it liked it or not. Why mess about with a system that worked well.
The problem was that the system had not worked well. Previous franchise rounds had been decided on an arbitrary whim by the IBA (ITV’s broadcasting authority). The previous round in 1980 had been particularly criticised for granting the removal of the licence from the successful southern England producer, Southern Television. No reason had ever been given for the decision increasing the hostility towards the IBA. The answer to the Prime Minister was quite obvious. The IBA must relinquish control of the licence decisions based on subjective quality reasoning. Instead the authority should make judgements on something that could be transparently measured. In Thatcher’s mind this meant only one thing - money.