INTRODUCTION
The media have gone through significant transformations over the past thirty years. These transformations, occurring on both a global and national level, have transpired on account of increased global competition, continuous deregulatory media policy, and improved technological advancements manifested by the augmentation of satellites and digital networks across the globe. Since the BBC stands as both the largest and oldest public service broadcaster in the world, these transformations have had an unquestionable affect on the organisation; and it is that of deregulation that has had the biggest impact. The disempowerment of public organisations across western governments particularly from the mid-1970s onwards (Ferlie et al., 1996), has hugely affected the BBC’s ability to make television programmes. Harris and Wegg-Prosser (2007) have noted of the period,
The Thatcher government, seeking to encourage liberalisation, market competition and media coverage, found an obvious target in the BBC. One government commission considered the possibility of outright privatisation (Home Office, 1986), but this was averted when the 1990 Broadcasting Act ruled that 25 per cent of BBC output should be outsourced from independent producers.
(p.292)
While the BBC’s history is filled with illustrations of how creativity has been both inhibited, and stimulated, the ‘Thatcher’ period stands out as the most taxing for the BBC’s creativity, and according to Barnett and Curry (1994), a period that involves one of the most successful lobby stories of the post-war era. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the organisation’s history (and the history of other areas of UK broadcasting that have affected the BBC), by breaking it down into three significant chronological periods and not only from 1979 onwards. By drawing on various significant historical accounts on the BBC (particularly O’Mailey, 1994; Barnett and Curry, 1994; Curran and Seaton, 1997; and Born, 2004), emphasis will be placed upon how creativity in programme-making has been achieved during all the BBC’s history. The narrative used is this chapter is radical (see Curran, 2002;
Bailey, 2008); the chapter in other words, advocates that the media, historically, does not function autonomously but rather are influenced by a number of both external and internal factors.
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For this reason, although broken down historically, the tripartite of media policy, globalisation and technological advancements will act as common harbingers of change throughout all three periods. Finally, it should be stated that the chapter seeks to contribute towards a better picture of the BBC’s contemporary setting that constitutes the next two chapters on how the BBC stimulates creativity of its original television programmes (chapter five on the UK television production landscape and chapter six on how the BBC functions from 2004 onwards). Specifically, this chapter is divided into the following three periods:
1. 1922-1979.
This phase marks the commencement of the BBC, first as a company and then as a public service broadcaster acting under a Royal Charter. It covers a vast chronological period and includes many different factors that have consequently affected the BBC’s programme-making policies such as the paternalistic approach of its first Director General John Reith, and its role in the Second World War (4.1.1). It looks also at how the BBC established itself (4.1.2) and grew after the Second World War consequently leading to what many historians consider the golden era of British audiovisual broadcasting (4.1.3). Finally, it looks at how from 1968, but more so towards the middle of the 1970s, a new managerial approach of public broadcasting had crept into the BBC’s thinking, emphasising accountability and financial discipline (4.1.4). These factors will act as a viable basis for the remaining two periods that are marked by the government alienation of the BBC, and the ruthlessness with how the restructuring of the 1990s led to what creative personnel in particular found the most onerous to adhere to.
2. 1979-1992.
When the Conservative Party gained power in 1979, Margaret Thatcher wasted little time in placing the BBC under close examination and financial pressure. The Annan Report, published shortly before 1979, was used as the driving factor that led to the launch of channel 4, the fourth terrestrial channel in the UK. The channel became the first publisher broadcaster and relied exclusively on commissions from the newly established independent production sector (4.2.1). Channel 4 helped establish the new sector during its precarious initial steps by commissioning programmes from a wide range of independent production companies and the period is therefore seen – due to such diversity - as a relatively rich period in broadcast creativity. As Channel 4 was been launched, the government was also using advancements in technology as a further reason to pursue a market-driven audiovisual policy (4.2.2). This part of the chapter seeks to analyse how these factors decreased the capacity of BBC’s own programme-making. Finally, the section closes with an analysis of the seminal Peacock Committee and how the Conservatives pushed through the 25 percent quota; it further explains why, because of the quota, a pro-conservative board of governors was formed at the BBC,
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who through producer choice created the most dramatic changes the corporation had ever witnessed (4.2.3).
3. 1992-2004.
This twelve year period is marked by the actions of two substantially different Director Generals, John Birt and Greg Dyke. From 1993 to 2000, John Birt drastically changed the organisation in the following ways: The introduction of Producer Choice in the early nineties; the restructuring of the BBC in the mid-nineties that separated Broadcast (distribution) from production; and the continuous disempowerment of its in-house production departments due to the 25 percent quota (4.3.1). In the meantime, the British audiovisual sector as a whole was rapidly been retransformed due to the mushrooming of multichannel television. These technological changes resulted in the stable loss of audience shares of terrestrial television broadcasters. When Greg Dyke took over the BBC he immediately sought to address the BBC’s declining ratings by reversing many strategies set out by Birt. With a background in commercial television production, he introduced many new measures that attempted to streamline creativity while simultaneously maintaining the BBC’s investment in making the UK a leader in digital communications (4.3.2).
4.1 1922 – 1979
4.1.1 The early years
Broadcasting has always been the most heavily regulated media. There are three reasons why this is the case (Goodwin, 1999). The first is due to the technological limitations involved in the sector. The growth of radio in the early twentieth-century and then television during the mid-twentieth century occurred on account of innovative engineers finding ways to produce an analogue image of the original and then sending it on carrier waves on the electromagnetic spectrum. By using the lower part of the spectrum (radio waves), analogue images of the original were able to be distributed to all households that were equipped with an antenna and a radio or television set. While the technology turned out to be a success, and subsequently spread across the world at an exceptionally fast rate making broadcasting an indispensable part of modern life, it had one limitation. The broadcasting station required a large amount of spectrum frequency to transmit its analogue signals. Consequently, since the electromagnetic spectrum is a finite attribute (known as spectrum scarcity), and since it is not necessarily owned by anybody, there was a clear need for it to be regulated. Regulatory responsibility was taken by the governments of each country. Without government intervention, Goodwin argues, ‘everyone who wanted to use this scarce resource would result in ‘chaos of the airwaves’. So radio and television became a ‘natural monopoly’ which needed to be either owned, or at the very least, allocated and regulated by the state’ (p.131).
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In the UK for example, in 1922 almost 100 applications were sent to the Post Office (that took on the role of regulator at the time) from various manufacturers that wanted a broadcasting license to help speed up the sale of radio receivers (Curran and Seaton, 1997).
The second reason why broadcasting was heavily regulated is due to the impact the technology had on human behaviour. In the 1920s the media was seen as ‘a magic bullet’ in which messages were ‘shot’ into the minds of extremely passive audiences (Williams, 2003).
If comic books, posters, newspapers and flyers could affect the behaviour of societies’
perceptions of war (among other things), radio, and certainly television later on, would be even more influential. The third and final reason is because at the time when broadcasting was spreading, it was common practise for governments to follow interventionist policies throughout the world. The BBC was created shortly after the First World War during a period when government intervention was not only a norm, but deemed necessary. Anything new would be under the control of the state (Goodwin, 1999). Curran and Seaton (1997) citing the economist Lincoln Gordon note, ‘by the 1920s, public boards had become all the rage, politicians of every creed when confronted with an industry or a social service which was giving trouble or failing to operate efficiently – create a board’ (p.113).
The newly established British Broadcasting Company took to the airwaves in November 1922. The company was set up by a consortium of manufacturers (including the inventor of wireless technology Guglielmo Marconi), after recommendations by the Postmaster General who sought to find a solution to spectrum scarcity rather than deal with the impossible task of giving everyone a separate frequency license. The company, it was agreed upon, would be supported by a small license fee (ten shillings paid to the post office) and from a small tariff (royalties) on the radio sets that were required to listen to programmes. As mentioned earlier, its initial mission was to create programmes that would lead to the sale of radio receivers. While many people did indeed begin listening to the BBC, sales were not enough.
This is because many people found ways of making their own radio sets but also because radio was listened to in groups. From its inception therefore, the British Broadcasting Company would require a strong leader capable of finding other means of resources other than radio receiver sales. This was subsequently left to the BBC’s first Managing Director, John Reith. Reith left a big mark on the organisation, a mark undeniably still witnessed today. A tough, authoritarian Scottish Calvinist Engineer ‘devoid of humour’ (Born, 2004), Reith was determined to make the BBC an organisation that functioned similarly to the Bank of England and The Royal Academy rather than a normal business; Reith in other words, wanted the organisation to function under a Royal Charter. Due to Reith’s persistence and persuasive abilities, the British Broadcasting Company changed into the British Broadcasting Corporation on the backdrop of the 1923 Sykes Committee (the first of many state committees dealing with broadcasting). The Sykes Committee proposed that broadcasting should be a public utility (Barnett and Curry, 1994) and in 1926, with the full backing of post office officials, the wireless manufacturers association and the Prime Minister, the BBC - as its known today - was formed (working under a Royal Charter). According to Nicholas, the
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BBC became ‘a model of public service broadcasting for the rest of the world…incorporated by a Royal Charter’ (2006, p. 1).
During the BBC’s early years, Reith tried hard to establish a paternalistic policy that sought to educate, inform and entertain the audience (in that particular order). He firmly believed that the BBC knew best what audiences should be given. Additionally, Reith pushed for a mixed programme policy that attempted to unify the nation. Although the policy was seen by many as elitist, Reith succeeded in creating what is now regarded as the first homogenous audience in the UK. It is worth noting Curran and Seaton’s analysis in length,
Reith’s programme policy depended on an assumption of cultural homogeneity: not that everybody was the same, but that culture was single and undifferentiated. He had been determined to avoid the mediocrity which he believed would accompany freedom of choice. ‘It is occasionally indicated to us that we are apparently setting out to give the public what we think they need – not what they want’ he (Reith) wrote in 1924. ‘But few know what they want and very few what they need.’…their purpose was to give authority to cultural values, not to represent listeners’ interests.
(p. 151)
During John Reith’s period in office, the BBC attempted to create programmes that unified the nation while simultaneously keeping its independent from the state. Several years later, when competition began to take a toll, the organisation started commissioning audience surveys as well as various other audience research projects in order to understand what the audience wanted. Audience research at the BBC began under the guidance of the organisation’s first Listener Research Director Robert Silvey, (Gunter, 2000; Nicholas, 2006).
To this day it continues in various forms (see chapter six) and is now a central activity of the creative process. During Reith’s reign however, the BBC’s programming policy was not interested in knowing what the audience felt and what it wanted. Reith, with the support of almost all his colleagues, believed that finding out what audiences wanted through audience research would only detriment the organisation’s educational duty of giving the audience what Reith felt the audience needed. As such, its programming schedule at the time consisted of messages from the monarch, or broadcasts from important national events, coronations, political speeches or from the BBC’s broadcasts of the national symphony orchestra. As it was a new medium, many intellectuals were interested in contributing towards entertaining, informing and educating the nation; eminent writers, scholars, artists and other such performers would all add to Reith’s vision of public service broadcasting.
While the BBC’s policy of mixed-programming during these early years would allow certain creative processes to be pursued, it was also a period of intense censorship where decency and taste issues were frequently brought up (Curran and Seaton 1997; BBC, 2008a;
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Holmes, 2009). According to the BBC’s own website, creative staff, most of whom were men (see also Curran and Seaton, 1997, p. 125), were required to inhibit their creative talents because of decency and taste provisions. The BBC website states, ‘Taste and decency became an issue early on for the BBC. Comedians overstepped the mark at their peril, and jokes about religion, drunkenness and many other sensitive subjects were banned’ (BBC, 2008a). Reith himself was notorious for the mistreatment of his staff when it came to issues of decency. In one case, according to Curran and Seaton, P.P. Eckersley, a programme innovator of ‘enormous talent’, was apparently, ‘obliged to resign because he was cited in a divorce case’ (p. 124). The BBC’s creativity was further damaged because the organisation, supported by the government, decreased the amount of radio stations that could have been established during this period. During these early years of broadcasting, various amateur and local radio stations began cropping up throughout Britain; the BBC however, took control of all these stations arguing that radio is a ‘centralised medium’. Thus by 1930 radio was left
‘in the hands of five BBC regional centres’ and that of BBC London (Born, 2004 p. 30).
These actions decreased cultural diversity in the UK and subsequently diminished the BBC’s own creativity at the time.
4.1.2 The BBC Becomes Established
Listeners in the 1930s began tuning into commercial stations such as Radio Luxemburg and Radio Normandie rather than listen to the BBC. In light of the competition, the BBC’s programming policy needed re-strategising. As a result, towards the end of John Reith’s reign as Director General, the BBC was broadcasting more entertainment programmes than any other European station (Curran and Seaton, 1997; Born 2004). Audience opinions suddenly became more important and new departments within the organisation (other than production), became more involved in the creative process. According to Nicholas (2006), the BBC was always interested in knowing what audiences liked and disliked and what their habits were. However, due to Reith’s insistence to give the audience an idealistic and paternalist programming mixture based on assumptions and speculations rather than empirical evidence, audience research was not introduced until a decade after the BBC’s inception. As Ang notes (1991), ‘the discourse was prescriptive not descriptive’ (p.110).
Although radio competition was becoming a concern for many BBC controllers, the organisation was also apprehensive of how a more powerful medium – television - might spread across the UK. Yet with the outbreak of the Second World War, television augmentation was put on hold on account of national security. This, inevitably, was to be a radio war. Enemy stations such as Radio Hamburg were broadcasting a combination of entertaining shows and German propaganda. The BBC therefore needed to respond and consequently found itself with a new set of responsibilities. Throughout this dire period, apart from increased competition, lighter entertainment programming became justified in order to boost the nation’s morale. However as lighter entertainment programming grew, so
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did the BBC’s bureaucracy. Collaborating closely with the Ministry of Information, the BBC, during the war, grew in size and new departments were created under a centralised body.
At the same time, new technologies and relentless efforts were made to make radio more immediate and current. Journalists went through military training in order to report more detailed and immediate stories from the field, and producers of famous programmes would send teams to find out up-to-date information about the rhetoric of the day that was in turn used in scripts in an attempt to attract more audiences. Overall, the BBC came out from the war bigger, stronger and more reputable. Despite an increase in entertainment content, its mixed programme policy remained intact - and importantly - the organisation was now run in an extremely bureaucratic manner particularly when compared with before the war.
4.1.3 Post-War BBC and the Golden Era of Television
Following the war, the freeze on television was removed and television sets began to spread across the UK giving even more impetus for what was now a huge bureaucratic public organisation. In a lecture in 1993, John Birt described post-war BBC (aiming specifically at the production departments), in the following way,
‘Auntie – like so many other large organisations in the private and public sectors in the post-war years – became a command economy; a series of entangled, integrated baronies, each providing internally most of its needs…nothing was transparent…Byzantine in many of its structures’ (Born, 2004, p. 100).
Curran and Seaton (1997) have argued similarly that organisational structures created during the war continued to exist even after the war ended. In their view, the BBC consisted of, ‘structural fossils in important areas of policy, surviving immutably in peacetime, but with no particular relevance to the post-war world’ (p. 151). When the war came to an end the Labour party overthrew Churchill’s conservative government, and William Beveridge was given the responsibility to introduce the welfare state in Britain. Special reports were consequently made on national health, social security, insurance, and of course, broadcasting. Being a liberal, Beveridge was critical of the BBC. The Beveridge report on the BBC saw the organisation as overly bureaucratic, complacent, secretive, London-centric and inefficient (Curran and Seaton, 1997, p. 162). He did however want the BBC to continue functioning as a public service broadcaster and therefore recommended that the Charter be renewed. Significantly, he included in his report that commercial television might lead to a better British broadcasting environment consequently setting the tone for what was to follow.
The arrival of commercial television came soon after the conservatives were voted back in
The arrival of commercial television came soon after the conservatives were voted back in