Evolución de la calidad

Through the mechanisms outlined in this and the previous chapters, the programme presented emerges as a product of collective action taken at different levels and dimensions, rather than as a projection of personal charisma and personal taste. In fact, some programmers would not hesitate to maintain that there is no need to have a great depth of knowledge in each art form but that it is very important to know the right people and have common sense. Interestingly nobody has expressed any embarrassment over the lack of specialist knowledge in some areas which they cover. Lack of specialist knowledge can be compensated for by building up ‘circles of friends’ from whom to obtain advice and opinion.

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See, for example, Hood (ed) (1994) and Siune and Truetzschler (eds) (1992) for changes both in technology and in government broadcasting policy in the early 1990s which have meant a more competitive market for commercial television companies.

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Theatre companies used to deal with Local Education Authority advisers who made collective booking for schools. Much of funding for school has been devolved, and schools which now self-manage do not tend to see bringing theatres to schools as a priority (Arts Council of England 1996, p19).

There is a structural element which tends to deny the possibility of programming as a projection of personal charisma and taste of the programmer. This is related to the mobility of individual products presented at arts centres and of the audience. On the one hand, touring companies by definition travel everywhere. A ‘find’ made by one venue programmer is hard to contain at a specific venue. Ironically, successful companies may start to raise their fees so that the original venue may no longer be able to afford it. Even more ironically a small company, once successful, is encouraged by arts funding bodies, and by agents and promoters in some cases, to increase its size, and will no longer fit the original venue. Arts centres with more than one differently sized space tend to encourage the company to grow from small to medium (and to large) which helps the artistic as well as financial development of the company.

The Arts Council’s funding system also encourages companies to grow wherever possible. Middle-scale companies enjoy better funding arrangements and benefit from other services in touring and marketing, as has been illustrated in Chapter 3. The view that small-scale theatre groups and products are for research and development has been explicitly made in the literature (Arts Council of England 1996, p13) as well as in the interviews I conducted with funders. By implication, therefore, successful companies should progress to larger spaces. Arts centres with only small spaces lose out in this structure.

Audiences on the other hand have limited mobility. Conventional wisdom in arts marketing is that the majority would, in the regions, drive for up to 40 minutes in a single trip to venues, but not more than 60 minutes.16

The combination of the limited possibility for a product to be contained and the limited mobility of the audience has two implications. One is that it is difficult for the venue sector to develop a system of reputation in which some venues are seen as more eminent than others, for example, for frequently discovering talented artists previously unknown in the arts world or for programming special events only available at them. The lack of a reputation system for the sector, if this is called a sector at all, will be extensively discussed in Chapter 8.

The other implication of high product-mobility and low audience-mobility is that for suburban and rural arts centres with little other arts provision nearby it is very difficult to specialise in

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any specific area and thereby establish corporate identities and reputations through their programming. Even at urban centres, if not in central London, it is not easy to sustain venues of a highly specialist nature and of minority interest economically, for example, those dedicated to contemporary dance and Physical Theatre. It is known empirically that specialist arts provision needs a hinterland to draw a critical mass.

Summary

Drawing on the findings of Chapter 5 on the process by which products are acquired and the analysis given in Chapter 6 on the way in which arts centres’ diaries are shaped, this chapter has presented a view that programming is the result of collective action, working at various levels. At the micro level, the programmer relies on arts professionals for information and views on products to be obtained. The programmer may not have specialist knowledge in every genre s/he deals with. S/he is not an impresario and does not have to be a connoisseur, but is more of an efficient co-ordinator with a good grasp of local audiences and good connections in arts circles. It is very important for the programmer to be able to ask for opinions and recommendations on the product concerned by using different networks and circles. The arts centre gains access to arts producers through its board members, whilst arts programmers obtain good contacts in the arts world through helping arts companies, funding bodies and professional associations as advisors or in other capacities.

At the macro level, collectivity emerges as a result of industrial and sectoral structures and workings. The cases of orchestral music and film industries have illustrated the impact of their business conventions and economics on the programming at arts centres. Government policy on broadcasting and education, albeit indirectly, affect what is available for them to book.