HL Deb 20 January 1965 vol 262 cc924-38

3.24 p.m.

LORD WILLIS rose to call attention to the latest Reports of the B.B.C. and I.T.A.; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I ought to begin by saying that I have held certain consultations about whether this debate should take place in the form in which it has been [...] down or whether it should be postponed. I have been assured that it is the wish of your Lordships' House that we should continue with the debate. I also think I ought to begin by declaring my interest in this matter, although I am not sure whether what I have to say will further my interest, since I largely work in television and do not particularly own any part of it.

I have been asked also—and I think it is fair—to make an explanation on the presence here to-day of the noble Lord, Lord Normanbrook and the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton. As your Lordships know, the duty of replying to this debate rests with the Government, and not with officials and executives of the two Authorities concerned who may happen to be Members of your Lordships' House. Under the so-called Addison Rule it has been established that the noble Lords should not intervene in this debate at all. I think that this is wise and right; although I personally regret it; and I hope your Lordships will understand this and will not regard their silence as a sullen one.

I should like to preface my remarks, and some criticisms that I want to make on these two Reports, by making one basic statement which I hope your Lordships will take as a kind of framework for what I have to say later. It is this. In my view, we have in Britain one of the finest, if not the finest television and broadcasting services in the world. I do not think that anybody who has watched television abroad in any quantity would really doubt this. I wish also to add, that in my view, in spite of the great deal of criticism levelled at it, B.B.C. 2 has, after a shaky start, made a tremendous contribution, is going to prove itself to be a success and is an experiment that has been proved well worth while. I hope your Lordships will bear that kind of approach in mind with what I have to say.

My Lords, going through these Reports, and analysing them, I think that if I had to write an end-of-term report for the B.B.C. and I.T.A. what I would say is this: "You have worked hard and achieved some excellent results over a wide field, but you need to use your imagination more and try to raise the quality of your work. You tend to be rather slapdash at times and careless with your language. You are too easily influenced by what the boy next to you is doing, and you tend to imitate him; and you ought to try to get your weight down a bit."I would apply that comment to both channels.

A striking feature of the Reports is the immense scope and variety of the programmes and the sheer massive volume of it all. I think the word "channel" is a very apt one, for television is a channel down which every day a mighty flood of material surges and roars. What becomes clear when you look at these Reports is that television and radio (and I should like to make it clear that when I use the word "television" I include also sound radio) are not one thing but many things. They are a schoolroom, a newspaper, a concert hall, an art gal lery, a cinema screen, a theatre, a workshop, a laboratory, a debating chamber, a platform, a playing field and a pulpit. Much of the criticism levelled at it fails to take account of the fact that it is all these things and not just one. It is connected with almost every home in the land. Thousands of its programmes are shown around the world.

I should like to give your Lordships two illustrations to indicate the enormous impact and spread of this medium. If you took the Drury Lane Theatre and filled it to the roof for eight performances a week, it would take 27 years to achieve the total audience which "Steptoe and Son" attracts in one night. Take the B.B.C. Shakespearean production, a magnificent thing, "The Age of Kings". If you took the Aldwych Theatre and played to full houses for eight performances a week, it would take twelve years to equal the audience of this series. This is the measure of the medium we are discussing to-day. We are discussing something which has rapidly become what we might call the Fifth Estate. Your Lordships will therefore, I am sure, forgive me if I do not touch on every aspect of the problem but concentrate on some of the points I feel to be important.

First, I should like to say a word or two about some of the attitudes to television. There has been a great deal of criticism by the Press, swinging from one extreme to the other; sometimes the B.B.C. has been the whipping boy and sometimes I.T.V. I thought that things had gone a little far when, just before Christmas, I saw the headline "Snow blocks I.T.V.", until I read on and realised it was referring to the weather. The attitudes to television divide roughly into two. On the one hand there are those who talk with real affection about the "telly"; then there are those who refer disdainfully to "the box". This is the real dividing line.

The first group comprises the vast majority. They get a great deal of simple pleasure out of most of the television programmes. They grumble about it sometimes, just as they do about the weather and about the Government, but, on the whole, they like it and are pleased to have it and, above all, they have learned to live with it. It does not dominate their lives as some critics seem to think. They are not so simple or so naï ve as that. I know, from some of my own work that has rarely been popular with the critics. From my postbag, I know of the simple and warm response of people to some of these programmes.

The second group can, in a sense, be sub-divided. There are those who dismiss television as something that keeps "the peasants" quiet, and there are those who, more seriously, see it as a threat to artistic standards and who read all kinds of sinister undertones into some of the more popular programmes. The other day I came across something which might be described as an old "anti-Valentine", and to me it summed up some of these attitudes. It goes like this: When I watched you, I can't but allow I had many an exquisite minute, But the scorn that I feel for you now Hath even more luxury in it. Thus, whether you're on or you're off, Some bitchery seems to await you. To love you is pleasant enough, But oh, 'tis delicious to hate you!

One gets this feeling—I certainly do sometimes—reading, not so much some of the television critics and reviewers, but, much more, a new breed of person who seems to have developed in the last few years—those people studying the effect of mass media on the population. I do not want to scoff at this, because I think it is extremely valuable and important and in certain fields we do not know enough about it. On the other hand, I think that some of these people go off at half-cock and are suffering from what I have always regarded as one of the fundamental problems of this country, which has never yet been solved: that one half does not know how the other half live and think. The middle class knows relatively little about the approach and method of thought of working-class people, and vice versa. I think there are very big dangers in this. I think that they are right—and I speak here as a guilty man—when they say that much of the material on television reflects a shallow and superficial picture of the world. I want to come back to this in a moment.

I think it is right to attack some of the trivialities and banalities of television. I admit that I wanted to be sick the other evening when I saw a pretty little teenager intoning a song—I use the word lightly—some of the words of which went: We had a quarrel … I was untrue on the night he died. He rode into the night, Accelerated his motor bike. I cried in fright, 'Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it!'.

It wound up with: Terry, please wait at the gate of heaven for me.

I thought that was the worst drivel, and dangerous drivel, that I had heard for a very long time on television.

While I would accept a great deal of what the television critics say, I think they make certain mistakes. They fail to realise that television, like all art and communication, is in a sense a pyramid and they are criticising just one or two of the bricks in the pyramid. They are criticising just a small fraction of the output. They do not attempt to give sufficient credit to, or see clearly, what has already been achieved. It is a fact, which I think we should do well to bear in mind, that in proportion to their respective outputs, television has produced more first-rate drama in recent years than the theatre. The plays by Alun Owen, David Mercer, Clive Exton, John Bowen, and others, on television are at least equal in quality to many of the best produced in the theatre, and better than most. The West End theatre to-day is an island surrounded by musicals, and there are only one or two of the dramas which you can say are well-made or good straight plays. Even some of the good straight plays, which do not profess to be anything more than entertainment, are not better, and are even worse, than the dramatic scenes on television like "Z-Cars" and "The Planemakers". This kind of proportion has to be borne in mind. In the cinema, I do not think that anything has been produced in the last few years to equal the B.B.C. 2 achievement in the series on the Great War, which was magnificent.

I think that the great mistake these critics make is to underestimate and underwrite the viewers. They betray their attitude when they describe viewers as the admass. If you start to think of television audiences as admass, you suggest that once millions and millions of people—all the engineers, carpenters, clerks, shop assistants, business men and executives—have finished work for the day they stop thinking and become a great jellylike mass which just absorbs what is being put in front of them. This "holier than thou" attitude is expressed in the criticism of many programmes. For example, there is a programme that has been running for a good many years called "Take Your Pick". It is not one of my particular favourites, but I confess that I am puzzled when some critics see in this all kind of sinister undertones and suggest that such a programme exploits the simplicity of ordinary people and plays on their worst instincts and encourages greed. I think that this is no different from, and no worse than, people: putting on paper hats at Christmas. It is a simple parlour game, and from what I can see and from what I have been told by some people who appear in it, it is a pretty harmless game which they enjoy playing in.

By concentrating their criticism on this kind of thing the critics reduce the value of their criticism and the value of critics. This really is a bit too solemn. People are not so simple as that. We should remember that people work hard to-day and have a physical and psychological need for relaxation and entertainment, which they can often get from television. We have all had the experience of coming home dead tired, wanting only to sink into an armchair and look at something. There is no harm in this. In a sense, it is a positive contribution. And the viewer has as much right to this as a don at a university has to read his cheap thriller, or even to write it. I admire Arthur Miller, but I should not want to see his plays every night. We should think in proportion.

What can be done to raise the quality of television? First, taking the B.B.C., I think that the most urgent thing is to give them the money to do the job. I think that the B.B.C. have been shamefully treated by Parliament in this respect. They were asked to extend their services and to build B.B.C. 2, yet they have been denied an increased licence fee, and are still denied it. The man who takes the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror pays out £6 10s. a year. Top people taking the "top paper" plus the Sunday Times pay out £9 10s. a year. Therefore, it is impossible to suggest that £6 a year for television is too expensive. For 4d. a day, the viewer would get a choice of three television services, three radio programmes and a start in colour televi- sion. I hope that the Government will end this shilly-shallying and make this increase boldly and explain why it should be made. I think there should be certain provisos—concessions for old-age pensioners and arrangements for the quarterly payment of licences. In addition, I think that there should be a long, hard look at B.B.C. finance generally. Looking at the figures, there is too high a proportion of money spent on management and as against creative production.

The next thing which I think would be an improvement is a much greater development of regional production. This is a fundamental issue, not only in relation to B.B.C. but to I.T.V. as well. The whole structure has become top-heavy and centralised and needs to be broken down into smaller and more viable operating units in which the creative people who provide the primary production can get near the places where decisions are taken. With l.T.V. the problem is slightly different—to really open up the network to products from the smaller regions. This is not just a problem for television, but a vital problem for the country as a whole. If we are to stop the drift to the South-East, it is essential to improve the quality of life in the regions, and clearly television can and must play a big part in this. Neither I.T.V. nor B.B.C. have a good record here, though I think that B.B.C. radio has some immense successes to its credit.

I should like to take Scotland as an example, not because I wish to single out Scotland particularly, but because I think Scotland clearly illustrates the points I have in mind. Television, in a Scottish sense, is virtually moribund. Some of the programmes we think of as Scottish are in fact produced in the London studios. Until two years ago the B.B.C. had grossly inadequate facilities. The entire transmission equipment consisted of one obsolete O.B. unit, and the studio was a small converted cinema.

Last May, with a fanfare of trumpets, a new studio was opened and was announced as a new centre for drama in Scotland. But with what result? It was commandeered for B.B.C. 2 productions, which will not be seen in Scotland for some years. There have been only local network productions—some Andy Stewart spectaculars, and some editions of an "off-peak" revue. There is the example of a leading writer who, together with a Scottish television executive, tried to develop an idea for a Scottish series. But this was blocked by the Wazirs of Wood Lane, who informed him that they had in mind the purchase of an American series on the same lines. And so what was a genuine attempt to build up a Scottish series, which would have used Scottish writers and Scottish actors, and would have been produced in Glasgow, was finished.

I am rather astonished, my Lords, that the Scots, who have a fiery attitude towards their independence, have put up with this situation for so long. There is far too much centralisation; too many decision are taken from this one centre at Wood Lane. I have heard it described (and I think that this might apply also to the headquarters of some television companies) as like the Bed of Procrustes, where people are shortened to fit the bed. In certain other areas the B.B.C. have managed to develop certain regional productions, and are building other studios. I am hopeful that they will push ahead with this essential task of developing drama and other productions in the regions. But it is necessary, in order to achieve this, to break the almost Papal authority with which London rules the regions, and to give those regions much more self-government.

If we turn to I.T.V. in Scotland, the picture is just as black, if not more so. With Scottish Television, Ltd., drama policy is non-existent. There have been twelve plays in seven years. Apart from a small donation to Scottish repertory companies, there has been no significant contribution to Scottish cultural life. And that is true also of many of the other regional companies. Their franchise was granted on the assurance that regional creative talent would be developed and encouraged. There is very little sign of this, with the honourable exception of Granada and, to some extent, of Television, Wales and West. The smaller companies complain that they cannot get on the network. And it is true that we had the extraordinary situation, some months ago, when Television Wales and West produced a feature on Dylan Thomas which they could not sell to A.T.V.; and it was eventually taken by the B.B.C.

On the other hand, I believe that many of these companies are quite happy with this position: they are content merely to fulfil their quota by putting out news, sports features and record shows, all of which are cheap and make no demands on them. Some time ago the smaller companies formed themselves into a regional association to try to pool resources. I saw in this move some hope that they would be developing their own productions. So far, however, results are not encouraging. The latest news is that they have bought over 100 episodes of "Peyton Place" an American series which has been described as a sort of "Mrs. Dale's Diary with sex". This is a case, I believe, of "forcing white out and forcing grey in." The I.T.A. ought to use their authority here to insist that regional companies fulfil local obligations to sink real roots in their areas. I believe that this would lead to a tremendous improvement in the overall quality of television. It means that they must be given guaranteed access to the network for regional drama, and it means that, when the time comes, we must have the reorganisation of some regions, with the abolition of some of the smaller ones, to create more viable units.

I should like to turn now for a moment to say a word or two about drama. The volume on television is so great, and pressures so hard, that there is a temptation to take the easy way out. This is seen in the development of so many series, many of which, as I have said, are excellent. But I believe that if this tendency to develop series, as against individual drama is carried too far it will destroy the basis of television and significantly reduce quality. Series are relatively easy to organise; plays, being individual things, are difficult and messy. So it is simple to take the easy way out. In a series, the attitudes of the people are simple; the characters are uncomplicated and the morality is easily accepted.

But even at its best—and I am not suggesting for one moment (otherwise I should be denigrating myself) that great skill is not needed in developing series—writing for series is glib, oversimplified and therefore distorted; it perpetuates received attitudes; it is formula writing; it is instant, pre-digested melodrama. This is all right on the level of sheer entertainment—and sometimes it achieves more than that. But it is not enough. Quality, basically, in television is bound up with the number of creative workers—actors, artistes, writers, and so forth—that are available. These can be basically developed only by one thing: quality of acting, producing and writing original drama in all its forms. One of the reasons for the drastic and rather shameful decline of American television has been the death of original drama on their channels.

I believe that a good deal of the criticism that has been levelled at some drama would be avoided if the B.B.C. and I.T.V. developed a particular time-slot for some contemporary drama, and kept to it. Both authorities should take a lead in encouraging television drama by setting a target to double the number of original plays. The B.B.C. and I.T.V. should make it possible for a writer to live by writing original drama, without diluting his talent on series. This may seem to your Lordships to be a rather internal argument, but let me assure you that it is not.

All the finest work, the path-finding, so far as standards are concerned, is done by the creative people; and the creative people can best express themselves when they are not straitjacketed by the formula that is found in a series: in other words, when they are given the freedom to develop them. And out when the actors and directors are given the freedom to develop them. And out of these writers can come a whole flood of talent which can help to improve the quality of television. This is just the same as the manufacturer looking for people and training them to fill executive posts in the future. It is in original dramas that new techniques can be explored, and new writers developed, and that the great problems of our time can be illuminated.

I think that we need to give greater attention to minorities. Here, too, there could be a significant increase in quality. The fault at the moment is that programming, in some cases, is too irregular. We have occasional ballet, occasional concerts and occasional operas. In my view, it would be a great deal better if there were a regular, fixed time-slot for some of these things, so that we could know when we could see them. We know that if we go to Sadler's Wells, or to Covent Garden, we shall hear opera or see ballet. We should be able to know that if we tune in on a particular evening at a particular time, on one or other of the channels, we may be able to see something for which we may have a minority taste. Of course, programmes with the widest appeal must be shown at the peak periods. But ratings must not be regarded as the only criterion of success. One of the nicest gestures I have heard of was when Frank Muir and Denis Norden presented Sir Robert Fraser, the Director-General of the I.T.A., with a model of the battleship "Potemkin" to put on his desk to show him what happens when the ratings get the upper hand. I think the whole issue in this was put by Gerald Beadle, of the B.B.C, when he said that: "The target must be to make what is good popular, and what is popular good."

My Lords, I must hurry on, but I want to draw attention very quickly to another important aspect of these Reports and something which has great importance for the future; that is, the question of exports. This is something to which greater attention must be paid, because I assure your Lordships that there is an immense potential here, so far as exports are concerned. English is a world-wide language, and television is a world-wide medium. But a trade gap exists here, too: and we import far more than we export. Nevertheless, one T.V. film company earned almost 5 million dollars last year in the world market; and the B.B.C. itself earned over 3 million dollars. Moreover, the value of this sort of export cannot be measured in terms of finance. For example, the "Great War" series has already been sold in 30 countries. "English by television," an educational series, has been sold in 30 countries. "The Age of Kings" has been sold throughout the world. This must be good for what is called our "image" in a world where we want to export.

Therefore, I think that greater attention should be paid to this by both Authorities, and that steps should be taken to try to improve the level. If necessary, I think some Government help should be given in this field, because I believe that if we get in now, and get in early, we can provide for ourselves an enormous worldwide market which can bring valuable currency into this country. We need to break into the American market, and we need to do some hard talking here. We take dozens of their series on our networks—and some of them very good, too—but they take not one of ours. I think it is time somebody put his foot down and said to the Americans, "Let us have a sense of proportion about this. For every six of yours that we take, at least take one of ours."

We thought to consider also—and this is a matter for the Government—the question of subsidising, in certain areas, the broadcasting of television and radio programmes. The B.B.C. has an immense backlog of educational and other material which is locked up and cannot be used for lack of finance. For example, the Americans, when the Australian television market opened, were selling some of their more popular series for absolutely nominal sums in order to get the market— £25 an episode for "I Love Lucy ", when an equivalent programme could not be produced for under £10, 000. The B.B.C. was unable to compete on that level because of its obligations to the people concerned in the programmes. Therefore, I think this is a question which ought to be investigated by the Government, to see whether some subsidy could not be given, or some effort could not be made, to unlock this material, all of which would be excellent export material for Britain.

Now just one or two words on the future. I have said very little about radio, but I think everybody in this country has a great affection for what it is and what it has done. It has provided a real public service. Therefore, in whatever is done to extend radio, nothing should be done to damage what has been built up already by the B.B.C. On the question of commercial radio, and in particular of the "pirate" ships, I notice that they are now claiming that, having been in operation for a few months, they have proved that they fulfil a need, and therefore their position should be regularised. To my mind, this is equivalent to saying that if in a certain area there were a mass outbreak of assaults on young women, the way to deal with the problem would be to legalise rape. I hope that the radio ships will be sent about their business.

I think there is a case for local radio, and I should like to see three things happen in this respect. I consider that the B.B.C. radio should be separated off from B.B.C. television and run completely separately. The B.B.C. should be given authority to set up a dozen local radio stations in association with local authorities and universities. The control and scope of the stations should be varied; there should be as much experimenting as possible to find out what is the best way to run them and to operate them. The situation should be reviewed after two or three years of this particular scheme. We might also authorise an experiment by six or seven independent local radio stations, if people are prepared to come forward and run them, to see how they operate.

There is the question of the extension of television. I believe the fourth channel must come, but I do not consider it is an urgent necessity. The one thing of which I am sure is that at some stage or another the present I.T.V. monopoly in television advertising must be broken. But it would be degrading for Parliament to leave things to pressure groups, and I believe the Government ought to set up some kind of Committee to study the whole problem of the extension of television, plan it in association with other Government policies, and remove it from the area of the Lobby.

Pay-television was seen as an alternative channel. Personally, I have very little hope that present experiments will be successful, if, indeed, they ever go ahead. We have also been told about the University of the Air. I think this is a very fine conception, but I believe also that education ought to be done through the existing services, and that it would be wrong to put education into a ghetto. It ought to be part and parcel of our existing television. In general, so far as our present resources in television are concerned, we ought to spend a little time digesting what we have and making what we have work better.

I have covered a great deal of ground and I have still left out a large number of questions which I hope will be touched on in the debate. I cannot leave the debate without referring finally to what I consider to be one key question, and that is the responsibility of television. I believe that in a whole number of vastly important fields both Authorities are not doing all they could. I do not consider that neutrality on some of the important subjects that face this country is enough.

The B.B.C., in its Report, says some very brave words about drama. Serious writers of to-day must be allowed to say freely what they feel about the society in which they live.

This is absolutely right, but I think we ought to face the fact that a great deal of the material that is being written and developed to-day and a great deal of the social attitudes of to-day are purely destructive. Much of the so-called satire is "sick". It is a complete surrender to the urge towards hatred and destruction, to despair and boredom. This is the root of the criticism of some television plays. I believe that people, in focusing on violence and sex in these plays, are getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. What they are objecting to, I think, is that many of these plays, or some of them, are basically defeatist in their attitude and destructive in their approach.

I think it is right that these plays should go on—I would fight to the death anybody who said that they should not. I think it is right that we should have satire that deflates pomposity and bureaucracy. On the other hand, we have to face the fact that we are living in a society fighting for survival, and nobody, least of all those in television, can afford to be neutral. Let me give one example of what I mean. We have had a year in which young people have seldom been out of the news. There is the problem of how you are going to handle young people, juvenile delinquents, and so on. It has been discussed ad infinitum. But it is not enough, in my view, that television should show news and features which reflect what is happening and offer a few biased viewpoints about what should be done. A positive line should be taken in this field. The B.B.C. and the I.T.A. should find out what is needed in such a field, what is being done to cope with the problem, and throw their full weight behind such things.

For example, I am informed that there is a desperate shortage of youth leaders in this country. Why on earth cannot the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. jointly get together and actively appeal on television for more youth leaders, and try to encourage people who are sitting at home to give up one or two nights a week to help in local youth clubs, scout troops and so forth? This would be a positive contribution. And I am taking that only as one particular example. There are dozens of other ways in which I think the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. should come down from this neutral position and actively campaign and help in some of the problems which are facing the country. We had an example of the kind of response that can be obtained when you ask people to do something, when Rediffusion the other week invited young people under fifteen years of age to write plays. They are getting them in now at the rate of 700 a week.

Television can bring a tremendous influence to bear on people, and it should not always be a negative one, one that merely reflects. It should be one that speaks for certain positive values. We have had some examples of what can be done in programmes like "Panorama ", "Tonight" and (what is my favourite programme, which I think does more in this field, in an entertaining way) "On the Braden Beat". I am not suggesting that the authorities should launch a "Do-good" campaign, but they should consider whether they are doing enough to redeem life from insignificance; to activise people and to provide inspiration and stimulation in all its forms; to direct the nation's attention to its greatest problems, and to inspire action to solve these problems. When they begin to do this, I believe that television will have come of age. I beg to move for Papers.