Soaking The Rich

Jonathan Freedland writes about the Premier League's new television deal and how it shows that English football is now a global product that just happens to be in England. This is not really true.

It is certainly true that the new television deal is phenomenal at 5.1 billion pounds over three seasons it makes it the second wealthiest sports competition in the world. Only the NFL generates more cash and soon the 20th richest Premier League club will be able to outspend every club abroad apart from Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

However the important detail is that the new deal is for the domestic rights, not the global rights. It is the competition for UK pay television rights that is driving the growth, the foreign markets are an important bonus but they are not what is primarily funding English football.

Whether this shows that nothing else can drive subscription television in Britain or that British football supporters are very rich is an open question.

The Hungry Games

For some reason an upcoming Channel 4 comedy about the Irish Potato Famine is attracting criticism:

After creating uproar with its coverage of the unemployed in Benefits Street, Channel 4 is generating new outrage after commissioning a comedy series on the Irish potato famine, a tragedy thought to have cost a million lives.

The sitcom, called Hungry, has been revealed by Dublin-based writer Hugh Travers, who told the Irish Times that “we’re kind of thinking of it as Shameless in famine Ireland.”

 I say that it has attracted criticism but it may just be a couple of rent a quote busybodies but obviously it is delicate. It isn't that comedies set in bleak circumstances cannot work, Blackadder Goes Forth was hilariously scathing about the First World War and though I haven't seen it the film Life is Beautiful is a very well regarded comedy-drama set in a Nazi concentration camp. However when stepping on sensitive ground there is somewhat less room for error than elsewhere and if it goes wrong it could end up being the new Heil Honey I'm Home!:

a British sitcom, written by Geoff Atkinson and produced in 1990, that was cancelled after one episode aired. It centres on fictionalised versions of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, who live next door to a Jewish couple, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein.

Toynbeeising Soaps

Polly Toynbee's call for soap opera's to become more politically engaged has inspired me to have a go at writing a Polly approved script for Coronation Street:

Betty: Pint of your usual Ken?

Ken: How can I drink when child poverty is increasing by 13% a month according to an Institute of Studies report and the Tory government are determined to throw the poor onto the bonfire?

Betty: Oh I know luv, I've tried getting a grant to turn the Rovers into a Sure Start Centre but it was impossible thanks to vicious Tory Cuts.

Ken: I don't have time to drink anyway, as I've got to get home to watch Ed Miliband's speech to the TUC now.

If anyone has any other ideas for Toynbeeising the soaps please feel free to offer your contributions.

Colombo- Bent Cop

The death of Peter Falk, best known for playing Colombo, brings me on to something that I think needs saying- Colombo is the acceptable face of police corruption.

Just consider his methods of "solving" crimes:

1.  Get called out to murder.
2. Meet someone at the crime scene.
3. Decide they’re guilty.
4. Repeatedly harass them.
5. Ignore all other leads.
6. Harass the target some more.
7. Evidence against the supposed killer magically turns up.

 In fact his methods of constantly turning up to ask "just one more question" as his target tries to get on with life as normal can be considered a form of psychological torture.

Abandoning all other lines of inquiry is an act of gross negligence and must lead to many killers going free.

No you may argue that Colombo always gets the right person however we only have the confession (false confessions are a well known result of psychological torture) and the television's word that he did. What about all the investigations Colombo must have bungled but never made it to air?

Yes mourn the man who played Colombo but also mourn the hypothetical and fictional men and women who've hypothetically spent decades in an imaginary prison for crimes that they did not commit.

American & Chinese Diplomats Discuss Arab-Israeli Conflict

Problem. Solution!

Still not convinced? Take a look at the front cover of TV Times, Radio Times or any of the TV listings magazines over the past year and see how many black or Asian faces are on the covers.

The problem is that there aren't enough black faces on TV today. I have a solution to that, which also ties in with the current love among TV executives for remakes of classic shows and musicals- bring back the Black & White Minstrel Show.

Is This For Real?

Ownership & Control

Even if one takes the view that Rupert Murdoch is the antichrist, I don't get the opposition to his proposed purchase of the BSkyB shares that he doesn't already own. Given that no one seriously doubts that he already controls the company despite owning around 40% of the shares it is hard to see how his influence will increase because he owns more shares in BSkyB.

Besides which in the era of the internet and satellite broadcasting it isn't as though other broadcasters can't challenge Murdoch if he tried to misuse his position.

Can I Claim Royalties Or Something?

There are plans to start broadcasting NFL games with a musical soundtrack. This is an idea that I had for football games years ago, except I was thinking more along the lines of giving each player their own individual tunes.

Comeback

Big Brother are running "Ultimate Big Brother" at the moment, where the biggest stars of the previous 10 series enter a final competition.

My money is on the late Jade Goody to be a final guest and surprise winner of the final Big Brother show. She is less gobby now so we shouldn't see a repeat of her last stint in the house.

Go Watch

Those lovely people at Channel 4 put some of their old programmes on YouTube where they can be watched for free. This includes the awesome Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, which is one of the best TV comedies of the last decade but which wasn't really as popular as it should have been. So go an watch it:

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6.

If you haven't seen it then go and do so now.

I said "NOW!".

It's For Children.

Whilst I agree with whoever it was that described Stephen Fry as "a stupid person’s idea of what an intelligent person is like", he's not wrong here:

: 'It's just shocking. The only dramas the BBC will boast about are Merlin and Doctor Who, which are fine but they're children's programmes. They're not for adults.

Exactly right. I saw adults complaining that the new Dalek design was obviously aimed at children, to which the only reasonable response is "well duh". The only occasionally adult aspects to the show are when the writers try to shoehorn in unsubtle political propaganda.

There are very few high quality programmes aimed at adults on British television, particular with dramas.

Wizbit

For some reason I had an urge to look up something about 1980s TV show, Wizbit, today. I think the Wikipedia entry raises some important points about the internal contradictions of the show:

Although it was stated in the show that Wizbit's year-and-a-day mission was to find out all about planet Earth, this clashed somewhat with the events witnessed on screen. Wizbit was (apparently) to learn about everyday life on earth by solving puzzles in a town inhabited by walking, talking (and often singing) sponge-balls, dice, magic wands, playing cards and 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) rabbits.

I feel so stupid for not having spotted that 20 years ago.

Bad Taste

Last night Channel 4 broadcast a live performance by comedian Frankie Boyle that had previously been released on DVD. They cut this though:


Jokes about abducted children and suicidal TV presenters don't get on 4 it seems.

I'm not sure they should describe it as live when they edit the more tasteless bits out.

Fake Statistic Watch.

How many people watch the Oscars? I don't know anyone who does yet the most cited figure for the events ratings is:

• "a predicted billion people watching the Oscars"
• "You always have to be apprehensive when you stand up in front of a billion people"
• "the one billion who are said to watch the Oscars worldwide".

This is complete and utter bullshit that narcissistic Hollywood types tell themselves to convince everyone that the world is transfixed by them.

First of all that is more than 1 in 7 of the world's population, and when you consider that many people on the planet are from countries where Hollywood is not the dominant film producer or where English isn't the first language or where televisions are rare or from places in really inconvenient time zones then that eliminates a most of the planet.

Furthermore even in the strongest market for the event, the USA, scarcely more than 1 in 10 of the population watch it.

Finally there is no organisation that provides viewing estimates for international events anyway (even for genuinely popular events like the World Cup the supposed viewing figures are nonsense).

Anyway with only aroung 30 million viewers in the USA it is highly unlikely that the global figure is over 100 million let alone anywhere near a billion.

Latest Human Right Discovered

He asked: "If it's thought that it's the right of adults to see drama that reflects their lives, then why isn't that a right for children too?

It's not a right of adults to see drama that reflects their lives, so the premise of the question is wrong. Although if it is a human right then charging for the licence fee must be a violation of that right.

Anyway the fuss over American culture being represented by children's television programmes to the point of crowding out British culture seems misplaced. First of all there is precious little incentive to make programmes for children when advertising to them is heavily restricted. Secondly this sort of cultural exchange works both ways, the success of Harry Potter has probably influenced American culture at least as much as British culture has been influenced by American imports. I don't see any complaints about that though.

via Atlantic Crossings

Dumberer Than Ever.

It must be difficult to lose the services of Fiona Phillips and then dumb down, but apparently GMTV have managed it.

How is that even possible?

Quiz

Guess the programme being described (without googling):

The show crossed the Atlantic 18 months after its US launch, but the BBC rejected it because of its "authoritarian aims"

Musical Interlude

Mentioning US TV a couple of posts ago reminded me of a song that appeared once in the soundtrack of what is my personal favourite show. Anyway as I've never heard the track anywhere else or heard of the band in any other context I'm guessing that few of my readers have either so I thought I'd put it up here. It is called Cuentan Que El and it's by 'Whitehouse':

Media Concentration Is Bad

In Prospect magazine Peter Jukes compares British and American television drama, something which I have done frequently here. Jukes knows a lot more about the behind the screen workings of television drama so he isn't simply comparing the output but also what goes into making TV drama.

The difference between 1994 and 2008 is startling. Instead of being the responsibility of four network controllers, most drama is now commissioned by one person.

That person is Ben Stephenson, BBC controller of drama commissioning. He has faced mounting criticism since last year, when he made ill-advised remarks about a “limited pool of talent” for television drama

..........

But everyone missed the glaring issue: why are these questions being addressed to only one person? In 1994, I worried about the cultural power of four network controllers. Now you can forget Channel 4 and BBC2: they can make decent one-offs, such as Red Riding and Freefall this year, but both have basically dropped out of adult dramas. ITV has fared no better. In the 1990s the powerful baronies of Granada, Yorkshire TV, LWT and Thames had some autonomy. But their amalgamation into one corporation, followed by a catastrophic fall in advertising revenue, has turned ITV drama into a shadow of its former self. Whatever your view of public service broadcasting (and I support it) the near-monopoly of the BBC in drama commissioning is disastrous.

So maybe a start to rebuilding the quality of British television (assuming that abolishing the license fee isn't going to happen in the near future) would be to make the BBC split the drama commissioning between their different channels and try to find some means of enticing the other channels to get back in the game.

Incidentally is the decline in ITV's advertisng revenues wholly unrelated to the manner in which they have rushed downmarket at breakneck speed, I realise that a multi-channel environment makes their job harder but that isn't the whole explanation is it?