Role-playing
16/03/04 10:18 Media
issues
nteresting. Interesting, interesting, interesting.
No, I haven't gone totally berserk and no, I'm not one of these people who believes that if you put the word 'interesting' into your copy enough then you'll fool people you're doing something worthwhile. But the current tussles over the identity of various media is, to me at least, very interesting. The BBC was already doing the 'who are we and why' thing when Hutton struck, and is having intriguing discussions on what public service broadcasting actually is (I'm fairly convinced it isn't EastEnders or Doctor Who, but cancel either of those and they lose my vote).
Meanwhile Channel 4 is going through a similar debate as its funding changes - it started as a minority channel but its successes with American sitcoms like Frasier and Friends have taken it well beyond that niche. BBC4, meanwhile, is as far as I can make out what BBC2 set out to be.
The importance of these things is that without a clear brief and identity it's much harder to get funding and to continue broadcasting programmes. But I note the amount of coverage these debates get and wonder whether this is because they are intrinsically interesting as such, or more cynically whether it's because the coverage comes from journalists, and we love writing about the contents of our own back yard.
No, I haven't gone totally berserk and no, I'm not one of these people who believes that if you put the word 'interesting' into your copy enough then you'll fool people you're doing something worthwhile. But the current tussles over the identity of various media is, to me at least, very interesting. The BBC was already doing the 'who are we and why' thing when Hutton struck, and is having intriguing discussions on what public service broadcasting actually is (I'm fairly convinced it isn't EastEnders or Doctor Who, but cancel either of those and they lose my vote).
Meanwhile Channel 4 is going through a similar debate as its funding changes - it started as a minority channel but its successes with American sitcoms like Frasier and Friends have taken it well beyond that niche. BBC4, meanwhile, is as far as I can make out what BBC2 set out to be.
The importance of these things is that without a clear brief and identity it's much harder to get funding and to continue broadcasting programmes. But I note the amount of coverage these debates get and wonder whether this is because they are intrinsically interesting as such, or more cynically whether it's because the coverage comes from journalists, and we love writing about the contents of our own back yard.
|