TV IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

19-01-2008

Earlier this week, The Stirrer reported that the BBC Drama Village in Selly Oak - home of Doctors and Dalziel and Pascoe was earmarked for closure, with the work being transferred to the Third World (ie Manchester). Kevin Chapman reflects on the decline of Midlands TV.

REMEMBER ATV? Crossroads, the Golden Shot, or TISWAS, all made in Birmingham? I’m too young (being 3 when they went off air in 1981) but I can remember an era in the '80s and '90s when both the Broad Street facility (then run by Central), and indeed their BBC rivals at Pebble Mill, produced some of the finest programming in the country. Miles better than the current pap offered and indeed including international award winners.

News that the BBC is planning to pull its drama base out of Birmingham is the latest blow in a sad story of decline. At the same time ATV Centre is being knocked down. In some respects, its demolition represents the story of Midlands broadcasting over the last 20 years, the collapse of a solid institution of light into a pile of rubble.

If the drama village does close then in the Corporation's eyes Birmingham is about as important as Plymouth, or Southampton, or Norwich, or Hull. A base for a regional news programme, some documentary work and a local radio station.

Hardly appropriate for a diverse conurbation of 2 million people with different interests, tastes and views. The Stirrer rightly questions if the BBC should have a licence fee if it is not making programmes that reflect the whole of Britain, but just London and a bit of the north of England.

ITV seems to have forgotten too that anywhere that anywhere outside of London, Manchester, (Coronation Street) or Yorkshire (Emmerdale, Heartbeat, The Royal) actually exists.

Part of the reason is the consolidation seen in ITV following the infamous franchising debacle in 1991. However, weak regulation by London based broadcasting regulators has mainly contributed to the mess we see.

There is a requirement for 33% of ITV network production to be made outside of the M25 (London) area. That covers Heartbeat, The Royal, and the ilk, Taggart and Rebus and the ITV soaps, plus the occasional big footie game at a club outside London. Bizarrely 10% of “regional” production for Central viewers can be made inside the M25 area.*

I am struggling to understand how a regional television programme for the Midlands (with the exception of the odd sports fixture or a political programme) can be made in London.

Take a look at the remarkable database of Centrals programmes at the Media Archive for Central England http://www.macearchive.org, then despair at the current state of ITV programming.

Not so long ago viewers in the Midlands could not only enjoy network programmes set here made by Central for the national network, such as Soldier Soldier or Peak Practice but an eclectic mix of programmes made in Birmingham and Nottingham for the region, some of which managed to get repeated on the whole ITV network.

Now what do we “enjoy”? The same old same old, with the predictable soaps and reality shows on practically every night. Digital has of course changed the dynamics of television but it seems that both the BBC and ITV have been in a race to the bottom of the barrel and the viewers are switching off in droves.

The advertisers too must wonder why they bother spending money on the box, not when the ABC1s they are chasing after are probably doing anything else other than watching Celebrity Love Island. I bet if anyone took the idea of Inspector Morse to a BBC or ITV executive now they would be laughed out of sight and told to come back when they fitted Ross Kemp into the role.

Even Channel 4, the supposed “alternative” channel owned by the state does nothing different to the BBC or ITV, and has a peak time schedule that resembles that of the USA’s NBC or ABC. (I bet they are panicking now they are running out of new imported material, thanks to the writers strike)!

TV though, like any other business, has been always been about taking risks. ATV’s founder, Lew Grade staked his personal wealth and reputation on the success of ITV, and could have gone bankrupt had the channel failed. Ted Childs, the Central drama executive, took a huge gamble on commissioning Morse but it paid off.

Even the BBC did, once. The Corporation bought ATV’s Elstree base for a top secret drama when Central were told, on regulators orders, to dispose of it. That programme was EastEnders. Had it bombed it is likely that the licence fee, and the BBC itself, would have ended up in dust long before ATV Centre did.

It’s time that the various development agencies involved in the region earned their corn and stopped the rot in the Midlands broadcasting industry. Screen WM are championing us, but bodies like AWM, the City Council and the business community need to make the case for the Midlands as a place to make programmes, to the producers who might just be persuaded to film somewhere different.

Our MPs too, need to start asking OFCOM and the BBC why they are so reluctant to get out of London and why they persist in allowing such derisory quotas for regional production. There is a whole West Midlands outside of Spaghetti Junction and New Street station and millions of people will never see it unless it is brought to them.

If they want to know where to start perhaps they should go and see a certain Mr. Grade who I understand is based at The London Studios, Lower Ground, London, SW1. He has some impressive connections (his uncle was a TV boss you know). Perhaps he might know someone with a use for a redundant drama village with an excellent location?

*Source: “From Dawn till Dusk”, a history of Independent Television in the Midlands, John Pettinger, Brewin Books 2007 (ISBN 978-1-85858-418-8)