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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 172 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 172, February 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
In November Peter Brooke, the National Heritage Secretary, gave the green light to a new round of television mergers and placed a new and even nastier breed of money men firmly in control of British television.
Michael Green, head of Carlton, is typical of the new species. His bid for Central Television will almost certainly succeed and leave him in control of 30 percent of total British airtime revenue. One of the darlings of the Stock Exchange in the 1980s, he started out in the print and photography business, and has never shown any public interest in television programmes. His rise to prominence has been put down to ruthless business sense and large donations to the Tory Party.
Gerry Robinson, chief executive of Granada, seems to share Green’s complete lack of interest in production – he once referred to his station’s programmes as ‘software supplies’. And like Green he knows how to make money, increasing Granada’s profits by 129 percent in his first year in charge by means of a cost-cutting programme.
This new breed does not yet have the confidence to flaunt its wealth and power in public like the classic media moguls, but give these people time. Green’s office is apparently crammed with expensive art, and he drives everywhere in a customised Bentley.
The takeover of the moneymen is the logical outcome of Tory broadcasting policy. The current state of television should be a lesson to anyone who ever believed the market could be a beneficial force.
In the 1980s we were told broadcasting needed to be ‘freed up’ because it was a potential growth area. A decade later the number of jobs in the industry has plummeted, even taking into account cable and satellite. The Tories said the old regulated independent system led to monopolies and discouraged new talent. Since their reforms the fat cats have cleaned up, and two or three ‘supercompanies’ are dominating the field. The old system was once called ‘a licence to print money’. Nothing has changed on that front. LWT has been handing out huge bonuses to management and shareholders alike, and Carlton has cleared £8.6 million in its first year of operation.
The Tories’ rhetoric about ‘freeing up and diversifying’ the media was just that rhetoric. The real reason for the drive to the market in broadcasting is simple – British television is a significant export earner. To help realise its full potential as a profit earner, market forces were necessary to push down wages and help create companies big enough to compete in rapidly growing world markets.
The pressure has been on, then, to treat television as a commodity pure and simple. And this approach of course runs into problems. The mass media has two main functions for the ruling class. One is to make money, the other is to strengthen ruling class ideas through notions of shared values and national identity. These two functions can come into conflict.
The prospect of international networks is seriously worrying some ruling class traditionalists. These concerns have emerged in public in the rather pathetic row between Peter Brooke and Carlton over News at Ten. Brooke believes, incredibly, that News at Ten is an important part of our national heritage.
Much more seriously, the debate explains the half-hearted nature of the reforms that are taking place. Most commentators have complained that the recent liberalisation doesn’t go nearly far enough. At the same time it is clear that there is indecision verging on paralysis at the top of the BBC. One month it is all up for sale, the next the licence fee has been confirmed for the next ten years.
Socialists should not take sides in the argument between the traditionalists and the market men. Both sides have been united in cracking down on the media unions, making cuts and trying to root out any traditions of critical journalism in television. But the creation of international broadcasting networks is excellent news in the long run, because it loosens each individual state’s control over information. The Romanians and East Germans learnt a great deal about their own governments from foreign media.
In the meantime, the arrival of the money men, the attacks on conditions and the debates about the future shape of broadcasting has created a bitter and politicised atmosphere among workers in the media.
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