Puttnam is Right to Want Broadcasting to Stay British
Blair's new 'openness' doesn't seem to apply to the communications bill. With Graham Thorpe taking time out from the game England have several replacement options, one of which is Kent batsman Robert Key.ia - in television and radio as much as in print.
With Graham Thorpe taking time out from the game England have several replacement options, one of which is Kent batsman Robert Key.ia - in television and radio as much as in print. If government is for anything, it is for regulating to maintain that pluralism. And if tycoons are for anything, it is for doing their level best to achieve a monopoly, or near-monopoly.
The worry about creeping Americanisation is connected. You might say that battle is lost, with the torrent of cartoons, sugar-sweet US teen drama and mainstream Fox and Disney fare already here. But both ITV and the BBC are still producing a hugely impressive quantity - not always quality - of alternative programming. If the Americans take over commercial television in this country, that will go. French, German and Italian companies do not pose the same threat: their programmes are in different languages and far less likely to wash into our culture.
What is at stake is identity. The French subsidise their own film industry as a barrier to Hollywood. We British have given up on that and identify ourselves much more through television. What defines "Britain"? Its democracy, of course, and its mix of peoples; but also its news programmes, documentaries and social concerns, its soap operas, its crime shows, its dramas, its sport. That's what we talk about. That's what keeps us us. The American media corporations which flood our imaginations through the cinema, the internet, music and much of television are not yet all-powerful, and that matters.
Why don't the politicians get it? Perhaps a strange form of cultural elitism is to blame - West Wing-itis. The Washington and Boston-loving "preppy" boys around Whitehall adore the pinnacle of really good American programming, from ER to The West Wing. But they have little clue of how truly awful the other 98% is, the stuff that surges through cable and satellite channels here already.
They see the worst of British programming, from Big Brother to Pop Idol, and think, what's so bad about the Americans? This is like leafing through a book of Michelangelo drawings and saying, hey, I think cartoons are much misunderstood.
No, for central reasons of democracy, pluralism and maintaining British identity in a world that speaks American, the committee is absolutely right. Yes, of course winning the euro referendum matters. Yes, of course there are some rather good US television programmes. But nothing justifies surrendering the genuine pluralism of British broadcasting, or giving Murdoch an even tighter grip on the national agenda.
This is not an arcane matter. It is the good guys and the bad guys. And the next time Tony Blair stands up to give one of his fluent, winning press conferences, in early September in Sedgefield, I hope he gets asked some very hard questions on this. And - even more - that he answers them.
The worry about creeping Americanisation is connected. You might say that battle is lost, with the torrent of cartoons, sugar-sweet US teen drama and mainstream Fox and Disney fare already here. But both ITV and the BBC are still producing a hugely impressive quantity - not always quality - of alternative programming. If the Americans take over commercial television in this country, that will go. French, German and Italian companies do not pose the same threat: their programmes are in different languages and far less likely to wash into our culture.
What is at stake is identity. The French subsidise their own film industry as a barrier to Hollywood. We British have given up on that and identify ourselves much more through television. What defines "Britain"? Its democracy, of course, and its mix of peoples; but also its news programmes, documentaries and social concerns, its soap operas, its crime shows, its dramas, its sport. That's what we talk about. That's what keeps us us. The American media corporations which flood our imaginations through the cinema, the internet, music and much of television are not yet all-powerful, and that matters.
Why don't the politicians get it? Perhaps a strange form of cultural elitism is to blame - West Wing-itis. The Washington and Boston-loving "preppy" boys around Whitehall adore the pinnacle of really good American programming, from ER to The West Wing. But they have little clue of how truly awful the other 98% is, the stuff that surges through cable and satellite channels here already.
They see the worst of British programming, from Big Brother to Pop Idol, and think, what's so bad about the Americans? This is like leafing through a book of Michelangelo drawings and saying, hey, I think cartoons are much misunderstood.
No, for central reasons of democracy, pluralism and maintaining British identity in a world that speaks American, the committee is absolutely right. Yes, of course winning the euro referendum matters. Yes, of course there are some rather good US television programmes. But nothing justifies surrendering the genuine pluralism of British broadcasting, or giving Murdoch an even tighter grip on the national agenda.
This is not an arcane matter. It is the good guys and the bad guys. And the next time Tony Blair stands up to give one of his fluent, winning press conferences, in early September in Sedgefield, I hope he gets asked some very hard questions on this. And - even more - that he answers them.
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