BBC: leading the way or being lead the wrong way?

A public service broadcaster is supposed to satisfy its entire audience; however, niche dramas are ten a penny these days and it makes you wonder if everyone is feeling the benefits of the licence fee. Why should the BBC demand a licence fee as opposed to the way HBO obtain its income? With HBO you can view it like a catalogue and if you like what you see then you can invest your hard earned cash into it.

The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Band of Brothers, Oz…this is HBO at its best. Much like Pixar, a flop for HBO is as rare as a nun in a knocking shop (although that didn’t stop them from cancelling much hyped new hope Luck recently)…not that I’m trying to give them series ideas. But why is the BBC not producing groundbreaking drama such as these? The answer is money, pure and simple. The pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire cost HBO over 20 million pounds to produce alone. The British government and to a certain degree our public would not justify that amount of money being spent on a single drama. Suddenly a bloody shoot out no expense spared on ‘Band of Brothers’ becomes a fist fight in the Queen Vic.

I’m not condemning the BBC because some, if not most of what they offer us is quality programming from the intelligent speech on dear old Radio 4 to the fantastic BBC world service, the money we spend on the BBC clearly is used to a good standard. Except Two Pints of Larger and a Packet of Crisps of course. Perhaps though they should rely less on in-house productions and reach out to other organisations to try and create more cutting edge drama that inspires us as well as getting Britain back to what it is best at: good old fashioned drama. Leaving it all to the likes of HBO and smaller, burgeoning versions of the pay per view channel such as AMC – responsible for highly regarded shows such as Breaking Bad and Mad Men – seems like a failing. Conversely this could prove difficult or even impossible due to the ferocious cuts hitting the organisation at the moment.

As I said earlier, radio stations such as Radio 4 require at least £100 million per annum in production costs and this doesn’t include the other main radio stations as well as the regional ones. A sizeable cost alone and this is just the radio! Think of that in comparison with the much more expensive BBC 1, 2, 3 and 4. The BBC has a lot more to contend with in terms of budget, but it’s seeming obsession in competing with ITV in reality TV shows and cheap, soapy style dramas is its downfall in these penniless times. In order for the BBC to get back on its feet it needs to create its own drama corner and invest everything into it. If box set sales were a mere shadow of what so many HBO series’ are now doing, the BBC would clean up in merchandise alone.

The BBC did invest money in ‘Band of Brothers’ – quite a lot of money actually. And when it became time for the BBC to air it they chose a late night on BBC 2, as they did with ‘The Wire’. And why did they do this? It certainly wasn’t to make room for ‘The Weakest Link’. So pre-occupied are the BBC in keeping in competition with their commercial rivals ITV, they are forced to relegate more original programmes to a less popular air time. The strategy of relying heavily on DVD sales which are in record selling numbers this side of the Atlantic is viewed as a better medium for distribution.  One of the main controversies involving both companies as co-producers was on the historical drama Rome. To say Michael Apted, director of the series from the US side was not best pleased would be an English gentleman’s way of saying:

“I’m really pissed off with the BBC for bringing down my first three episodes to two and, in doing so, taking out much of the vital politics.”

Apted was so pissed off he nailed Greg Dyke to the wall and pissed on his kids. Well, that could have been why he resigned!  Or it could have been when BBC 2 decided to edit down the episodes of the first series, claiming that some of the historical scenes were not needed for British audiences as they already knew their Roman history. Correct me if I’m wrong but generally things you learn in primary school history class don’t tend to stick with you until adulthood. If they did we’d solve every problem we encounter, apparently simply by reciting Pythagoras’ theorem.

It seems instead of re-educating the more mature British public without the needs of word searches and picture puzzles, the BBC decided not to put it across in the well written dialogue and instead provided entertainment through the hard-core sex and violence of the series —surely something in which the British public need very little education? And this is from the same BBC that has brought safeguarding and political correctness to a whole new level! They stripped away the drama and the politics leaving a disorganised series which struggled to find a narrative in between all the fight scenes. And the fact they didn’t have the guts to show this on their sister station during prime time demonstrated their fear of Rome being a total flop; which of course even in Britain it was not.