While reading a piece on how the BBC intends to set aside £100m for UK films over the next ten years (excellent news!) ? assuming a positive outcome regarding the licence fee, of course ? I was prompted to wonder if anyone would actually notice a good British film if it appeared in front of their noses. This certainly appears to be a problem for BAFTA judges, based on their abysmal level of appreciation for The Constant Gardener the other night.
However blinkered BAFTA might be (and mere blinkering it must be - one can hardly imagine the pharmaceutical industry bothering to flood the judges' in-boxes with free pens, pads, and other swag the way they do doctors), it would seem that the good ole British Public is a lot more appreciative. That, in any event, is what I gleaned from a tantalising line in the BBC article mentioned above, which notes that "Research by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom suggested films shown on TV are more important to viewers than soap operas."
That started me off searching Ofcom's web site for more detailed information. I found it in the regulator's (if "regulator" isn't too strong a word) review of public service television broadcasting - Phase 1 supporting documents, Volume 1, "The role of television in society" part 3, "Audience opinions and perceptions".
There are loads of goodies (honest) in this 42-page document, which dates back to late 2004. 81% of viewers, for example, think that "There should be programmes on television that make you stop and think". This is evidently not a category into which a great deal of modern programming falls - although BBC Four's series on "Climate Chaos" would presumably count (are you running the climate experiment on your PC yet? And why isn't there a Macintosh version?). Only 19% of viewers agree with the statement that "If people want to watch minority or specialist television programmes they should be expected to pay for them." Great stuff!
The actual analysis of the importance of programme genres appears on p19, figure 4, and compares their personal and social importance. Viewers were asked to choose the five programme genres (out of 17) whose presence on the main terrestrial channels (my italics) they felt were most important to them personally, and important for the good of society as a whole.
The big personally- and socially-important genre is News, as we might expect. Next is Drama (as opposed to Soaps), then level-pegging are Serious Factual and Comedy (who was it telling us the other month that it wasn't worth ITV making comedy?), and a little behind that are Films. Some way back are Soaps, Sport and Regional News (sorry lads: and other regional offerings do a great deal worse).
It must be said that although News is felt to be of equal personal and societal importance, in the other cases mentioned above, "of societal importance" is some distance - often some considerable distance - behind "of personal importance". But hey, modern television is about giving people "what they want", surely ? not what might be important to society, aka "what they ought to have"?
Ranking the genres in order of perceived societal importance, however, the list goes News, Sport, Drama, Soaps... and Films are some way down the list. Apparently, according to other research, "viewers see soap operas - rather than the dramas of old - as the place where social issues are raised." Hmmm. Does ranking soap operas high for societal importance support that?
The report itself places a lot more importance on the societal figures than the personal ? but I beg to differ. I don't think it means a whole lot to discover that people say what amounts to "We really need plenty of programming like this ? as long as I don't have to watch it." I prefer to come away from this research with the personal preferences people have in their minds - for News, Drama, Serious Factual, Comedy and Films. Not a reality show in sight. In fact, I don't see that strong a correlation between programming on terrestrial channels and what people say they want. Do you?
