Who's Next? One guess.
Hmmm. First we have the BBC presenting stories about WMDs that the Government doesn't like - stories that turn out, after quite a while, to have been very close to the truth - and then the resulting turmoil, unwarranted departure of Dyke, a lot of pressure on the Corporation to cut back financially and a below-inflation licence fee increase.
In the wake of that fiasco we now have a cowed BBC that hardly dares to utter a controversial word.
There is really only one other politically controversial channel around these days. It's not going to be ITV - they no longer have a controversial bone in their bodies. And it's certainly not going to be a Murdoch channel, now, is it?
The answer came to me as I was watching Despatches tonight. Not for long, I might add: it appeared to be one of those shows where the programme-makers have decided what's going on in a story and if anyone they interview happens to suggest that they've got it arse about face, they're ignored. In this case the Government appears to have decided to change the laws on gambling a few years ago, and, as you might expect, some of the people interested in investing as a result are the companies that run the casinos in Vegas. The programme's view, on the contrary, was that there was some kind of underhand deal going on, because the UK was the ripest country for gaming development (which I would have thought was simply because we never got around to doing it earlier), and the government had, in some sense, become addicted to gambling. I wasn't convinced.
So the thought came to me that perhaps Channel Four will be the next to be cowed into submission. There is certainly an attractive piece of rope currently available for the hanging, kindly provided by one of the channel's contractors. We shall see.
Lest this be seen as a partisan piece, I am currently trying to research an article on the 1991 franchise round, and as I do so it seems more and more likely that the Thatcher government did indeed, as was widely rumoured, play some very funny games with the auction on that occasion, and that Death On The Rock was not a million miles away from Thames Television's sad loss.
Funny how governments of all stripes don't like broadcasters who see through the spin...
