Death On The Rock (1988): Did this hard-hitting investigative documentary inadvertently start the process of 'Trash TV'?
Perversely, it could be argued that the main catalyst for the culture of 'Trash TV' in Britain was not a programme that featured any kind of gross sensationalism or distasteful exaggeration at all. Quite the contrary in fact; a very serious, persuasive but highly controversial investigative documentary ('Death On The Rock') from Thames Television's respected 'This Week' series (the Southern equivalent to the somewhat more revered 'World In Action' series from Granada TV) about the shootings of three IRA operatives in Gibraltar in March 1988, who were thought to be planning a bomb attack.
I won't go too much into the details involved, but the main argument was were any warnings given by SAS soldiers before they opened fire, if the IRA members were armed themselves and exchanged fire with the SAS, and if they were about to detonate a bomb. The official line from Margaret Thatcher's government was the IRA did open fire and were ready to detonate a bomb; 'Death On The Rock', broadcast just a few weeks after the incident, claimed the IRA were unarmed, that no bomb was present and the SAS shot them dead without warning, with witness statements supporting such evidence, contradictory to the official government line.
It had not been the first occasion that British TV had incurred the wrath of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980's. The BBC had been her main bone of contention beforehand, particularly in a General Election debate with members of the public on the 'Nationwide' programme in 1983, where a schoolteacher, Diana Gould, took issue with Thatcher on the sinking of the Argentine warship 'General Belgrano' during the Falklands conflict the previous year. Thatcher was the supremely dominant political figure during the 80's, with huge parliamentary majorities at her disposal, and an allegedly dictatorial manner in her overwhelmingly male cabinet. So to see a relatively unheralded schoolteacher of around the same age disagreeing and berating her live on National TV and unable to take appropriate action (such as ignoring or sacking such a miscreant) was an unexpected humiliation. The Nationwide editor, Roger Bolton, later recalled an ill-tempered contretemps between him, Thatcher, and her husband Denis, whose views were even more right-wing than his wife, apparently supporting the Apartheid regime in South Africa (as he had business interests in the country) and accusing the BBC of being 'pinkos', 'poofs' and 'trots' amongst other insults. It may or may not have been a coincidence that Nationwide was cancelled from BBC 1's evening schedules just a few months later.
Curiously enough, Bolton was the editor on 'Death On The Rock' five years later, proving to be Thatcher's nemesis again, although this time the repercussions were to be far more serious, and arguably irreparable, for British broadcasting. The government lobbied both Thames and the powerful regulatory broadcasting body at the time, the IBA, for the programme not to be shown, but both organisations refused to yield, and the battle lines were drawn; the staunchly Thatcherite press predictably launched propagandist counterattacks on the programme, notably via character assassinations against the most prominent eye witness featured on the documentary, Carmen Proetta (who was later paid damages for such stories), and including Roger Bolton himself, who also won damages and an apology after untruthful allegations were published in the Daily Mail.
The IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority) was an early casualty of the 'Death On The Rock' controversy
Although Death On The Rock won the BAFTA award for Best Documentary, Thatcher and her allies in the cabinet saw the programme as an act of treason, and hardened their attitudes towards a proposed new Broadcasting Bill, loosening regulatory controls over quality and content, opening up competition, expanding choice (i.e. more channels) and bringing in market forces, all quintessential aspects of Thatcherism. This and other similar proposals were put forward in the 1990 Broadcasting Act, which was duly passed, one of the last statute bills passed in the Thatcher government before she was brusquely removed by her own MP's near the end of that year.An independent inquiry viewed the programme had been fair in its conclusions, but as the late Ray Fitzwalter (the Editor-in-Chief of Granada's 'World In Action' for many years) stated in his book "The Dream That Died: The Rise and Fall of ITV", the writing was now on the wall for quality television as the spectre of deregulation, sensationalism and profit was about to replace intelligence, integrity and independent thought:
"Death On The Rock proved to be a high point for the IBA.They had stood up to a government that sought to censor, even publicly defending the programme before Thames, the company that had made it...[but] this was regarded as the death knell for the IBA...the government would replace it with a 'lighter touch' body...The loss of the Authority's powers over the quality of the ITV schedule would prove one of the most damaging aspects of the law eventually passed in 1990. Deregulation would promote a collapse in standards."
That process began in earnest with the abolition of the IBA at the beginning of 1991, replaced by the much less powerful ITC (Independent Television Commission), and Thames lost their franchise to broadcast the following year, the price that was paid for Death On The Rock and its challenge to the establishment. Around the same time, David Plowright was ousted as the chairman of Granada, replaced as he was by Gerry Robinson and Charles Allen as the main men in charge, who after gaining power clearly were more interested in making a profit above all else, that actual quality programming. The integral standards of Plowright, Denis Forman, and the company's founder Sidney Bernstein, were now a thing of the past as Fitzwalter stated:
"[Plowright's] dismissal was a symptom of a crisis that had been developing in Brirish broadcasting and from which it never recovered as regulation was weakened and raw commercial forces were let loose."
Allen himself had a specific request by John Cleese at the time of his Granada takeover to "F*** Off out of it, you upstart caterer..." (a reference to previous business interests). With the benefit of hindsight, Cleese's advice should have been heeded, but Allen, Robinson, and others throughout the ITV regions remained long enough to change the basic thesis of British TV, that of profit over quality. Never mind if such broadcasting is sleazy, exploitative, unintelligent, tabloidal or sensationalist, as long as it brings the money in and incredulous viewers, it has done as what is said on the tin.
The Word, the notorious 'yoof' magazine programme from Channel 4 that perhaps really began the descent into 'Trash TV'
The process of 'trashification' really started with the notorious Youth-orientated magazine show 'The Word' on Channel 4, around the same time that the 1990 Broadcasting Act was being passed in Westminster. Inept interviews by Manc-in-residence Terry Christian were the least of its problems; "Wannabes" who would do absolutely anything to get on TV, such as licking sweaty armpits and french kissing elderly women, made the previous excesses of OTT eight years earlier seem like a children's birthday party that had lemonade as its strongest drink, but the process was somewhat gradual, as Madchester in the early 90's and Britpop in the mid-late part of the decade were at least cultural fightbacks, albeit musical and very little to do with television itself, though at least the main players were prominently featured on the box when both movements took off. But such excesses were now beginning to make their presence felt as the 90's progressed, not especially at peak-time viewing, but late-night as 24 hours a day programming had begun on ITV early in 1988. It initially consisted of repeats of American TV shows from the 60's such as 'Route 66', 'The Fugitive', 'I Spy', 'Time Tunnel' and others, innocuous quiz shows, job adverts, Classical Hollywood films and obscure low-budget British 'B' movies usually from the 50's and 60's, some of which were rather interesting in a cultish sort of way, particularly the slightly nasty if suspenseful 'Cover Girl Killer' (1959), featuring Harry H Corbett in his pre-Steptoe days, as a serial killer of young fashion models, with one of them, played by Christina Gregg (a model in real life), having a heartbreaking impact in the film's most effective scene; this lower-rent hybrid of Michael Powell's controversial 'Peeping Tom', which was released at around the same time, became a familiar staple of these early days of late night TV, and in truth was showing some promise with its quirky variety and diversity, sometimes actually more interesting than peak time TV in this period, with perhaps the most diverting show on offer being the often very funny American sitcom 'Sledge Hammer', made in 1987-88, a clever parody that mostly utilised Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry series of movies, but also other subjects such as Peter Weir's 'Witness' (1985) and Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' (1958). The blond and handsome comic actor David Rasche gave a wickedly accurate impersonation of Eastwood's Harry persona, with the beautiful Canadian actress Anne Marie Martin a worthy foil (although for some years before she was billed under her real name of Edmonda 'Eddie' Benton), with Harrison Page as the irascible Captain Trunk, hating Hammer's methods and barely able to cope with them, in a slightly over-the-top portrayal which became more restrained and more enjoyable as the series went on. ITV appeared to have successfully conflated a mixture of the retro and the present in the late 80's and early 90's with this late night/very early morning broadcasting, and all seemed to be boding well. Or at least that's what we thought at this stage, not forgetting 'The Hit Man and Her' of course, an excuse to mainly promote music from host Pete Waterman's stable in various tacky nightclubs around the country with the help of a young Michaela Strachan.
'Sledge Hammer' (1987-88), perhaps the best show to emerge from the early days of ITV's 24 hour programming
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