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Joe Utichi contributes to Deadline’s UK coverage
As the BBC scrambles to right the ship in the wake of another disaster at its Newsnight program – and last night’s resignation of director general George Entwistle – BBC Trust chairman Lord Chris Patten made the rounds of the British media on Sunday. Defending the man he appointed, Patten told Sky News that Entwistle left “because there was a bad piece of journalism for which he took responsibility. It was an honorable and decent thing to do. What we need to do now is get a grip of what is happening at the BBC.” Patten told the BBC’s Andrew Marr this morning that the BBC itself was in need of a “thorough, radical, structural overhaul.” But, he also noted, “You’ve only got to watch television in America or France or Italy to know how good the BBC is… The basis for the BBC’s position in this country, is the trust that people have in it.” He added, “If the BBC loses that, it’s over. There are one or two newspapers, Mr. [Rupert] Murdoch’s papers, who would love that, but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen.” The BBC is funded by the British people who pay a fixed license fee for owning a television set, and it has been an enormously trusted and integral part of British life for some 85 years.
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Recent failings by the venerable organization are being investigated by two separate inquiries into the Jimmy Savile sex abuse affair. Patten said his focus would be on implementing the changes demanded by those inquiries. “If I don’t do that, and if we don’t restore the huge confidence and trust that people have in the BBC, then I’m sure people will tell me to take my cards and clear off.” But he insisted he would not take his “marching orders” from Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, referring to an editorial in The Sunday Times. He pledged a new permanent director general would be appointed within weeks to take over from acting head Tim Davie.
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Comments like this only reinforce how out of touch the BBC is.
For years British TV arrogantly prided itself on being ‘the best in the world’. But it wasn’t. There was just as much crap mixed in with the good stuff as other countries.
The BBC still makes some good TV but it also produces a LOT of rubbish and its primetime schedule is full of soaps, medical and cop series that are well past their prime.
American TV meanwhile is in a golden age. I’d take Mad Men, Homeland, Modern Family, The Walking Dead, etc over 95% of BBC TV shows.
BTW I’m a Brit TV producer who’s been living and working in the US for the last 8 years so I can honestly say I’ve experienced both markets.
Let me guess, the BBC turned down all of your show ideas or denied you producing any of their shows which is why you moved to America to seek co-producing credit on Jersey Whores?
Bitch please, The BBC makes good shows and they have a model that works.
We are talking about network TV, not cable. All the shows you listed are on cable except for Modern Family. You obviously don’t watch a lot of American network TV. I wonder why, maybe cause there is not much worth watching?
If Patten was talking only aout broadcast, then he’s cherry picking. Half of all TV viewing in America is cable, so it’s totally dishonest to ignore that.
Viewers have to pay for cable, like the BBC, so those two are naturally comparale. Let’s see how good the results are when Patten has to create shows that are entirely advertiser sponsored.
The BBC is not cable nor is it commercial television, it is a public broadcast service. However, instead of having pledge drives like PBS, the British Government sets an annual TV license fee that is charged to all British households. As far as I know, the U. S. government does not set my cable bill so it is inaccurate to compare paying for the BBC to paying for cable.
So you’d take the best American television has to offer over 95% of TV on the BBC? Amazing. Interestingly enough, I’d also take those shows over 99% of what’s on American TV.
In others words, at least 95% of what’s on TV in both the US and on BBC isn’t very good.
BBC news might still be good but their dramas are not nearly as good as those found in American cable.
America produces the best comedies and dramas in the world, and France some of the best factual and intellectual programming. The BBC really needs to wake up – its schedule is full of crap.
The UK gets some of the best American TV imported over (it’s major sitcoms excel on both sides but there’s a lot of good UK comedy, problem is it’s niche and Mad Men is an over-rated soap opera at the bottom line) but US TV produces JUST as much TV that is utter crap as can be argued the UK does. Without even starting on each Country’s reality drivel.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes more than enough. The cream that gets skimmed and sent over has been skimmed off a deep layer of bad to average TV on the US side as well.
Journalistically the debate is a bit different but I’ve seen some appalingly gormless US hosts that couldn’t interview an envelope without fawning over it first and it’s also heavily at times opinion led and partial. Plus let’s not forget – Murdoch has NO bragging rights given what his equally infected parasitic organisation has done over the years. He would give his mother to sweep into the vacuum created IF the BBC were to be canned but that ain’t happening in his lifetime no matter his cute tweets.
This goes both ways – there’s a lot of British crap that doesn’t get shown in the US, luckily…
British TV doesn’t even air Breaking Bad, or Parks And Recreation. Meanwhile, the CSI rubbish is fairly popular in the UK. So enough with that tired old canard “We only see America’s best in the UK.” No, a pretty mixed bag of American shows air in the UK, and most imports are on tiny, non-mainstream channels that few Brits ever watch. The UK’s two most-watched channels, BBC1 and ITV1, air nothing American in the evening.
“The UK’s two most-watched channels, BBC1 and ITV1, air nothing American in the evening.”
The last ones they did show are “Damages” on BBC1 (which the BBC dropped) and “Pushing Daisies” on ITV1 (a bad fit for the channel, it has to be said). At least ITV1 runs the odd first-run US import late at night – sometimes very late – like “In Plain Sight,” one of the few USA* shows not to be shown over here on the Universal Channel.
*The network, not the country.
I have to agree British TV is better than American TV. I’m talking about network TV not cable, Mad Men is not even basic cable.
Sorry, but Mad Men IS basic cable. And it is amazing how many people in these arguments (American TV vs British) want to make the phrase “American TV” EXCLUDE American cable. Obviously it is the pro-British TV people trying to stack the deck against the US. American TV encompasses both network and cable, and on those terms, if you insist on making this some kind of battle, American TV wins the battle over British in a rout. Personally, I just watch the programmes I like regardless of where they come from, and believe sensible people will do the same.
Where I live, Mad Men is not basic cable but that is beside the point. The fact is, more people watch NCIS on a regular basis than watch shows like Mad Men, Homeland, etc. So if one wants to make an accurate comparison between British and American TV they need to compare the shows that people in those countries are most likely to see.
Utter nonsense. Unless you want to compare the “fodder for the masses” in the UK like EastEnders and Coronation Street to network fodder like NCIS, in which case the US still wins, though each country’s popular reality shows are probably equally horrid. A “Which is best?” argument about two nations TV industries obviously means comparing each country’s BEST with each other, not each county’s easily-digestible rubbish. Cable is simply where America’s best dramas are, by design, and it is also where most US TV documentaries are. The nature shows like Planet Earth that air on the BBC and that so many Brits are proud of because they don’t realize they are co-productions with America air in the US on the Discovery Channel, a cable channel.
You are comparing oranges and apples. BBC is a public broadcast network and operates differently than a cable network. It would not be an accurate comparison.
Why cherry pick and limit the discussion to broadcast? American cable TV is the more relevant comparison because like the BBC, it’s not free. If something free (broadcast) is also crap, how is that a surprise? You get what you pay for.
It’s not cherry-picking. If you are going to accurately compare American and British TV shows than you should include shows that people in countries are more likely to see. More people watch shows like American Idol and NCIS than shows like Mad Men. As for paying for the BBC, in the UK all British households are required to pay an annual TV license fee set by the British Government. In the US, the government does not require all households to pay for cable or for channels like ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW, or PBS so the comparison is inaccurate.
Americans have greater choice in channels than Brits and thus the audience is far more fragmented. ALL American shows get ratings that are unimpressive compared to the highest rated British shows once you account for the difference in population (the US having five times the population of the UK). Things like Doctor Who and Downton Abbey get the US equivalent of about 50 million viewers in the UK. Think about that. But more to the point, ratings just measure popularity. Popularity is irrelevant in a discussion like this. Just about anybody with a brain knows that popularity and quality are usually in inverse proportion to each other.
The problem with this argument being put forth by the BBC is that this debate isn’t about a foreign TV provider – it’s about the BBC, so going “Yes, but what about the others…” doesn’t cut it. (And they could stand to stop pretending that they’re the only TV anyone watches in Britain – witness ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and assorted cable stations.)
Bingo. Trying to divert attention by pointing fingers elsewhere is a weak and pathetic strategy.
MoreTears -
Well, I was trying to be a touch diplomatic (and I said ‘some’ of the best not ‘all’ of the best by the way) but since you’ve mentioned it…………..yeah, in truth plenty of mediocre stuff comes over as well. But that mediocre stuff is a hit on the US side as well. So, there’s that. The previously mentioned Channel 5 relies VERY heavily on US imports and reality and relies heavily on CSI and procedurals and Channel 4 would have nothing to show without The Big Bang Theory on it’s digital subchannels (it’s mediocre as well but nowhere near the comedy vacuum of How I Met Your Mother. But they excel in the ratings so what can ya do. Actually there ARE a lot of shitty US shows that are big. What was I thinking?).
Although I’d say that even in cable TV there’s more than a few over-rated shows in there too. They just have the false cache that the term ‘Cable’ brings to them.
Ah, there’s plenty of crap in all of TV just now.
Been said already but obviously the BBC is better than American network TV (probably Afghan state television is better than NBC, CBS, etc.) but as it is no longer the 1970′s most (maybe all) of the best American shows are on cable, making the comparison pointless. French and Italian television I know nothing about; I would guess that they have high quality cultural programming, news, etc. but that their “entertainment” shows lack the mass appeal of those from the US/UK, although that lack of appeal could be simply due to the fact that English is a much more popular language worldwide.
All of this back and forth about which is better, US TV or British TV. A few people hold Homeland (which is a remake of an Israeli drama) as an example of great US television. What about All in the Family? Historically, US television has been filled with remakes of UK shows. These days, the American TV producers are as likely to rip off the Israelis, Dutch, Japanese, etc, as they are the Brits.
“These days, the American TV producers are as likely to rip off the Israelis, Dutch, Japanese, etc, as they are the Brits.”
But the vast majority of American TV shows are generated in America itself (“All In The Family” came from a British show, but “Mary Tyler Moore” didn’t). And all the countries you mentioned (including Britain) can and do “rip off” other countries’ TV.
Best history, culture, science documentaries on TV so yah better.
Um…don’t forget Dancing W The Stars, AI, S Factor and Talent are all from UK shows!! Oh…and Simon Cowell is a Brit..and so is Johnny Lee Miller, Damien Lewis, Ray Stevenson (Dexter anyone?), Hugh Laurie, pretty much every actor on Game of Thrones, Jared Harris, Alan Cumming, etc etc.. the list just goes on and on and on….
there are brilliant BBC shows and Brilliant US cable and broadcast shows..
The issue here is the survival of the BBC!! And of course if that goes..there is only one person in position to take over British Broadcasting, and that person is Mr Rupert Murdoch! So unless you all want that then can we please start supporting the BBC..both it’s programs and the people who work there?
“The issue here is the survival of the BBC!!”
If the BBC goes, the world won’t end. Get a grip. (Mind you, can you really trust the opinion of someone who can’t even get “The X Factor” right?)