Television news: inherent limitations
Pride and Prejudice, 1995; ITV’s Downton Abbey,
2010–11).
Crime has dominated the drama airwaves,
HBO’s Th e Sopranos (1999–2007) being judged
by a panel of UK Guardian journalists in 2010 as
the best TV drama series of all time. Also in their
Top 50 came ITV’s Prime Suspect (1991–96) with
a woman in the traditionally ‘male’ lead (DCI
Jane Tennyson).
Hospitals have proved popular locations for
TV drama (BBC’s Casualty from 1996; Holby
City from 1999), as have schools (BBC’s Grange
Hill, 1978–2008). Th e world of the supernatural
has been well-served (CBS’s Th e Twilight Zone,
1959–64; Fox’s The X Files, 1993–2002; WB/
UPN’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997–2003),
though the doyen of all has to be the BBC’s Dr.
Who, the longest-running TV drama of its kind.
First screened on 23 November 1963, Dr. Who
commanded the early-evening airwaves until- It was relaunched in 2005 and has, at the
time of writing, chalked up eleven doctors.
Matching crime has been literary adaptation.
ITV’s Brideshead Revisited was based on the
novel by Evelyn Waugh, since when class and
costume have proved staple escapist fare. See
web or online drama.
▶John Tulloch, Television Drama: Agency, Audience
and Myth (Routledge, 1990); David Paget, No Other
Way to Tell It: Dramadoc/Docudrama on Television
(Manchester University Press, 1998).
Television news: inherent limitations In
analysing the degree of ‘informedness’ between
viewers of TV news and readers of newspapers,
two American researchers found that TV makes
for less effective retention than the printed
page. John P. Robinson and Dennis K. Davis in
‘Television news and the informed public: An
information-processing approach’, Journal of
Communication (Summer 1990), found that in
none of their studies ‘do viewers of TV news
programmes emerge as more informed than
newspaper readers’.
Th ey identify seven inherent limitations of TV
as an information medium: (1) a TV newscast
has fewer words and ideas per news story than
appear in a front-page story in a quality news-
paper; (2) attention to a newscast is distracted
and fragmented compared to attention when
reading; (3) TV newscasts provide little of the
repetition of information, or redundancy, neces-
sary for comprehension; (4) TV viewers cannot
‘turn back’ to, or review, information they do not
understand or that they need to know to under-
stand subsequent information; (5) print news
stories are more clearly delineated, with head-
ongoing action to such an extent that it was
impossible to detect what had been scripted and
what was happening for real.
Much of this kind of drama obviously grew
from the opportunities of the moment, and from
improvisation, a method used most notably by
Mike Leigh (Hard Labour, 1973; Abigail’s Party,
1977), who works with actors for long periods
before fi lming, encouraging them to become the
characters and eventually invent or improvise
their speech and actions. TV drama produced
a host of talent, writers and fi lm-makers never
afraid to deal with challenging subjects, ever-
ready to push the boundaries of their chosen
genre.
In the UK these included Peter Watkins (Th e
War Game, 1965), Tony Parker (No Man’s Land,
1972), Alan Plater (Land of Green Ginger, 1973),
Alan Bennett (Sunset Across the Bay, 1975),
Alan Bleasdale (Boys From the Blackstuff , 1982),
Don Shaw (The Falklands Factor, 1983), Troy
Kennedy Martin (Edge of Darkness, 1985) and
Stephen Potter (Th e Singing Detective, 1986). It
is diffi cult to compare the quality of much of
the drama output of the 1960s and early 70s and
that of today, because so little was recorded and,
where it was, productions were often wiped.
Th e one-off play eventually hit the buff ers of
economic necessity. In a 1982 publication for the
IBA, Television and Radio, David Cunliff e, then
Head of Drama at Yorkshire TV, wrote: ‘The
inescapable fact is that over the last few years the
television single play has spiralled in production
costs and plummeted in popularity.’ Having
moved from the studio to location, plays had
become ‘nearly Hollywood-size movies’. Cunliff e
cited dramas such as Stephen Potter’s LWT
series, Rain on the Roof, Blade on the Feather and
Cream in My Coff ee as works that, despite their
quality as drama, appealed to ‘relatively small
sections of viewers’.
Th ere was to be no dearth of drama series,
which have more over-time impact and are
more saleable commodities on the international
programme market. Drama on both sides of
the Atlantic proved broad-ranging, from the
portrayal of the lives of the elite (ITV’s Brides-
head Revisited, 1981; CBS’s Dallas, 1978–1991;
ABC’s Dynasty, 1981–89) to those at the bottom
of the heap (BBC’s Boys From the Blackstuff,
1982), from crime series (ITV’s The Sweeney,
1975–78; NBC’s Hill Street Blues, 1981–87) to spy
series (BBC’s Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy, 1979),
from the lives on the street (ITV’s Coronation
Street from 1960; the BBC’s Eastenders, from
1985) to the stately homes of England (the BBC’s