The Times 2 Arts - UK (2020-11-27)

the times | Friday November 27 2020 1GT 7

television

may not visit our local library, but we

believe in it. That’s why it is still open.

The report does not address

this dissatisfaction explicitly, but it

contains clues. That only 54 per cent

of adults think that the BBC provides

impartial news is one. The BBC, from

the general strike of 1926 on, has often

been accused of political bias, some

of it real, much in the eye of the

beholder. The past decade divided

Britain, however, not just through four

general elections, but in two emotive

referendums that challenged our

identities. The BBC was damaged.

Speaking at a seminar on the

future of public service broadcasting

in Edinburgh two years ago, I

was shocked at the anger in the

predominantly nationalist audience

towards the BBC for its coverage

of the independence

referendum. I am still shocked

when a friend who used to

work in television tells me that

he is convinced that the BBC

held a pro-Brexit agenda. He is

unappeased when I say that

my father-in-law thinks

exactly the reverse.

The formidable Emily

Maitlis does not help to allay

suspicions when — like

Walter Cronkite on

Vietnam, but on steroids —

she uses Newsnight to vent

against Dominic

Cummings. But the

problem really comes

back to the BBC’s

duty to please

everyone. Why is

Channel 4 News rated

eight points higher for

impartiality than BBC

News in the survey? Is it really less

partial, or do its brutal interrogations

appeal to the preconceptions of a

particular audience? Why, according

to the report, do LBC listeners rank

their station higher than BBC radio in

“offering a range of opinion” and

“depth of analysis and content”?

Maybe they just agree with Nick

Ferrari’s populism or the antidote by

sarcasm that James O’Brien offers.

Within this fissured society, the

BBC’s assumptions rankle even more.

In his 2015 memoir the BBC’s former

head of news Roger Mosey recalls a

vox pop conducted on racism for the

Ten O’Clock News. The one white man

who made the edit declared that

everything was grand in his mixed

neighbourhood. Mosey was appalled

to discover that contrary views had

been left out because the reporter

considered them “fairly rabidly racist”.

On BBC Radio 5 Live this week the

excellent Emma Barnett demonstrated

the gulf between the ingrained and

indeed laudable attitudes of the BBC

and a chunk of its intended audience.

She interviewed a 40-year-old van

driver who had phoned in to defend

men like himself who shout out their

appreciation to short-skirted girls. It

was an enlightening interview, but the

guy must have felt like a laboratory

sample rather than a financial

contributor to a universal service.

Somehow I doubt whether he or

many of the BBC’s doubting older

customers are as occupied as it or

Ofcom are by the “slow” progress the

corporation is making on racial and

sexual diversity. Indeed, the BBC’s

necessary pursuit of diversity may

be alienating them. This is not a new

thing: the older you are, the more

resistant you become to change.

During the Second World War the

Yorkshire actor Wilfred Pickles briefly

read the BBC news, daring to use his

native accent. In her memoir his

wife Mabel recalls sitting in a hotel

listening to his debut: “Suddenly one

of the old ladies in the lounge got up

and moved towards the radio. ‘Does

anyone mind if we turn this dreadful

man off!’ she exclaimed in a disgusted

voice.” The experiment did not

last long.

The report notes that the BBC is

still, to use an old John Birt phrase,

super-serving the older and the better

educated. It yearns, however, for the

young, the licence-payers of the

4K, 5G future. The trouble is

that they are busy, digitally

literate, and horribly hard

to trap: 16 to 34-year-olds

spend less than an hour

a day with the BBC.

Meanwhile, its older

consumers may decide

that Normal People,

Killing Eve and I May

Destroy You — critically the

best of BBC drama this year —

are meant for younger folk. Never

mind. Forget Netflix, there is always

Morse’s retirement home, ITV3.

This Christmas the BBC will enjoy

its usual ratings victories. Three

generations will sit around digital

hearths enjoying The Vicar

of Dibley, Ghosts and Meerkat:

A Dynasties Special. The elder

generation’s irritation at the BBC

preoccupations will lie suspended.

Their grandchildren’s thirst, such as it

is, for BBC Three’s The Rap Game and

Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens will

stay on hold.

In the new year, however, the BBC

will need to work anew at appeasing

every heart, for without all of our love

one day the licence fee will perish.

Now the disquiet so censoriously

monitored by Ofcom is a small

thing, but as Hemingway wrote of

bankruptcy, ends tend to come in two

ways; gradually, then suddenly.

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What this lot

are watching

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The actor Simon Callow, 71

Who needs BBC News when social media can

furnish all the woke bias you can eat? Try YouTube.

You’ll stumble across delights like a Palestinian

boy band cracking out Für Elise. Our film club was

riveted by Marlene Dietrich’s 1932 movie, Shanghai

Express, on Netflix. If you’re determined to get

something out of the licence fee, catch Inspector

Montalbano — Midsomer with better suits, good

jokes and believable sex — on iPlayer or the food

and travel series Remarkable Places to Eat. Yum.

The writer and broadcaster

Trevor Phillips, 66

I probably watch the BBC’s news more often than

anybody else’s. I’m an addict of those Scandi noirs

on BBC Four. There’s a new one, The Valhalla

Murders (BBC Four), from Iceland. I am watching

The Crown (Netflix), although the new season is

awful. The portrayal of Margaret Thatcher is a

caricature. I did watch the relaunched Spitting Image

(Britbox), and some of it was quite funny. But I think

the effort of trying to find the bloody thing online

was almost too much.

I’m an old-fashioned girl, moi. It is the BBC

mostly for me, including BBC iPlayer and

Radio Four. Recently it’s been Portrait

Artist of the Year, The Repair Shop,

Strictly — naturally — MasterChef,

Countryfile. I watch Channel Five for

The Yorkshire Vet and ITV for the odd

Corrie. Netflix for The Queen’s Gambit,

Shtisel, My Octopus Teacher and Call My

Agent!. Movies, wherever — Lynn + Lucy on

BBC Two last week was a pleasure.

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The former cabinet minister

David Mellor, 71

The actress Maureen Lipman, 74

During the first lockdown we watched all five series

of The Bureau on Amazon night after night. I had

already seen the first four series, but was still

gripped. Much later we watched A Suitable Boy

(BBC One) which, with its gentle charm, could

not have provided a greater contrast. And recently

we have greatly enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit

(Netflix) and The Announcer (Sky Box Sets), a

Franglais abomination which must have had the

Académie Française in an apoplexy.

The historian Antony Beevor, 73

The Night Notre Dame Burned (BBC Four) was

gripping: the heroism of the firefighters, the fall of

the gothic spire, the snivelling curate, the massing of

the people driven to song, the president descending.

It left this Brit in a state of awe. I think I was meant

to feel as emotionally entangled by David Hare’s

Roadkill (BBC One), but it chuntered along in a fog of

cliché, unredeemed by the admirable Hugh Laurie.

The novelist Rose Tremain, 77

Why the over-55s are switching over

BBC 8

We have Netflix and all the rest of it. On average

I watch two hours of TV a day. I’ve been watching

The Undoing (Sky Atlantic). A complete salvation

was The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon). It’s

endlessly inventive. As for BBC dramas, I did enjoy

David Hare’s Roadkill (BBC One). Hugh Laurie was

extraordinary. I have no tribal loyalties to channels.

Does one actually sit down and think, “I’d like to see

a nice BBC programme”? I’m sorry to say I found

Normal People (BBC Three) utterly boring.

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