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revista de estudios culturales de la universitat jaume i / CULTURAL STUDIES JOURNAL OF UNIVERSITAT JAUME I
The Popular on British Television: Global
Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences
RENE DI CKASON
UNI VERSI TY OF CAEN
abstract: This article explores two related and highly significant aspects of British
broadcasting: how the nature and identity of British television have been influenced
by the potentially contradictory demands of high and low culture and associated
popular and quality programming; and how (far) national broadcasting has been
able to face the threat to its existence posed first by internationalisation and now
by globalisation. After an initial discussion of the notions of the global and the
popular, this study considers how past conceptions of the role of television affected
attitudes to programming, before considering the difficulty of determining what
is national, popular television in a world where domestic broadcasts and global
pastiches are scheduled side by side. The conclusion examines how national and
local characteristics have enabled British programmes to maintain popularity in the
face of globalisation.
Keywords: Britishness, culture, identity, originality, quality, representation.
resumen: El presente artculo explora dos aspectos relevantes de las retransmisio-
nes britnicas: cmo la identidad y naturaleza de la televisin britnica se han visto
influidas por las exigencias potencialmente contradictorias de la alta cultura, con
su programacin de calidad, y de la cultura popular, con su bsqueda de audiencia;
y si la produccin nacional ha resistido la amenaza, primero de la internacionaliza-
cin y ahora, de la globalizacin. Tras una discusin inicial sobre las nociones del
hecho popular y global, se aborda cmo ciertos conceptos pasados sobre el papel
de la televisin han condicionado la programacin de contenidos. Seguidamente, se
exploran las dificultades para definir qu es una televisin nacional o popular en un
mundo en el que productos locales y pastiches globales coexisten en la parrilla. La
conclusin avanza que las caractersticas locales y nacionales han permitido a los
programas britnicos mantener su popularidad a pesar de la globalizacin.
Palabras clave: esencia britnica, cultura, identidad, originalidad, calidad, repre-
sentacin.
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As an integral facet of the social fabric,
broadcasting has provided access to events, ideas
and experiences ranging widely across cultural
and political life. (OMalley, 1994: xi)
The case of British television is especially suitable for the exploration of
the nuances of the popular and the global, for historical, linguistic and cultural
reasons. The uk was the second country in the world to benefit from a television
service and the first to establish a national broadcaster. As the United States was
the dominant force behind the growth of radio in the 1920s and of television in the
1930s and has been the principal motor of globalisation in the media field, British
broadcasting found itself, from the very start, obliged to define and maintain its
own identity, for, despite linguistic differences sometimes unsuspected by non-
English-speakers, American programmes are generally immediately understood
and thus appreciated in Great Britain, not least because of their basis in a
common cultural heritage. This study will examine the phenomenon of popular
representation on the British screen from the advent of television in the 1950s
to the turn of the 21
st
century. As by now there is no doubt that the audiovisual
sphere has to evolve with global perspectives, one may wonder how far there
is still the scope or even the need for a national or local cultural identity, and
whether Britishness is necessary if television wants to remain popular, i.e. close
to its public. After an initial discussion of the phenomena of the global and the
popular, three points will be more particularly examined: the weight of past
conceptions of television, the coexistence within British television of global
pastiches and domestic broadcasts in different popular genres and a discussion
of what could be seen as illustrations of pockets of resistance against a devouring
global appetite.
1. The Global and the Popular
In these early years of the 21
st
century, we are constantly bombarded with
the notion that globalisation is an irresistible force which is beyond the control
of individual nation states and which subjects everyone to commercial decisions
taken in distant boardrooms. Broadcasting cannot be immune to this trend, as
Chris Barker explained ten years ago while discussing the ideas of Anthony
Giddens (1990), for whom globalisation could be grasped not just in terms of
the world capitalist economy and the world military order, but also of the
global information system (Barker, 1999: 34), the latter necessarily including
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 59
the media in general and television in particular. Such views of the effects,
or more precisely the dangers, of globalisation are supported by a number of
observations. Few would deny that the process is accelerating at a pace unknown
in the past, even if some commentators find comfort in the belief that it began
as long ago as the 16
th
century with the expansion of trade and subsequent
colonisation. Media globalisation began in the 19
th
century with the laying of
telegraphic cables and the growth of news agencies, and was reinforced by the
birth of the Hollywood studios. Nowadays, media ownership worldwide is in the
hands of a small number of very large players,
1
who not only produce and screen
programmes, but influence attitudes and behaviour, as their domination is not
limited to the transmission of news and factual information, but extends to the
field of entertainment where the manipulation of opinion, although perhaps more
subtle or insidious, is nevertheless omnipresent, for what programmes broadcast
globally have in common is their popular appeal. Equally worrying for those
who fear globalisation is that the explosion of new technologies will inevitably
offer new ways for these companies to impose their shows and series on an even
wider public.
On the other hand, not all critics specialising in television and popular
culture are prepared to accept Giddens vision of globalisation as a modernist
juggernaut, not least because television should be seen not as modernist (i.e.
with a single dominating, homogenising impact) but as fragmentary and post-
modernist, which allows for active interpretations by the audience which may
counter the intentions of broadcasters. Reactions of women viewers in the
Netherlands, as recorded by Ien Ang (1985), to the soap opera Dallas, widely
vilified as an American mass culture vehicle for the glorification of American
consumer capitalism, are a case in point. While some disliked and even hated
the programme or watched it with what they considered a carefully calculated
ironic distance, the many who liked it were somewhat defensive about enjoying
something that others regarded as trash. Their justifications for doing so
included the view that the series could be construed as transmitting serious moral
messages, such as that money cannot buy happiness, and the populist opinion
that they had the right to watch whatever they wanted (see Barker, 1997: 119,
1999: 113; Strinati, 1995: 47). The fact that the Dallas model of international
domination by a single series has not been enduring may itself be significant
for the question of globalisation, for, as Peter Goodwin argued in 1998, there
has been no talk of wall-to-wall Baywatch or wall-to-wall X Files
2
and all
1.
i.e. the three original American networks (abc, cbs and nbc) plus Turner and the Murdochs News
Corporation, along with Sony and the European giant Bertelsmann.
2.
A comment derived from French Culture Minister Jack Langs famous reference to the dangers of wall-
to-wall Dallas.
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the evidence of the last two decades [the 1980s and 1990s] shows that, at least
in Europe, domestic television audiences have retained a stubborn preference
for domestically produced programmes (Goodwin, 1998: 5). This observation
still holds good, although it might be prudent to extend it to locally as well
as nationally-produced programmes and to emphasise that such programmes
display or reflect national cultural preferences or characteristics.
Thus, the globalising of world media sparks different reactions from critics
and audiences alike, and the meaning of the term as an economic or institutional
phenomenon is generally understood, although within the programming context
the designation international is often more accurate. The significance of the
popular is more problematic. Tony Bennetts (1981: 81-83) broad definition
of popular culture is a good starting point for any discussion. He sees four
possible interpretations: the popular is what many like and do; the popular is that
which is outside the sphere of high culture; popular equates with mass, implying
manipulation and passive consumption; and the popular might be that which is
done by and for those who do it, rooted in the creative impulses of the people.
Although Bennetts remarks cover a broader field than television, they raise
many of the key points relevant to British broadcasting. That watching television
is a major leisure activity, practised by the majority of the worlds populations, is
no longer in doubt, even in the age of the internet and video games. In the British
context, viewing became, in the 1950s and 1960s, a new form of consumption of
the mass media, replacing older types of activity such as the reading of comics
(Hall & Whannel, 1969: 33) or cinema-going. Moreover, the small number of
channels available to the British public until the 1980s meant that individual
programmes were viewed, simultaneously, by a large slice of the population,
although the exact numbers are open to doubt.
3
Bennetts second definition, implicitly contrasting high and popular (or
low) culture, takes us into a more contentious field. It can be argued both
generally that television is not an elitist but a mass medium in which high
culture cannot have a regular place, and that in any case the distinction between
high and low culture is at best a subjective value judgement, at worst an
artificial separation which, in post-modern times, no longer exists. Nevertheless,
underlying Bennetts observation there is one notion which is essential to
the debate about globalisation and British television, namely the question of
quality, which first surfaced in the mid-1950s with the advent of commercial
competition and continued in the arguments surrounding the reforms foreseen by
the 1990 Broadcasting Act. Equally significant in the same context is Bennetts
3.
Before the creation of an independent body, the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (barb), in 1981
the competing channels, bbc and itv, collected and published their own separate and often contradictory
data, which took no account of differences between various age and socio-economic groups.
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 61
third category. As with the question of quality, there was much debate in the
1950s over the distinctions to be drawn between a native popular culture and a
threatening alien mass culture, while the linking of the popular with passivity
and manipulation brings us back to the current debates about the dangers of
globalisation. With its populist overtones, Bennetts final point takes us to the
realm of popular history and traditions, which is easy to understand in the context
of a whole culture, but which is mediated by television in quite particular ways.
The participation of ordinary people in game shows and the like, as competitors
or as members of a live audience, suggests a degree of active participation in the
creation of a spectacle. It could moreover be argued that long-running television
programmes attract viewers of different generations over substantial periods of
time and thus become integrated into popular memory and folk culture.
2. Past and Present Conceptions of Television
Current British attitudes to the nature and role of television, amongst critics,
social historians, politicians and the general public, can be traced back to the
views which prevailed when radio programmes began after the First World War,
and to the creation, in 1927, of the British Broadcasting Corporation (bbc),
which is still the most significant broadcaster within the uk. The bbcs first
Royal Charter gave it the triple mission of informing, educating and entertaining
the public and this duty still survives.
4
It is particularly relevant to any discussion
of the popular that entertainment was the third and least important of the terms,
for, unlike American radio which had been commercial from the start and
had channels competing for audience, the bbc was a monopoly broadcaster,
exclusively financed by the licence fee, which was under no obligation to please
listeners, even less to pander to popular taste. The first Director-General of the
bbc, John Reith, the dour son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, was keen
both to preserve the national character of broadcasting in the face of potential
American invasion and to use the precious resource of the airwaves as a means of
educating listeners both by improving their minds and by encouraging standards
of behaviour, for example by broadcasting serious talks and classical music, or
religious services. Such a diet was not to everyones liking and before Reith left
the bbc in 1938, radio companies based outside the uk
5
had begun to give those
in the south of England lucky enough to be within range of their transmitters a
4.
These obligations apply to all fve of the existing Public Service Broadcasting channels (bbc 1, bbc 2, itv,
Channel 4 and Channel 5).
5.
The best known were Radio Luxembourg and Radio Normandie (or Normandy) which transmitted
respectively from the Grand Duchy and the French coast near Fcamp.
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taste of what other nations could hear by playing popular (dance) music, often
by American artists. Regular television broadcasting began in 1936, showing two
daily Mickey Mouse cartoons,
6
comedy series, thriller serials, costume drama,
quiz games and sporting events (Currie, 2000: 17), but only to a fortunate elite,
7

a state of affairs which continued until well into the 1950s.
Post-war television continued in the same vein, as the management of the
bbc clung to the view that radio should remain pre-eminent and limited the
resources given to the audiovisual medium. The first post-war programmes in
June 1946 had a certain international flavour,
8
symbolically emphasising that
Britain still had a role in the world, but there was little of popular appeal beyond
cartoons and childrens programmes. Viewing remained a minority pursuit until
the televised Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953, which was both
an occasion for popular national celebration within the uk, where it was seen
as marking the end of post-war austerity and heralding a new Elizabethan
Age, and an international or even global event which gave bbc television the
opportunity to shine on the world stage, broadcasting live to France, Holland and
West Germany and making recordings rapidly available in Canada, the United
States and Japan.
9
Domestically, the Coronation was a triumph, bringing the first
mass audience. Some 20 million people watched the religious ceremony, most
of them in the homes of friends or family, for still little more than 2 million
television licences had been issued.
10

The growth in audience inevitably led to the expansion of television, and
with it to the creation (in September 1955) of a commercial competitor for
the bbc in the form of itv (Independent Television), funded by advertising
revenues. It was also to launch the first real debate about the nature and purpose
of television. Public opinion generally welcomed the possibility of more lively
broadcasting than the bbc offered, and, as the itv companies soon realised, the
viewing public had changed, to include a much wider spectrum of the population
whose expectations were different. After an initial and financially disastrous
period in which itv modelled its programming on the bbc and failed to attract the
audience required by advertisers, the decision was made to provide what viewers
6.
Such cartoons were already familiar fare in British cinemas.
7.
Television sets were expensive and broadcasts could only be received in the London area.
8.
Monday 10
th
June featured Sylvie Saint-Clair, the French singing star and Transatlantic Quiz, and Tuesday
11
th
June screened an adaptation of Vercors Le Silence de la Mer.
9.
The British press was horrifed by the breaks made in the transmission of the most solemn moments in
the Coronation ceremony and was quick to make unfattering comparisons between British and American
broadcasting. An advertisement for a deodorant and an interview with J. Fred Muggs, the charismatic
chimpanzee, were thought particularly tasteless.
10.
By 1955, the number of television licences had more than doubled to 4.5 million. Details of audience
fgures and Coronation coverage are from Briggs (1979: 241, 460-472).
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 63
wanted. Roland Gillett, Controller of Programmes at Associated Rediffusion (the
contractor for weekday programmes in the London area) explained the move
to popular television
11
as follows: Lets face it once and for all. The public
likes girls, wrestling, quiz shows and real-life drama. We gave them the Halle
orchestra, Foreign Press Club, floodlit football and visits to the local fire station.
Well, weve learned. From now on, what the public wants, its going to get
(Sendall, 1982: 328).
The implications of this change were considerable and particularly relevant
to the subject of this article. Many of the new programmes shown by itv, notably
the quiz shows mentioned by Gillett, were criticised for their alleged mediocrity
or appeal to the basic human instinct of greed. Moreover, as many of them
were modified versions of American models, the link between international
programmes, popular appeal, alien mass culture and poor quality was easily
made. itv was duly castigated in the report of the Pilkington Committee into
broadcasting, published in 1962, both for the lack of quality and variety in its
programming, and for its failure to recognise the influence television might
have on behaviour; but these judgements did not have the desired effect. It was
the elitism of the Committee which was questioned by commentators, who,
in keeping with the liberal ethos of the 1960s, emphasised the importance of
individual choice and the equal value of different tastes. Furthermore, the bbc
itself was faced, for the first time, with the need to take more heed of popular
demand in its own programming if it wished to retain the public confidence
which justified the continuance of the licence fee. What followed, and has been
considered a Golden Age of British television, was a period of some twenty
years of duopoly during which itv and the bbc had separate and reliable sources
of finance, introduced colour broadcasting and produced programmes which
attained high levels of popularity or quality and sometimes both.
12
At the same
time, both channels made full prime-time use of American drama series (Dallas,
Dynasty, Peyton Place and The Waltons, for example), boosting their own
viewing figures and contributing to the programmes global impact.
Since the 1980s, the pace of change has accelerated. The introduction of
24-hour broadcasting brought the need for new programmes, a demand that was
best met by inexpensive direct (usually American) imports or local variations
11.
itv preferred the less pejorative peoples television. The name Independent Television itself had been
chosen to avoid the negative connotations of commercial broadcasting.
12.
itvs soap operas were unrivalled by the bbc: while it was the Corporation which produced the most
enduring of situation comedies, itvs costume drama Upstairs Downstairs surpassed the bbcs (black
and white) Forsyte Saga, both nationally and internationally. The 68 episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs
attracted total viewing fgures of over 300 million against 150 million for the 28 of the Forsyte Saga,
although the latter did have the unlikely distinction of being sold to the Soviet Union.
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of internationally formatted broadcasts.
13
The fourth British television channel,
Channel 4, was intended to break the mould of established broadcasting for it was to
recognise the diverse aspirations within British society by providing for minorities
and was enabled to do so by being subsidised by the rest of the itv network. It
was also to be a publisher broadcaster, whose output was to be purchased, mostly
from independent companies, rather than produced in house, thus starting the trend
towards Britains adoption of a worldwide market for programmes. By the end of
the decade, technological advances had made global cable and satellite broadcasting
a reality, encouraged the activities of commercial giants able to exploit the new
possibilities and led Margaret Thatchers market-oriented government to plan
the deregulation of the audiovisual landscape. The 1990 Broadcasting Act aimed
to achieve the difficult, and ultimately impossible, balancing trick of creating
competition between itv broadcasters while improving choice and quality.
14
The
success of BSkyB satellite television in the uk, followed by the arrival of other
international broadcasters with huge financial clout, along with further technological
advances, has brought about an explosion in the number of channels available and
consequent fragmentation, with niche broadcasting being available for every taste
or special interest group, thus calling into question the notion of national television.
Nevertheless, the latest statistics from Ofcom, the government-appointed regulator,
remain ambiguous. Almost 90% of homes have multi-channel viewing, and, in
2008, the five public service providers attracted 68% of the audience at peak time,
and 61 % overall, figures which have been steadily declining for ten years, but have
added audience thanks to their extra free-to-air digital channels (e.g. bbc 3, itv 2,
More 4). The conclusion thus seems to be that domestic broadcasters have managed
to survive in the multi-channel world, even though they have lost ground, and that
British broadcasting for a British audience still has sufficient popular appeal to
ensure its continued existence. In the light of what follows, it is interesting that the
most watched programme, at the time of writing (September 2009), was itvs talent
show The X Factor with 11.8 million viewers.
3. Popular Genres: Global Pastiches and Domestic Originality
The high ratings enjoyed by The X Factor are not conclusive for defining
what is, and what is not, national popular television, because of the nature of the
13.
A format is a licence to produce a national version of a copyrighted foreign television programme and to
use (the whole or part of) its name.
14.
Traditionalists condemned the governments ideologically dogmatic approach, claiming, not without
reason, that the quality of programmes would suffer and that dumbing down would become the order
of the day.
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 65
programme, as we shall see below, and because barbs data do not include details
of the origins of broadcasts. It is nevertheless clear that, if directly retransmitted
global series and British-made programmes which retain or recreate a certain
national cultural identity are high on the list of viewers preferences, so too are
pastiches
15
of international programmes more or less visibly adapted to national
sensitivities. In fact, all three can be popular, either in so far as they attract
large audiences or are in some way close to viewers and their concerns and
experiences, and all three can achieve high standards of quality.
This section will discuss these categories with particular reference to
popular genres which are most revealing in the global / national debate soap
opera and talent or reality shows but, first, a few words on other genres may be
helpful. At the two extremes of the scale from global to national lie dramas and
situation comedies. In the first case, imported series are screened in their original
form and complement rather than compete with domestic programmes. Police
or hospital series
16
are a good illustration, for both find their popular appeal in
universal values, either in narrative terms with regular peaks of plot intensity
to maintain tension, or in human terms with appeals to such basic emotions as
sympathy for others, the desire to do good, or a belief in the triumph of right over
wrong. Comedy, on the other hand, would seem initially to be least adaptable
to global television transmission, for, as stand-up artists have long been aware,
humour varies widely and jokes that succeed one day with one audience are
equally likely to fail the next in a different context. This has not prevented
American series of various vintages, from I Love Lucy, The Addams Family and
M*A*S*H to todays Seinfeld from making an impact in the uk, because of their
novelty value, topical quality or technical perfection. It is true, however, that the
particular attraction of British situation comedies for a British audience lies in
their variety of subject matter and their ability to offer a distorting or politically
incorrect mirror reflecting aspects of viewers everyday lives.
17
The middle
ground is occupied by game and quiz shows, which have been a mainstay of
British television schedules since the 1950s and are frequently copycats modified
to respect cultural differences, for
games cannot always be imported intact. Many of the original us shows have a
tougher competitive and acquisitive tone and have been watered down for the
15.
In this context, pastiche may be defned as parody without the ridicule. Copycat is a less elegant, but
nevertheless accurate term for programmes imitating or directly inspired by existing models.
16.
A third major category is, of course, costume drama, but as this is a feld in which British television
excels, the global argument hardly applies, except in so far as many British series have been widely
exported.
17.
A few British sitcoms (e.g. Absolutely Fabulous, Fawlty Towers, Men Behaving Badly, Mr Bean, The
Offce) have been successful internationally, in original form, in adaptation or in translation.
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British market, a process echoed in title changes. So Family Feuds became Family
Fortunes and Card Sharks became Play Your Cards Right. Such changes are
revealing not that they reflect directly differences in American and British culture,
but that they signify differences in the process of cultural production. (Whannel,
1992: 196)
Many quiz shows (e.g. Mastermind or University Challenge) add to their
entertainment value an educative role which might have pleased John Reith, the
more so as most of them seem archetypically British. Judgements about origin
may be erroneous, however, for this genre includes the first, classic, example
of international formatting, long before the term was invented and its financial
benefits were fully appreciated. The most famous of the early panel quiz games,
Whats My Line (1951), had all the trappings of a domestic production (a popular
Irish presenter, lady panellists in evening dress and their male counterparts in
dinner jackets). Its naturalised Britishness was so convincing that few if any
viewers suspected that it was an adaptation of an American radio show for which
the bbc paid its creators the princely sum of 25 guineas per episode (Moran,
1998: 18, 78).
Soap operas (soaps) have every right to be considered the first truly global
popular television genre, but they have, at the same time, strong national identity
with almost every country or language producing its own quite distinctive
example(s). The genre has been called a primitive exercise in grand story
telling (Cornell et al., 1996: 18), and shares many of the techniques used by the
popular serialised 19
th
century novel to sustain interest,
18
but adds the premise
of a flexible, ongoing and potentially unending series of story lines involving
the same characters. The first soaps were cheap and mediocre day-time radio
programmes sponsored by American manufacturers of household cleaning
products, such as Procter and Gamble, and owed the opera in their title to
the excessively emotional nature of their content. What transformed the genre
was the launch on British television in 1960 of Coronation Street, which took
its characters seriously, aimed at high standards of acting and scriptwriting,
attracted large audiences and inspired American companies to do the same, thus
leading indirectly to the global success of Peyton Place and Dallas. As Barker
has observed, the national and international in soap opera are not mutually
exclusive:
While we have witnessed the emergence of an international primetime soap opera
style, including high production values, pleasing visual appearances and fast paced
18.
Such as redundancy, repetition, multiple plots and the suspense of unfnished actions (or cliffhangers)
to be completed in the following episode.
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 67
action-oriented narrative modes, many soaps retain local settings, regional language
audiences and slow paced story telling. (Barker, 1999: 55)
The experience of British television fully endorses this view of diversity.
The luxurious, or simply different, life styles shown in American and Australian
soaps have heightened their appeal in the uk, while domestic series are more
down-to-earth and popular in their closeness to the viewing audience, for in
this case, soap opera [] tends to focus not on the elite of society, but on the
masses. Soap opera is the peoples theatre (Cornell et al., 1996: 18). The first
British soaps, Coronation Street and the rurally set Emmerdale Farm, were
successful in attracting viewers by deliberately adopting a style of social realism
which already had a touch of nostalgia. Writing as long ago as 1973, Marxist
commentator Raymond Williams (1990 [1973]: 61) called Coronation Street a
distanced and simplified evocation and prolongation of a disappearing culture:
the northern urban backstreets of the depression and its immediate aftermath.
For British viewers, American soap operas necessarily have a different realism
built on narrative technique and audience expectation. As John Fiske and Ien Ang
have respectively observed: Realism is not a matter of fidelity to an empirical
reality, but of discursive conventions by and for which a sense of reality is
constructed (Fiske, 1987: 2), [w]hat is experienced as real indicates above all a
certain structure of feeling which is aroused by the programme (Ang, 1985: 47).
What matters, whatever the origin of series, is a serious approach to the genre
which is almost a condition for success.
19

Apart from the narrative convention of the absence of the moment of final
closure (McQueen, 1998: 33), key points in the longevity and popularity of
British soaps include scheduling (for the series rarely compete with each other,
but may be viewed successively on different channels), appeal to diverse groups
within society (over-65s for Coronation Street and Emmerdale, late teens for
Hollyoaks, school-age children for Grange Hill) and their capacity for evolution.
Most now have far less of the slow paced story telling mentioned by Barker,
and much more of rapid action and sensationalism not far removed from the
pages of the tabloid press. Indeed, storylines are widely discussed in newspapers
and magazines, as well as on websites, which tends to obscure the boundary
between fact and fiction and strengthens the links between programmes and their
audience. The readiness of viewers to identify with characters has offered British
soap operas the opportunity for a surprising educative role, in commenting
on and influencing social attitudes and behaviour. In 1967, Coronation Street
19.
British schedules have been littered with mediocre, sometimes expensive, but always short-lived
failures.
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was encouraged by the Labour government to include a script line where two
well-loved characters discussed Supplementary Benefit, a new social security
payment available to all. It was, however, the advent of Brookside in 1982 which
was to make the depiction and discussion of contemporary social or health issues
and their resolution a regular feature of soaps, and the same approach was soon
adopted by other series, notably the bbcs EastEnders, which had made its mark
originally by the aggressiveness and violence of many of its characters.
20
In contrast to drama and comedy, which are carefully structured and
rehearsed genres, talent shows and reality television are, by their very
nature, presented as being spontaneous and offering the chance for ordinary
people to show their skills or reveal their faults, to the pitiless gaze of other
ordinary people present in the studio or safely installed at home in front of
their television screens. If talent shows can trace their origins back to popular
culture and to a basic human desire to entertain family, friends or others,
television has necessarily given a more formal structure to this activity, adding
to the fallibility of public performance a competitive edge which appeals to
a wider audience. The initial British programme Opportunity Knocks and its
successor New Faces functioned in similar fashion: the acts of a variety of
unknown performers were judged by a studio panel of experts who decided
who should compete in the grand final and named the eventual winner. Todays
versions of the genre (The X Factor, which succeeded Pop Idol in 2004,
and Britains Got Talent) have increased popular participation by allowing
viewers to vote by calls to premium-rate telephone lines or by sms over which
candidates should be eliminated each week and even to choose the winner.
These shows are of British origin and might therefore be considered examples
of domestic inventiveness, but they are formatted worldwide in almost
identical versions, have lost virtually all national identity and smack strongly
of the homogenising effect of global mass culture. Moreover, they meet the
demands of a marketplace dominated by commercial competitiveness: they
are extremely lucrative both for creators and broadcasters, for high audience
figures are virtually guaranteed, participants other than presenters, judges and
the final winner receive no payment and viewers contribute to profits through
the telephone voting system. The saving graces of this type of broadcast seem
to be the relatively small prizes
21
and the fact that amidst the many artists who
20.
Programme initiatives have been supported by charities working in the felds in question, by voluntary
Helplines whose mission is to inform and help victims, and in certain cases by government.
21.
The winner of Britains Got Talent, for instance, receives 100,000 and the possibility of appearing in
front of Her Majesty the Queen in the Royal Variety Performance.
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 69
lose what little talent they may have in front of the cameras, some of the acts
are of astonishingly high quality.
22

Reality television is another genre which has been boosted by the global
need for inexpensive, yet popular programmes. It also has the advantage of
taking a wide variety of forms, from lifestyle shows featuring, for instance,
cleaning, cooking, decorating or entertaining, to talk shows where an
enthusiastic studio audience is invited to hear intimate secrets of peoples
private lives or bedrooms and encouraged to voice its approval or disgust.
These are surpassed, however, by surveillance reality series the first truly
international new tv genre of the 21
st
century (Creeber, 2001: 137), a
voyeuristic development of older models and a far cry from the benign
Candid Camera (1960), a copycat version of the American programme of
the same name, whose recipe for success was the simple device of filming
people without their knowledge and showing them in embarrassing situations
or performing ridiculous or demeaning tasks. As with todays Youve Been
Framed, the footage was sometimes visibly staged rather than spontaneous, but
the opportunity of laughing at the misfortunes of others seems an irresistible
temptation to a substantial audience. Viewers of surveillance or documentary
reality shows are no doubt motivated by the hope that, beyond the interest
generated by a paradoxical combination of co-operation and competition
between participants,
23
the ordinary people filmed might be caught saying or
doing something unseemly. With the exception of the episodic Castaway 2000
and Castaway 2007, the shows now on British television are the formatted
fruits of the inventiveness of multi-national production companies,
24
bear all
the trademarks of global culture and leave little scope for national variation. In
the case of the best-known programme, Big Brother, viewers whose appetites
are left unsatisfied by the daily episodes can now follow events on a permanent
basis by logging on to the dedicated websites of the series, thus passing from a
passive medium to an active one and taking a step towards eliminating the need
for television altogether. These programmes may soon have run their course as
popular television phenomena, for the announcement has been made that the
22.
The 2009 fnal of Britains Got Talent included middle-aged Scottish spinster Susan Boyle, whose
marvellous singing belied her homely appearance. Although she did not win the competition, frst place
being taken by the equally remarkable dance group Diversity, her performance attracted worldwide
attention and her career has been frmly launched.
23.
In addition to working together in a team or teams, competitors also have to avoid being criticised by their
colleagues and eliminated by the votes of the viewing public.
24.
Both Big Brother and its spin-off Celebrity Big Brother were devised by the Dutch company Endemol,
while Swedish television invented Expedition Robinson which was subsequently developed by cbs as
Survivor.
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current series of Big Brother will be the last, but they may well prove to be
much more significant for the development of multi-media entertainment.
4. Pockets of Resistance
We have seen then that the popular in television can take a variety of forms
and that there are both detected and undetected degrees of global and international
broadcasting. In Britain, support for domestic programmes remains relatively
buoyant and consequent resistance to obviously foreign programmes may
be considerable, especially to those made in other languages. The British Film
Institutes list of top 20 imported television programmes (over the past 50 years)
includes only two which were not originally in English, the German Das Boot
(1980) and Heimat (1993) both of which were not series but single programmes,
to which might be added the childrens series, the Magic Roundabout, seamlessly
dubbed from the original French Mange enchant. The demands of European
legislation have made little difference, as the required quota of programmes of
European origin is nearly always met by exclusively British programmes or
those resulting from joint ventures with other countries. There is little doubt, on
the one hand that familiarity (of actors, settings or themes) enhances popular
appeal, and, on the other, that the cultural and ethnic diversity of the British
population has led to a more fragmented audience more inclined to actively
search out those broadcasts which meet their expectations.
Such diversity can sometimes be found in locally-produced programmes,
for within the uk and within broadcasting, regional and national preferences
remain strong. The creation of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament,
followed by the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland, has
given stimulus to initiatives in what broadcasters now call the nations. For
their part, the English regions have no legal or administrative status, but have
strong cultural and media identities and a current subject of discussion amongst
broadcasters and politicians is whether part of the bbcs licence fee should not
be ceded to itv to enable it to maintain its regional news and weather services.
itvs regional structure was a trump card for the channel in its initial competition
with the bbc, for it offered a clear alternative to London bias, as John Corner
explains:

However loosely the [itv] companies chose to interpret their declared commitments
to their regions, a stronger sense of different voices, of previously unaccessed
experience, came through the filter of their programmes than had hitherto managed
to penetrate through the sieve of metropolitan-centredness which habitually, if
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 71
unconsciously, was used by the bbc in fashioning its images of the nation. (Corner,
1991: 9)
Companies did so notably by setting their in-house soap operas close to
home, in Salford in Greater Manchester for Granada Televisions Coronation
Street, followed by a fictional suburb of Birmingham for itvs Crossroads, and
the countryside near Harrogate for Yorkshire Televisions Emmerdale Farm.
Only the last of these situations was genuine, but the trend has continued with
Brookside, produced for Channel 4 by Mersey Television, adding authenticity by
buying a whole newly-constructed cul-de-sac in the Liverpool area to shoot all
scenes, interior and exterior.
Many other genres have used real locations to enhance the popular appeal
of programmes, for local scenery or buildings give added value both by their
attractiveness or familiarity and by inciting viewer curiosity. The investigations
of Inspector Morse (Oxford), Inspector Taggart (Glasgow), Inspector Wycliffe
(Cornwall) or Inspector Barnaby (Buckinghamshire) would not be the same
in different settings, while the large number of available country houses or
family seats has facilitated the task of producers adapting literary classics. In
an example of media transfer, popular identification with favourite broadcasts
and (in)voluntary confusion over fact and fiction, the settings for all kinds of
programmes have become places of pilgrimage for their avid fans, from the
studio sets used for Coronation Street and EastEnders to the Yorkshire Dales in
which the veterinary series All Creatures Great and Small was shot, the church
of St Mary the Virgin (Turville, Buckinghamshire) which doubles as St Barnabas
in The Vicar of Dibley, and the unassuming village of Avoca, in Ireland, south of
Dublin, which was home to the outdoor scenes of Ballykissangel.
Integral to the identity of place is accent, for, since the 1960s, it has been
acknowledged that local speech has a rich and interesting variety and that
phonemes other than those of Home Counties Received Pronunciation or London
cockney working class have a rightful place on television. Plausibly authentic
local variations enhance both the realism and appeal of programmes, but, as
the examples are too numerous to allow of a detailed presentation, one may
perhaps serve as illustration. Central Televisions 1980s series Auf Wiedersehen
Pet had contemporary resonance in showing the dramatic and comic (mis)
adventures of unemployed British building workers more or less reluctantly
taking temporary jobs in Germany. What brought the series closer to home
was that it chose to highlight not international (dis)harmony but domestic local
difference by using characters from various parts of England, all of whom
spoke with the unmistakable or unfamiliar accents of their own areas, the Black
Country, Bristol, Liverpool, London and Newcastle-on-Tyne, to the delight of
some spectators and the bafflement of others. Language is a complex matter, for
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it frequently conveys not only regional or local but also class differences, but
one part of the United Kingdom, Wales, is a quite particular case. The Welsh
language is spoken or used, according to the latest census figures (2001), by 21%
of the population and has long had official recognition. At one time, bbc and itv
regions using transmitters covering parts of Wales as well as parts of England
included occasional programmes in Welsh in their schedules, but the creation of
Channel 4 in 1982 brought with it a new dedicated service for the Principality,
S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru), which initially screened Welsh-language broadcasts
as well time-lapsed items, in English, from Channel 4. Now, S4Cs programmes
are exclusively in Welsh and locally produced, and the channel boasts its own
soap opera, Pobol Y Cwm.
These cases show that there are pockets of resistance to centralised national
broadcasting in the uk, while as we have seen elsewhere, national broadcasting is
alive and well and can sometimes resist international pressures. The question of
globalisation remains complicated, though, for, as defenders of the post-modern
theory of broadcasting have maintained, the exchange of programmes is not a
one-way process. Indeed, Britain is not only an importer, but also an exporter
of programmes, to the English-speaking world, of course, but also worldwide,
thanks to the charm of local colour and to technical expertise in particular fields
like detective stories, situation comedies and costume drama. How far this
amounts to global impact is another question, for few British programmes have
made much impression on American prime-time schedules, most having been
limited to niche slots on pbs or brief network runs, often in amended form. In
fact, the 1960s series The Avengers, with its strong echoes of James Bond, was
the only British programme regularly scheduled nationally in the usa before
the arrival of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Englands [sic] most successful
cultural export in the last 30 years, according to the New York Times, on abc in
1999. Both are rare cases of individual programmes making their mark on the
world televisual landscape and both were, originally, 100% British productions,
in-house for itv (The Avengers) and for the production company Celador in
the case of Millionaire, but there the similarity ends, or almost. The outmoded
Britishness of The Avengers has given it a certain cult appeal and it still finds
its way onto schedules at home and abroad. Millionaire, on the other hand, is a
global format broadcast in copycat form in some 100 countries and its commercial
success has made it a hot property, the franchise now being owned by Sony. It is
not, however, a typical global programme, because it was not initially aimed at
the international market and because its genre has allowed it to retain a certain
educative value and preserve elements of national identity. Many of the general
knowledge and popular culture questions faced by British competitors are related
to the domestic context and can be answered, rightly or wrongly, by viewers in
rene dickason The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences 73
their own homes. It may thus be argued that Millionaire is at once an illustration
of globalisation and an example of resistance to it.
In conclusion, it is clear that many of the initial conceptions of television
have long since disappeared and that global ownership and the concentration
on entertainment have made popular broadcasting more important than ever. In
Britain, however, this has not led to the demise of national and local broadcasting,
which has adapted to survive in the new conditions precisely by preserving close
links with the everyday interests and concerns of viewers that international
formats cannot achieve. John Reith has no doubt turned in his grave on many
occasions at the thought of what his beloved bbc has done with the cherished
medium of broadcasting, and refused to even contemplate the worse offences
committed by other operators, but British television has a vitality and variety
which, in as far as anything is certain in this rapidly-changing world, should
ensure that it will continue to face and overcome new challenges.
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