There’s an interesting report in today’s Observer which says that The Vicar of Dibley is likely to be accused of breaking BBC guidelines.
The episode in question is the one I questioned at the time back on New Year’s Day 2005. Towards the end of the episode, viewers were shown a video supporting the Make Poverty History initiative, and all the fictional characters were then shown to be supportive of the cause.
At the time, I was very uneasy because it felt to me that BBC entertainment programming was being subverted for a particular charitable (and actually, arguably, political) cause. It’s not that I disagreed with the cause – goodness, there can barely be a charitable cause that anybody could disagree with.
But it was notable that later in the year, when the BBC was broadcasting the Live 8 concerts, also in support of the Make Poverty History campaign, that they didn’t show the videos that the crowd were shown. Chris Martin, introducing one of those videos, implored the BBC not to cut away as it had been, but to show it. The BBC didn’t.
The BBC has to be impartial about these issues. Otherwise it runs the risk of government interference. Yes, there are always going to be those times when the Disasters Emergency Committee is given some airtime to highlight the plight of Darfur or Chad. But those should be the exceptions and not the rules. They’re also occassions when we know we’re watching a charity appeal. Hijacking top-rated sitcoms is not the way to go, however successful it might actually be.
[UPDATE] The BBC Trust has published its report, “From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel” and it make for interesting reading (OK – I found it interesting reading anyway). It does indeed go into the Vicar of Dibley episode, and indeed covering the whole of Live 8, in some detail (read pages 55 to 60). As report notes, this isn’t an issue that’s going to go away.
This summer the BBC is going to be covering the Al Gore backed Live Earth concerts. Superficially, there wouldn’t be anything obvious that one could argue about the righteousness of the cause. But it could become something with a political edge. And although it’s another country, suppose Al Gore decides that he is going to run for president after all?
I was pleased to note that the report even looked into the “making of Live 8” programme that was broadcast later in the year. This was made by Brook Lapping who have an excellent pedigree for documentaries. Yet they’re owned by Bob Geldof’s production company.
I had the same issue with a couple of documentaries about the original Live Aid that also aired in 2005. Objectivity is what we’re missing here.
At the very least, if you’re making a documentary about your owner, you should at least put an on-screen acknowledgment at the start of the programme. Similarly, music documentaries about specific artists are another area where they’re often produced in conjunction with the act’s record label. A longer version is often available in the shops on DVD the next day. Indeed, I suspect that this programming is often supplied to broadcasters either free, or very cheaply, since there are inevitable album sales from the back of them (last weekend, Jarvis Cocker was the subject of a South Bank Show, and featured on The Culture Show. It’s no coincidence that press ads for his album mentioned both appearances. Being on TV sells albums, although in this instance, I believe that both shows were made fully by the BBC and ITV. Having said that, ITV adopted the same font throughout, that Cocker uses on his new album).
When Take That recently reformed, they had a primetime show on ITV which was co-produced by themselves. You’d only have learnt this if you read the credits very carefully (and that’s something that’s becoming harder to do).
In the same way that The Times will note that it’s owned by News Corp when discussing the fortunes of Sky or Twentieth Century Fox, TV companies need to acknowledge who actually produced the documentaries they’re airing so the viewer can at least be informed and make any judgments as a result.