Feel The Power

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Aunty has lifted up her skirts and flashed her racy knickers at us…..well, her bloomers anyway.

This is an interesting look at what is an open secret…the BBC’s tight rein on what it thought was appropriate for the audience to be allowed to watch or listen to…From The Independent….

BBC: the Secret Files, BBC4 – TV review: The BBC opens its vaults to show how its power dynamic operated

“This, unless you understand exactly what they’re trying to do, is crap, and pretentious crap at that.” That’s the dismissive verdict BBC assessors gave to rock band T-Rex, back before they were famous.

The existence of the BBC Talent Selection Committee, with its idiosyncratic – and often plain wrong – views was one of the great revelations of BBC: The Secret Files.

This documentary’s presenter Penelope Keith made her name in The Good Life, but Margo Leadbetter’s snootiness was as nothing compared to the various memos that emerged from the Written Archives Centre vaults in Caversham. Back in the days when the Corporation had a broadcasting monopoly, it acted as a gatekeeper to the British public and success without its approval was virtually impossible.

This power dynamic was evidenced by an extraordinary mountain of begging letters, signed by everyone from a penitent Tony Hancock to a humble-sounding Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and Enid Blyton, who was effectively banned from the airwaves for nearly 30 years, because someone decided her stories lacked “literary value”.

Oh, how times have changed! Now it’s the Beeb that’s forced to write begging letters in an attempt to justify its continued existence.

The BBC Talent Selection Committee…its decisions idiosynchratic and often plain wrong…yep..how times change….still, they did send Donnison into exile in the Antipodes….someone must recognise talent when they see it.

 

 

 

 

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3 Responses to Feel The Power

  1. Stuart Beaker says:
    July 29, 2015 at 11:15 pm

    Let me guess: once upon a time, before punk, before cool, before Thatcher, the BBC was biased, old-fashioned, bigoted, sneered at those whose only crime was being foreign, innovative, ignorant, opinionated, arrogant, left-wing, identity-challenged, brave, modern – in fact, when it was repellant and disgusting in exactly the same way that its most vocal critics are today.

    So maybe not so much a revelation, as simply a continuation of its campaign to scorn and disenfranchise anyone who dares to differ from its current received wisdom, who dares to offer a vision of the future of public broadcasting which might not include the BBC.

       18 likes

  2. Doublethinker says:
    July 30, 2015 at 8:33 am

    Anyone with any sense surely starts from a position of disbelieving anything the BBC broadcasts and wondering what they are suppressing. The BBC must surely rank alongside PRAVDA , Lord Haw Haw etc ,as one of the most powerful propaganda organs of all time.

       24 likes

    • Umbongo says:
      July 30, 2015 at 11:00 am

      You’ve spotted the prime problem with the BBC. As far as I’m concerned – much to the occasional annoyance of Mrs U – I tend to view every BBC voice/visual/online broadcast with suspicion: the question in my mind – sometimes on my lips – is “what agenda is the BBC furthering with this one?” For instance, last night there was an interesting programme about the gardens at Stowe. I know that Lord Cobham – the owner of Stowe – was not Robert Walpole’s (Britain’s first prime minister) friend and, apparently (I certainly didn’t know this), the design of his gardens reflected his emnity. Also, the programme illustrated the birth of the English garden as distinguished from the formal French model (cf Versailles).

      However, and not really connected with the subject of the programme (except to illustrate the downfall of Cobham’s family fortunes) since before WW1 Stowe has been the home of the famous public school which was noted by the commentator. Fair enough, but why did the commentary note on first mention, that Stowe was now the home of an elite public school? The insertion of the adjective “elite” was egregious and (since this is the BBC) manifestly to be taken as a signal of disapproval. Stowe is certainly an eminent public school. Elite? Well, it probably caters substantially to an elite but, in my world-view, the sight of a schoolmaster using words of more than 3 syllables to an audience of primarily white children doesn’t imply “elite”: it implies a full and well-rounded education which (were it not for the neanderthals at our various Institutes of Education and their cheerleaders at the BBC and the Labour Party among others) could be made available to all children capable of benefitting from it. Such an education is no more “elite” that the education I received at a state grammar school 60 years ago.

      BTW, apropos of decent education, the BBC should be aware that Vanbrugh is pronounced “vanbrah” (accent on the first syllable) not “vanbrew”: so much for the “elite” of the BBC!

         17 likes