BBC TV mature lady newsreader or Chief Executive of ITV. It’s hard to decide which is the more poisoned chalice.
News-reading is currently perceived as the dizzying height of a TV career, but for all the “glamour” of those 30 minutes on screen, presenters spend days waiting for decisions, research notes, reading papers and hanging about. Make no mistake. The ability to switch off, then fully on is a particular skill. So is dealing instantly with changes and mistakes delivered by a voice in your ear. So is reading with feeling and intelligence to 10 million people. Day after day after day. Well paid it is but glamorous it ain’t, and for women, the certain knowledge their appearance is being judged by every viewer means natural beauty or a constitution of tungsten is needed to survive.
For a sneak preview of the hostile world awaiting the “lucky” 50-something, watch the storm surrounding the youthful usurper of Strictly judge, Arlene Phillips. Alesha Dixon has appeared wooden, nervous and tongue-tied on screen. Perhaps justice has prevailed. Perhaps older women with talent are loved and missed when they’re axed. Perhaps TV executives are taking note.
Actually though, Ms Dixon’s problems speak volumes about the pressure facing any woman grafted onto an existing, competitive team as a glamorous afterthought. Anyone who saw her TV documentary exploring the impact of air-brushed magazine images on impressionable girls will know Alesha Dixon is a TV natural. And yet here she is, nervous as a rabbit caught in the headlights.
And she is. Every Saturday twenty million eyes measure her against the redoubtable Arlene Phillips and the relaxed, experienced men on either side. It’s the dilemma facing every lonely retrofitted “token” woman. Without wholesale change in broadcast thinking about the faces and voices that deliver authority -- or a protective ego the size of Anne Robinson’s, -- the mature female newsreader may soon become The Weakest Link.
So what about the top job at ITV then?
The Board have won plaudits for rejecting an unbelievable £42 million wage demand from their would-be new Chief Executive Tony Ball . There is now the heady possibility that ITV may promote home grown talent -- an existing executive with considerable experience and flair, Peter Fincham.
However the gargantuan bankers-bonus-sized pay packets hogging the headlines have acted as a lightning rod for viewer discontent over the mediocre quality of much ITV programming.
“Given that all ITV does is churn out talent shows, soaps, and inane celebrity-oriented programmes, one wonders what kind of pay these executives would demand to run a proper TV station,” is a fairly typical online comment.
And for Scotland, there’s the rub.
Viewer dissatisfaction with ITV, BBC and STV has rubbed off on Mike Russell’s proposals for a post-independence Scottish Broadcasting Corporation.
Instead of thinking a new, Scottish product might be a way to cut ridiculous six figure salaries, save money and raise quality, commentators on the Culture Minister’s plans have assumed the worst.
The same people lambasting Michael Grade for earning £2 million a year while ITV has all but collapsed, nevertheless heard the great man like a veritable oracle recently when he dismissed calls for more Scottish content as " rubbish just to meet a quota."
Ditto the BBC. Papers have supported David Cameron’s attack on DG Mark Thompson for earning more at £800k than the Governor of the Bank of England. But Thompson is nonetheless heard in kicked-cat silence when he says network commissions from Scotland have fallen because the ideas are too weak.
Why are we mesmerised by the opinion of London based controllers who believe we can’t broadcast our way out of a paper bag while their own networks are hardly solid gold?
Why does the Sun condemn a Scottish Broadcasting Channel as “cut-price TV”? Isn’t that exactly what every commentator and newspaper is demanding? An SBC could prune wages, bureaucracy, compliance culture and endless meetings to produce leaner, meaner, funnier programmes than a risk averse BBC will ever do.
Why assume Scots will have to pay twice to watch the BBC? The SBC could follow the Irish and Nordic example and buy in BBC highlights instead of forking out megabucks to watch the whole inevitably London-centric BBC network. With such a fruity mix, it’s just possible that bored, outraged English viewers contributing angry thoughts to newspaper comment forums by the bucket-load might tune into SBC programmes instead?
It could happen. And the proof is on BBC 4’s recent This is Scotland season.The programmes have been wonderful. Hilarious. Thought-provoking. Beautiful. Earthy. Erudite. And sadly over.
Peter Capaldi’s tour of Scottish art surpassed anything presented by highbrow Alan Yentob -- part of a rich schedule described by one London reviewer as; “the telly equivalent of chewing on a wedge of Stornoway black pudding washed down with a triple malt.”
This is a taste of what’s possible. Its minority nature means these BBC4 programme makers were freed from the requirement to service the majority of BBC viewers, positively encouraged to be provocative and given more than a few bob to do it. The programmes were largely produced by Scots in the regular employ of BBC Scotland. So you’ve got to ask, why aren’t they churning out such knowing, high quality programmes “back home”?
The answer is not talent, its money. Scottish producers are usually forced to fit stererotypes to get network cash. Thus Monarch of the Glen will succeed, whilst Johnson and Boswell though bed-wettingly funny for Scots --will struggle.
This also produces a supreme irony. Top Scottish talent is currently affordable only through well-funded network commissions not Scottish ones. That’s partly why STV -- by opting out of ITV– have angered “patriots” by axing the only dramas that can afford to employ Scottish stars. Radio is no different.
The current skewed broadcasting market is bending our production base, national self esteem and perceptions of value out of shape completely. Mike Russell may not have all the answers, but he’s asking the right questions.
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