10 Key Elements of quality television:

• Professional, convincing acting
• Interesting characters with quality, interesting character development
• Good editing to keep flow of the production professional and easy to understand
• Good cinematography
• Good lighting
• Intriguing, well-written story and script
• Unpredictable and unique
• Memorable
• Emotional connection
• Captivating story line

Broadcasting and Narrowcasting

Broad – For everyone

Narrow – A niche target audience

BBC Charter

The Royal Charter is the constitutional basis for the BBC. It sets out the BBC’s Object, Mission and Public Purposes. The Charter also outlines the Corporation’s governance and regulatory arrangements, including the role and composition of the BBC Board.

• Was radio during early stages
• Made 1922
• First director: Lord John Reith – set and made its ethos
• He was an engineer
• The ethos had 3 main principals : Educate, Entertain, Inform

Ethos of the BBC

• “opening up new worlds to people” Cecil Lewis

Populism vs Paternalism

• Populism: Giving people what want and enjoy. Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of “the people” and often juxtapose this group against “the elite”. It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment.
• Paternalism: Giving the people something that other people believe is good for you. What people need.

Grace Wyndham Goldie

• Particularly in the fields of politics and current affairs. During her career at the BBC, she was one of the few senior women in an establishment dominated by men.
• Changing the nature of modern communication, essentially by transforming time and space

BBC became social cement, British culture was centered around the BBC

Habermas, transformation of the public sphere

The public sphere is a realm of communication and is the reality of the world vs private realm.

BBC was a realm for communication and was the first instance where the public was involved and included in political debate as well as being able to further educate and inform themselves and it being a source for free entertainment, allowed this massive transformation of the public sphere to occur. A shared knowledge of the world through advancements in technology and became social cement, inbedded in British culture.

• Habermas argues that the development of early modern capitalism brought into being an autonomous arena of public debate.
• Can be seen as an arena for public debate
• A new public engaged in critical political discussion

Jean Seaton PSB

• “depended on a set of linked and radical expansions”
• “the BBC creating an image of its audience as ‘participants’ in the great affairs of the nation…”

Broadcasting in Britain – Monopoly or Duopoly?

The BBC held a monopoly on television in Britain from its introduction until 1954 and on radio until 1972

• “Depends on an assumption of commitment to an undivided public good”

1977 Annan Report says:

“became a…. free market place in which balance could be achieved through the competition of multiplicity of independent voices.”

• Double think, according to George Orwell, illustrates peoples views on broadcasting at the time

Ownership Effects – James Curran & Jean Seaton

• “twin forces of creativity and business”
• profit driven motives take precedence”