r/BritishTV • u/Kagedeah • 1d ago
News TV bosses should dare to flout Ofcom rules, says Grange Hill creator Phil Redmond
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/dec/27/tv-bosses-should-flout-ofcom-rules-grange-hill-creator-phil-redmond64
u/SvenSvenkill3 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yep, the BBC lost its teeth in 2003 around the time of the Iraq and September Dossiers and the resulting conflict with the Labour Government and in particular Alastair Campbell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Campbell#Iraq_War
Which is why ever since the BBC has pretty much had a pro-Government slant with its news and current affairs (that and the detrimental role Laura Kuenssberg has played). And this explains why people from the both the left and the right claim the BBC is biased against them. e.g. the BBC current affairs / news teams were obviously anti-Brexit due to David Cameron being a remainer, but the BBC (and especially Kuenssberg) was also fiercely pro-Tory and anti-Corbyn throughout Corbyn's leadership of Labour (2015-2020).
As such, I'm one of, it seems, a small number of people who don't want the BBC scrapped. I want to reclaim it. I want to restore, strengthen and protect its independence from Government, and make it a voice of the people (all the people) again. For if it continues as it is, then it will likely be over within a decade, with all its remaining assets stripped and sold for cheap (as previously happened with the privatisation of all our national assets), and then the UK's media will be entirely privately owned by multinational companies. And trust me, when that happens a lot of people will soon regret wishing an end to the BBC.
Indeed, the BBC, the NHS and the education system are pretty much all we've got left, and we can't afford to hand them over to the private sector.
So yeah, to put it in Grange Hill terms, the heart and soul of the BBC needs to start (ahem) channeling more Danny Kendall and less Mr Bronson.
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u/20127010603170562316 1d ago
Laura Kuenssberg
I'm not sure why she gets to be political editor for the BBC. She wears her colours on her sleeves loud and proud.
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u/Beer-Milkshakes 14h ago
It's not new. The BBC reported to MI5 about their employees' political leaning up to the 90's in a bid to help the gov fight communist influences. The BBC- it seems was alright for a short time between the 90's and 2003 as you say and that is when I remember it being the creme.
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u/SvenSvenkill3 14h ago edited 14h ago
There's a reason why (e.g) Thatcher waged war on the BBC. Because even in those days the BBC didn't simply toe the line.
https://lithub.com/why-margaret-thatcher-waged-war-on-the-bbc/
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u/RedEyeView 11h ago
This is where the myth of the "left wing bbc" comes from.
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u/SvenSvenkill3 9h ago edited 8h ago
Aye, that and its drama and comedic output. For other than sitcoms which are usually predominantly non-political (e.g. Only Fools & Horses), BBC drama and comedy has always been mostly left leaning because... well... the likes of, say, Jim Davidson or Bernard Manning are unlikely to produce groundbreaking and original comedy like, say, 'The Day Today', 'The Thick of It', 'Yes Minister' or 'Ideal'. Even the BBC's flagship soap opera, 'Eastenders' has been "controversial" in the past for, e.g, UK TV's first gay kiss -- as a side note, talking about soaps, I suspect if ITV's 'Coronation Street' transgender character, Hayley Cropper, were introduced today there'd be a MUCH larger and louder opposition to her from some quarters than there was in 1998.
But I digress and I'm waffling, sorry...
My point is that I reckon a lot of right wingers who talk about the BBC being left wing are, whether knowingly or unknowingly, mostly talking about the BBC's drama and comedy output, and/or at a stretch cultural commentary, documentaries and shows like the late, great 'Arena'. Whereas it seems left wingers accusing the BBC of right wing bias are usually exclusively talking about the BBC's news and current affairs output; an accusation which for the last 14 years at least has been proven accurate by numerous studies and inquiries. e.g. this, this, and this.
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u/RedEyeView 11h ago
I never quite understood why the BBC were in trouble for reporting about the "sexed up dossier".
They were reporting the truth.
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u/ridgestride 1d ago
To be fair GB news flout rules all the time and nothing happens to them
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u/GoHenDog 15h ago
Exactly THIS! They should actually be punished for the sheer amount of disinformation they spew out, it’s disgusting.
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u/MysteriousTelephone 1d ago
I do miss when Channel 4 had an edge to it, you’d have Graham Norton’s old show where he’d openly review sex toys, followed by Eurotrash.
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u/Serberou5 18h ago
I still remember Zammos heroin overdose in Grange Hill that pushed the boundaries in the 80s for sure .
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u/RedEyeView 10h ago
I just posted about that. It wasn't just an edgy storyline about a teenager doing heroin. It was the launch of a major anti drugs campaign.
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u/Serberou5 10h ago
It was. I experimented alot when I was younger but I credit that with helping ensure I never did that.
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u/angelholme 1d ago
What has he actually done recently? Most of his "tough and gritty programs" are over 20 years old.
Oddly enough before Ofcom was founded.
And most of his writing was way before that.
So with all due respect, he is asking people to do something he's never been willing to do himself and never had to do himself.
Not that I am calling him a coward and a hypocrite. Because that would be mean.
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u/anonnyscouse 1d ago
You may have just proven his point. As you point out he hasn't had any "tough and gritty programs" aired since Ofcom was founded, you may be right and he hasn't written any, or it could be that he has written some but they've all been rejected and he keeps hearing Ofcom rules given as the excuse.
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u/angelholme 1d ago
Look at his writing credits -- sure he created Grange Hill and he created Brookside and he created Hollyoaks, but most of the writing he did for them ended WAY before Ofcom was founded. He wrote in the 80s and very early 90s for the first two, and did very little writing for Hollyoaks as far as I can tell.
He has no other credits since then. So it's not like he is writing stuff and then having to rewrite it for Ofcom -- he just isn't writing AT ALL.
I could be wrong, and if he is creating and producing dozens of new series and they are all being blocked, I'll apologise. Or if he is writing for soaps, or dramas, and all his scripts are being censored, I'll apologise.
But somehow I doubt it.
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u/Agreeable_Falcon1044 1d ago
100%. If you aren’t entertaining, inspiring or informing, then it shouldn’t be funded. I do feel tv is too safe…I can’t recall a time where we have had so little comedy, panel shows, music shows or such like. Kids shows just don’t exist now.
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u/UKS1977 1d ago
Kids shows do exist - but in their own little ghetto on their own channels. A lot of kids shows (like Grange Hill) actually had all the family cross over. I feel that is missing. My kids love the gladiators and it is a show we can all watch together. But it isn't challenging!
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u/Agreeable_Falcon1044 1d ago
At least it’s entertaining and potentially inspiring too!
I grew up in the 90s. Grange Hill was sadly on a wain by then (did watch the originals Sunday morning mind!), but we had Childrens ward, press gang, byker grove and countless other dramas that crossed over into family shows. I remember one about a melded family, another one about a city farm etc.
The content was strong but kids are durable and can take it. It’s also a great launching point for performers and writers too
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u/RedEyeView 11h ago
Grange Hill was the medium used to get over a major national anti drugs campaign when I was a kid.
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u/DrBorisGobshite 1d ago
It does feel like TV has become more bland and safe to have mass appeal and upset nobody. For me comedy is the genre that seems to have been hit the hardest, particularly sitcoms.
On this side on the pond Channel 4 and the Beeb always seemed to have a top tier sitcom up their sleeve but in the last decade or so I can't think of one of the top of my head. The US used to have several running at once but since Modern Family stopped I think It's Always Sunny is the only one going.
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u/TediousTotoro 1d ago
Basically all of the best British sitcoms of the past decade are the Malcom in the Middle-type where they’re closer to comedic dramas than the traditional sitcom style. Things like Derry Girls and We Are Lady Parts come to mind.
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u/hallumyaymooyay 15h ago
What’s the most recent British sitcom that has stuck fully to the format?
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u/Optimal_Collection77 1d ago
Kids TV is really lacking now. It's mostly animated with very little dramas etc.
Some of the best shows I've seen in the last few years are Little Lunch and Inbestigators on Netflix from Australia.
Really funny and well made
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u/pajamakitten 1d ago
TV definitely needs more bite these days. It is like the backlash to Benefits Street and the fallout of Jeremy Kyle has got producers scared of causing even the slightest bit of offence or of being counter-culture. I know fear of losing more of their audience to streaming services and loss of advertising revenue is at the forefront of their mind, however only producing milquetoast TV to fill up most of the schedule will not help them either.
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u/martinbean 18h ago
And so they should be if a show exists to solely embarrass people to a large audience to the point that they commit suicide, a la Jeremy Kyle. How Love Island is still on the air, I don’t know.
You can still create programmes that push the envelope without ostracising individual members of the public that just aren’t prepared for ridicule on a national level overnight.
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u/pajamakitten 18h ago
I am not saying they should make those sorts of shows again, just that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction.
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u/Ecstatic_Lion4224 4h ago
As someone who was a kid in the 90s, children's programmes now seem to be pitched at an entirely more childish and conservative (in the 'safe' sense) level. We had Grange Hill, Byker Grove, Oasis, Press Gang and others which could tackle social issues with a level of maturity that also didn't insult the viewer despite their age.
It wasn't just the real life dramas though. The 90s was far from a perfect era socially and in many ways we've made loads of progress. But things were screened then that would provoke outrage about 'wokeness' now. Then no one really batted an eyelid.
I grew up with a healthy concern about the environment being depicted on kids' magazine shows and the Americans had an entire cartoon about the earth protecting superhero Captain Planet. Animals of Farthing Wood was probably the most emotionally exhausting TV show of my primary school life, but I never missed it and the conservation message fully landed. Grange Hill tackled racism and homophobia which was important for my understanding as a gay kid growing up in a largely white area.
Like so much else, social media running unchecked and untrustworthy is damaging here. There's manufactured online outrage about a drag queen being a contestant on Blankety Blank this Xmas - a show which used to be presented by a far more famous drag queen and by someone else who also did drag in his other work. All of which was in the finest British tradition, and no one really bothered about.
Someone in this thread mentioned Hayley from Coronation Street - and it's hard to imagine that character being introduced afresh now without much social media hand-wringing.
Strong female heroes may be a bit more commonplace now, but they're not brand new inventions. I didn't grow up with weak and watery female leads. The 90s was the era of GI Jane. Even watching the family blockbuster Jurassic Park, the girl child was a toyboyish hacker.
The biggest thing was that no one really cared. Where now there is always some bad actor telling you to care that all of this is something challenging to your way of life - when it has always been our way of life.
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u/Super-Hyena8609 11h ago
What specific Ofcom rules does he think need breaking? There's more sex and violence on TV than ever but I'm not sure there's much to be gained in pushing the boat still further out there, certainly not in children's programming.
Perhaps current children's TV is too safe though, I don't know. Interestingly while TV and film have become much more relaxed in terms of what is allowed, safeguarding in real life has become much stricter.
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