The UK #media have been full these last couple of weeks with stuff about ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ and it has been uplifting to see such an outstanding example of ‘important television’. Where a few dogged, committed journalists kept the embers smouldering – notably at Private Eye and Computer Weekly and, of course, Nick Wallis on his website through crowdfunding and on ‘Panorama’/BBC – the flame finally burst into public consciousness due to the ITV drama series, due to good old-fashioned #TV.
It's the latest – and perhaps greatest – in a tradition of Important Television #drama in Britain. The poster boy is ‘Cathy Come Home’, the 1966 BBC drama about homelessness and descent into poverty, written by Jeremy Sandford and directed by Ken Loach. Loach shot the #television play on 16mm film on location rather than in the studio making it look more like a current affairs programme than drama.
The impact of the programme was unprecedented, influencing government policy and boosting the launch of the homelessness charity Shelter that same year through its 12 million viewers on BBC1 (25% of the population).
At the other UK Public Service Broadcaster, my alma mater Channel 4, the programmes most in this heritage include Russell T. Davies’ ‘Queer as Folk’ (1999), set around Canal Street in Manchester, which significantly changed people’s attitudes to the gay community, and Peter Kosminsky’s ‘The Government Inspector’ (2005) which had a profound impact on how the Hutton Inquiry into the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 and the death of weapons inspector David Kelly played out. Kosminsky (with whom I was on the BAFTA TV Committee, where his rigorous attention to detail was very evident) employed drama-documentary techniques to clarify complex matters for the public.
ITV, although established in 1955 to provide a commercial balance to the public service broadcasting of the BBC, still has PSB obligations which it delivers through a variety of genres including news, drama and sport, forming a vital part of the unique British #PSB system. Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of #ITV from 2016 to 2022, argued that the defining cultural purpose of PSB is original content “made by us, for us and about us” (“us” being the UK - UK talent and industry, UK audiences, and UK citizens). #MrBatesvsThePostOffice is their greatest ever triumph in this realm, proving how drama and fiction can make the hugest possible impact on reality and fact, succeeding where other media and institutions fall short.
It is a very timely reminder - with the BBC under pressure and on the back foot regarding the licence fee (which could end as soon as 2027); with Channel 4 largely suspending commissioning; with Channel 5 equally under the cosh due to the TV advertising slump - that we really need to value and look after our #broadcasters. By the time UK viewers realise what they’ve lost, it will be too late. TV still matters, is essential to our #democracy and at its best is truly important.
