I have started marking your text
commentaries. It is a difficult exercise, and one which you still need training
in, especially if you are planning on taking the exams to become a teacher.
Nevertheless, some students have done well.
I don’t[1]
think I will have time to go over the
two documents in class, but I will put a number of useful elements here on the
blog, which I recommend you read carefully, especially the questions of method.
This is not my version of a text
commentary, but some notes on what should have been present to get a high mark.
Firstly the document about television.[2]
It comes from a longer document called “The ITV story”, obviously a history of
Independent Television: this could be a book or some otherlonger text. We don’t
know a lot about the author, but the title indicates that it is a popular
history.[3]
An academic history might be entitled “The History of Commercial Television in
the United Kingdom”.° The popular nature of the history is confirmed by the
fact that there is no attempt to be neutral: the author’s objective is to
defend ITV in this period and to criticize the BBC.
Most of you understood that the author was
on the side of ITV, but it is best to announce this clearly, early on in your
commentary. The author is not pretending to be neutral, so there is no reason
to criticize him for being “biassed”. Most documents we read are not neutral,
and we would be very bored if they all were.
Once you have established the objective of
the author, which you can ilustrate with short quotes from or references to the
text. The author claims that ITV “breathed new life” into broadcasting, which
was, he felt, without life under the BBC monopoly. He claims that the BBC’s
programming was boring and unexciting (paragraph four), although he does not
give examples of BBC programmes.
The document speaks of the Pilkington
Report. This is one of three major reports to the government about broadcasting
in the post-war period. You should show you know something about the Pilkington
Report *something which is not mentioned in this text*.[4]
For a high mark you should briefly mention all three reports and their
importance. I was not expecting an almost perfect paragraph such as the
following, which I give you just to illustrate.
The
Pilkington Report, released in 1962, is one of three major reports on
broadcasting in post-war Britain. The other two were the Beveridge report in
1951, and the Annan Report in 1977. They show the sharp interest that
government paid to the development of broadcasting content. The seriousness of
the project can be seen from the fact that the Pilkington report took two years
to write. The changes between the three reports show a slow decline of the idea
that brodacsting organizations are responsible for moulding public morals and
values, and a slow rise of the idea that private entreprise and customer choice
are sufficient to deal with the question of appropriate programming.
It is useful to place the date of
publication of the report (1962) in its
historical context. Access of television sets was gradually becoming
more common, but a large section of the population did not have television. The
report was made to a Conservative government.
Some students tried to make a correlation
between Conservative and Labour politics, and the division between those who
felt “TV should educate and be of quality”
and those who thought “Private
broadcasting will be in favour of
the people and will give them what they want and not what the BBC elite
is forcing them to have”. This is not easy, because there are complexities.
Many Labour people felt it important that
public money in television should make culture (including Shakespeare, Opera,
theatre , documentary) available almost free to the masses. They felt that
richer people already had access to high culture, and so making television only
light entertainment was elitist because it maintained the idea that only the
rich could have high culture.
Many Conservative people felt private
broadcasting would lead to more competition and more choice (and these two
concepts are central values of conservatism). These commentators accused the
BBC of being elitist by imposing high culture or “educaional” programmes on the
masses. This is the point of the author of the present document,; but it is not
the only view possible.
Naturally, each side in this debate accused
the other side of being the real elitists.
At the end of the commentary, it is a very good idea to look at what happened *after* the period mentioned in the passage. Did this debate ("elitism versus populaism") continue to affect British television in later decades? How? Can you give some examples?
At the end of the commentary, it is a very good idea to look at what happened *after* the period mentioned in the passage. Did this debate ("elitism versus populaism") continue to affect British television in later decades? How? Can you give some examples?
Note:
Danger of anachronism. It is an anachronism to
describe BBC’s programmes as “old-fashioned” or traditional, or to describe
ITV’s programmes as “modernizing”. The different ways of making television were
in the process of being invented, and there was not as such an established
tradition.
Notes on style
1) Do not use contractions in university work.
2) In this kind of essay, one sentence is not enough to make a paragraph. A new paragraph for every sentence is a style used in informal journalism, but is not appropriate here.
3) Do not begin "the document we have to comment on" (cela signifie à peu près "le document qu'on nous oblige à commenter".
Notes on style
1) Do not use contractions in university work.
2) In this kind of essay, one sentence is not enough to make a paragraph. A new paragraph for every sentence is a style used in informal journalism, but is not appropriate here.
3) Do not begin "the document we have to comment on" (cela signifie à peu près "le document qu'on nous oblige à commenter".
Here is the document you were asked to
comment on :
In programming terms the arrival of ITV breathed new life into television
in Britain. ITV liked to be known as 'the people's channel' claiming to do
something that the BBC had thus far failed to do; give the people the type of
programming they wanted. But it was quickly criticised in many quarters for its
mainly populist fare. Regardless of the fact that by 1957 ITV dominated
Britain's homes with an 80% share of the potential audience, variety specials
such as Sunday Night at the London Palladium, quiz shows such as Double
Your Money and Take Your Pick, innovative shows such as Armchair
Theatre, action-adventure series' like The Adventures of Robin Hood
and in particular American imports such as I Love Lucy were being held
up as examples of everything that was wrong with commercial television.
So the question remains; was it really the quality of the programming that
ITV's critics found so abhorrent? And if not, what was it? One of reasons could
have been the vast profit they were making. ITV had done everything in its
power to supply the balanced diet that the ITA had demanded. Current affairs
were catered for by Granada Television who were surpassing anything in quality
and in-depth reporting that the BBC had to offer. Children's television was
offered in the form of exciting swashbuckling series' but also in the forms of
gentler entertainment such as Rolf Harris' art show, while the demur Muriel
Young read stories to youngsters-and these were presented in far less stuffy
style than the BBC was offering at that time. ITV were the first broadcaster to
air an hour of religious programming on a Sunday and even persevered to bring
Christianity to a younger audience with its show The Sunday Break.
But it seems that ITV was expected to bring these shows to an audience
without making a profit, or in the very least, without making a profit that
it's critics obviously deemed as obscene. One of ITV's biggest critics was Lord
Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express newspaper. In the 1950s the paper,
following his sour grapes policy on commercial television, printed a rather
unflattering picture of Lew Grade with a caption that read 'Is this the man you
want to choose the programmes for your children?' Well, as far as the audience
was concerned the answer was a resounding yes.
Audiences didn't want the type of stilted, uninspiring and sanitised
programming the BBC was then showing even though ITV made several attempts to
offer it to them. When ITV presented its viewers with Hamlet viewers turned off
in droves with viewing figures dropping below 10 per cent. …
In 1960 a committee was set up under Sir Harry Pilkington to investigate
the broadcasting industry, and allocate a third television channel. During its
deliberations the Treasury introduced a flat levy of 11 per cent on all income
from advertising. It would be two years before the committee delivered its
findings. Pilkington's own team was a mixed bag indeed and included the actress
Joyce Grenfell, footballer Billy Wright, Dr Elwyn Davies (who would be
appointed Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Department of the Ministry of
Education in 1963), theatre director Peter Hall, Sir Jock Campbell and J Megaw
(the last three all resigned between January and February 1961). What they came
up with was a thoroughly scurrilous report that smacked of nothing less than
arrogant stuffiness, bias and snobbery.
'Much that is
seen on television is regarded as of very little value. There was, we were
told, a preoccupation in many programmes with the superficial, the cheaply
sensational. Many mass appeal programmes were vapid and puerile, their content
often derivative, repetitious and lacking any real substance. There was a vast
amount of unworthy material, and to transmit it was to misuse intricate
machinery and equipment, skill, ingenuity and time.
'The BBC know good broadcasting;
by and large, they are providing it.
We conclude that dissatisfaction with television can be largely ascribed to the independent television service.'
-The Pilkington Report.
We conclude that dissatisfaction with television can be largely ascribed to the independent television service.'
-The Pilkington Report.
If we accept that Independent Television was not providing quality
programming all the time, and it would be difficult to put forward and argument
that it was, even though it was nowhere near as bad as Pilkington claimed-could
there be another reason for the committee's condemnation? Other than the
previously suggested financial one?
Extract from The ITV story, part six: Pilkington.
[1] Note that on a blog, we generally write in fairly informal
style : in an exam, in English, you would not be using contracted forms
like “don’t”.
[2] If you come to this blog
from some random place on the internet, the document students were asked to
comment on is reproduced at the end of these notes
[4] Remember the text
commentary is a university exercise : the aim is to gain points by showing
you have knowledge and you know how to structure that knowledge.
