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Flextech plan a new series of the vengeance-based reality show Cruel Summer on their teen-based channel Trouble with hefty interactivity allowing viewers to choose camera angles and the like. They’re also launching Challenge, which they describe as “the world’s first fully interactive games network”
And looking slightly further ahead, David Caswell of Telewest believes that it won’t be too long before video on demand becomes a reality over here. “In the states, there are a number of reasonably small but commercial video on demand rollouts going on. Cable broadband can genuinely offer people the chance to download whatever con- tent they want to their set top box and then fast forward, stop, pause it.
“You can do that with a Personal Video Recorder now, which is great for recording this week’s episodes of EastEnders. What you can’t do is delve into Delia Smith’s recipe collection and say ‘I want to watch a video on how to cook beef stroganoff this evening’ or say to a video dating service, ‘I want to find my perfect match - send me the latest video for the people in my area’, or get the entire library of Alfred Hitchcock movies downloaded...”
And is this likely to happen in the not-too-distant future. “Yes, not in the next couple of months, but certainly in the next year to two years,” he vows. ■
15
UTURE
LIDDIMENT LASHES OUT
Maggie Brown looks back at the Edinburgh TV Festival
News Digest
LIDDIMENT LASHES OUT
This year’s keynote MacTaggart Lecture by David Liddiment, director of ITV channels, will be remembered and quoted from. He hit tar- gets which are of relevance to the everyday lives of hundreds of televi- sion producers.
In control of the UK’s most popular channel for the past four years, he talked openly about the need to change the way the talent base is organised, to encourage risk, ideas and fresh programmes.
He acknowledged this meant strengthening the power of the creative community to build stronger companies, so they could deal in a more equal way with broadcasters... people like himself.
Interestingly, the power of channel controllers was vividly demonstrated throughout the remaining two days of the festival. The sessions in which they were interviewed proved some of the most popular, though they were lightly grilled, and delegates didn’t dare say boo to a goose...
Liddiment’s acid comments about BBC arrogance, commercial instinct, competitiveness and the failure of the governors to monitor output grabbed newspaper headlines, and continue to rile BBC Television executives from Mark Thompson downwards, who are not having the best of autumns.
Liddiment’s speech pointed to the absence of arts programmes and the marginalising of current affairs (Panorama) on BBC1 and may even have played a part in stiffening Government determination to impose tough conditions on its multi-channel plans, and turn down BBC3, the reject- ed copy-cat youth digital chan-
nel on September 13 (some three weeks after Edinburgh).
“Where the market is strong as in drama for exam- ple, it (BBC1) should be getting stuck into more ambitious pro- jects. More Clocking Off, less Merseybeat” said Liddiment.
This is why, even after September’s tragic events - in which TV news played such a dramatic role - his assertion that the “soul” of British television was in danger from the daily drip of overnight ratings, audience numbers and focus groups, will not go away.
He pointed as evidence to the run- of-the mill daily schedules. “At worst it narrows range and gives us too much of the same thing - animals in trouble, apocalyptic history, revisionist biogra- phy, whatever.
“Neighbours From Hell begat Neighbours At War, Cold Feet begat Hearts & Bones, In the Wild begat Born To Be Wild, Stars In Their Eyes brought forth Star For A Night.”
Most industry cynics view the MacTaggart as a mix of job application and chance for industry politicking.
But Liddiment is not that interested in media politics. He never aspired to move upwards, to be chief executive of the ITV Network. He certainly does not expect to be handed BBC1 to experi- ment with. Once he steps off the ITV treadmill you could imagine him going back to making programmes.
He wrote the speech himself, and poured into it a degree of passion, love
for television, and first hand frustration about the commer- cial pressures he labours under - as well as the “profes- sional fouls” he believes are inflicted by the BBC.
Many of his anecdotes about the popular but serious cultural purpose which under-
lay the first thirty years of ITV, and the importance of having strong regional production, linked back directly to Granada Television, where he trained.
Almost everyone involved with pro- gramme making in the audience recog- nised the system he described, where “as much creative energy goes into sec- ond-guessing commissioners needs, and researching and preparing the pitch as goes into the idea itself.”
Of course he has an agenda. ITV has been hit by a severe advertising downturn just at a point when the BBC’s real and guaranteed licence fee income is going up. He wants it checked. He is battling hard to min- imise decline as multi-channel viewing makes serious inroads.
But this was, overall, a sincere speech. Other key themes? There was much examination of the state of reali- ty television - post Big Brother 2 - which basically concluded that the genre had a lot further to go. LWT’s Natalka Znak, fresh from producing Temptation Island, drew gasps when she asserted, “it is not manipulative, it is the most honest programme I’ve made”.
Jon de Mol, president of Endemol, creator of Big Brother provided his cor- rective to Liddiment’s anxiety, in his Worldview lecture winding up the festi- val on Sunday evening.
“With so many channel choices, the industry has to take bigger risks to create the successes of tomorrow... The race to create powerful ideas that can be exploited across different media, and for a big audience, has only just started”.
And Dawn Airey, chief executive of Channel 5 and her new director of programmes, Kevin Lygo, also used the Festival to signal a change in direction, away from tackiness towards more approachable pro- grammes, with an overhaul of factual and entertainment strands.
Believe it or not, there have been worse Edinburghs. ■
Photos opposite page: Active Digital - family ordering through Argos; Interactive betting; Big Brother 2 group; Photo this page: David Liddiment, Director of ITV channels