&c1=usa&c2=(none)&c3=The+Guardian&c4=Television+industry+(Media),Media&c5=&c6=+Maggie+Brown&c7=2001_03_05){kind=small}
- The Guardian, Monday March 5 2001
A private cinema in Soho, a smattering of celebrities and a clutch of cooing publicists - yes, another TV drama launch. But the benign smiles of Ricky Tomlinson masked behind-the-scenes tension: the BBC drama ship is in trouble, and there are fears that the new series of Clocking Off will not be enough to save it.
Series one of the Paul Abbott drama was one of BBC1's most successful Sunday night hits last year, achieving the key combination of critical acclaim and popular success, with up to 11m viewers.
Series two was due to start on Sunday, but a debate, as yet unresolved, is raging at BBC1 about where to place the seven-parter. The BBC is getting a hammering on Sundays, and executives feel Clocking Off could follow Rebel Heart and Take a Girl Like You down the ratings plughole. They want to move it from the killing fields to somewhere safer.
Abbott said he and the producer, Nicola Shindler, discussed the BBC's plans, but had reservations. "We felt the audience would stick with it on a Sunday. But they still might move it."
The Sunday night ratings slaughter has shaken BBC drama. Since the autumn, BBC1's average audience share has fallen to 26.1% from 28.3%. Its prize post-9pm Sunday night dramas have been mown down, one after another, by a lethal mix of long-running stock ITV series, such as Heartbeat and London's Burning, and two-part specials, such as The Innocent. Ambitious, expensive pieces such as Take a Girl Like You, Rebel Heart, Love in a Cold Climate and now, most recently and shockingly, Best of Both Worlds, the contemporary drama about an air hostess's bigamy, have all fared badly.
The BBC1 tradition of classic drama on Sunday nights is going up in smoke. Abbott, who wrote Best of Both Worlds, is used to success - his previous work includes Cracker, Reckless and Touching Evil - so he found the 21% share gained by the second episode sobering. "Yeah, we didn't pull the audience in. And it wasn't for lack of press coverage, we got loads." He suggests that Alice Evans, who played the lead, was not a familiar face, and that too much comedy was edited out.
Perhaps audiences are getting lazier, refusing to commit time to unknown properties. "I don't know what the answer is," Abbott says. "The BBC may have lost its way over the years, so they've got to do a very strong climb back. But it hard to see, when you're not bringing the audience to you, how you're going to effect that. To reclaim Sunday nights they'll have to throw bigger and bigger stuff at it. Over the years, the BBC must have let that go. I'm sure the new team will pull that audience back. But they've got to hit higher: Take a Girl Like You - my dad wouldn't watch it. It appeals to a very specialised audience."
But ITV has been "very consistent in plying its two-part trade," says Abbott, in a reference to the special dramas that break up the standard fare of Heartbeat and Peak Practice and, crucially, attract upmarket viewers. "Fragile Heart - superb; The Innocent - fantastic. They've upped the stakes. ITV audiences know what to expect."
BBC1's Sunday night dilemma is just part of the ongoing problems facing the channel's new-ish controller, Lorraine Heggessey. Heavily promoted comedies such as Office Gossip and Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years have flopped in her new Friday night comedy zone.
The issue, say her supporters, is how to identify programmes and ideas which retain BBC1's diverse mix, have an inclusive, collective spirit, but also respond to a big cultural shift among audiences, who seem to prefer the predictable.
A BBC insider blames the current poor showing on decisions taken before Heggessey took up her post. "It stems back to two years ago, when, in a state of angst the BBC said, 'Let's take a risk, go with the creative people and give them leeway.' But they are coming back with programmes that are not ideal, there's been no reality check. Lorraine has inherited a lot of wrong programmes, nor are they the right length now that the news has moved. It will be autumn before the new stuff starts feeding through."
The BBC's preoccupations may explain its failure to rebut last week's reports that ITV is usurping Auntie's natural heartland and gaining more upmarket and younger viewers.
ITV's figures were questionable, because they excluded the GMTV effect - the breakfast broadcaster attracts a more downmarket audience profile. A cynic might also suggest that, with Carlton last week confirming TV advertising revenue is down by about 5%, talking up the value of your audiences makes perfect business sense.
The truth is that the BBC is more in sync with the nation's white-collar, middle-class social make up. But the trend is interesting: ITV is closing the gap by selectively targeting ABC1s, while benefiting from what researchers identify as a general easing of middle-class snobbery towards entertainment TV.
The research consultant Colin Macleod says, "ITV is probably better at promotion of its programmes, and at cross marketing. But that apart, tastes are dumbing down, upmarket people want to be entertained with stuff that's not too demanding or too provocative, that is simple to absorb, and which they don't have to work too hard to take in. That is different from 10 years ago."
The main channels agree that viewers are increasingly unwilling to try out unfamiliar programmes with unfamiliar faces - the BBC's Sunday night problem affects them all to a greater or lesser extent.
ITV, in any case, must move with the times to keep the advertisers happy. The population, as defined by the audience researchers Barb, is now composed of 45% ABC1s, compared with 32% in 1980. This is a massive shift for a medium which has always appealed to most of the poorer, older, less mobile groups. BBC1 remains most upmarket, with 45.8% of its audience classified as ABC1, with Channel 4 next at 44.6% then BBC2 at 44%. ITV, at 38%, still trails. But it is moving up, albeit slowly, by one percentage point a year.
It is a BBC1 programme, EastEnders, which perfectly encapsulates a mass market channel's aims: 45% of its audience is ABC1, exactly matching the social map of Britain, which makes the decision to show a fourth episode entirely understandable.
BBC1's disappointment over the flop of so many expensive, hand crafted dramas is shared by Channel 4's disppointment over the poor showing last year for its lengthy legal drama series, North Square: only three dramas, Queer as Folk, Kid in the Corner and Never Never really gained impact and attention in the past year.
But ITV is proving, through a clearly devised strategy, that it can supplement a strong basic raft of mass-market programmes with premium plums. Channel 4 snorts with derision, however, at ITV's claim to be plundering its hold on prized younger adults: ITV's share of under 34s is reported by Channel 4 to be down 5% year on year.
ITV demonstrates that it pays to target certain groups with programmes which gain a more upmarket profile: A Touch of Frost gained a 48% share of ABC1s, The Innocent 41%. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? gained 42% share of 16 to 34 year olds; Popstars got 50%, Tarrant on TV 46%, Blind Date 45%, SMtv/CDUK 48%, An Audience with Ricky Martin 48%. Yet the evidence that differences are eroding, that "upmarket" and "downmarket" people watch the same programmes as everyone else, is not conclusive.
True, last Friday a group of media companies unveiled research into the media habits of "VIP-ers" - members of the elite AB social groups - to see what motivates them to switch on. Watching TV is their favourite way to de-stress: 22% turn on the TV every day with this in mind, compared with 13% who read and 8% who listen to music. It bears out the view that television is there principally to entertain and keep them up to date.
Yet at the same time Channel 4 has found that top social groups specifically seek out its programmes: Channel 4 News attracts a 55% ABC1 audience, up from 52% last year. The Kama Sutra got 54% of ABC1s, The 1940s House got 53%, and The Real Stephen Hawking scored 56%. A consumer study by Carat Insight does not overturn the view that we are all Millionaire watchers now, but it does suggest that differences persist some of the time and that news and information do matter.
For ABC1s, 14 of their favourite programmes are on BBC1, three on ITV, three on Channel 4 and none on Channel 5 - the performer with the most upmarket appeal would seem to be Rory Bremner. For the bottom social groups, D and E, only two programmes are on BBC1, nine are on ITV, four on Channel 4 and five Channel 5. Their heroes are Jim Davidson and Michael Barrymore.
Trends in television, as in life, are never as simple as we're led to believe.
How ITV is targeting specific audiences in 2001
Mass-market programmes:
Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?
Tonight with Trevor McDonald
Pride of Britain
Frank Skinner Show
Survivor
The Vice
Don't Try This at Home
The Human Zoo
Upmarket:
Uncle Silas
Nicholas Nickleby
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Innocent
Micawber
Thursday the 12th (Paula Milne drama special)
16-34s:
Cold Feet
Bad Girls
Bob Martin
Baddiel & Skinner Unplanned
Bob & Rose (new drama by Russell T Davies)
Bean
Austin Powers
Men:
Champions League, Premier League and Formula One
VIPers - what very important people watch to relax
Have I Got News for You
Ten O'Clock News
Inspector Morse
Frost
EastEnders
Friends
Frasier
Match of the Day
Ally McBeal
ER
Anything with John Thaw
(From VIPer, UK's Elite, second annual lifestyle study,published March 2, 2001)
Draws for top social group AB
Rory Bremner
Horizon
Newsnight
Right to Reply
Food & Drink
Equinox
BBC Late Evening News
Question Time
Channel 4 News
Have I Got News for You
Social group DE
Play Your Cards Right
Family Affairs
Wheel of Fortune
Family Fortunes
Michael Barrymore's My Kind of Music
Diggit
Sunset Beach
National Lottery Live
Ricki Lake
