Smallscreen

The five main terrestrial channels pay for more than 90 per cent of the original content produced for British television. A combination of BBC cost-savings and the collapse in television advertising means this expenditure is declining for the first time. At the current rate, by 2012 the funds committed to indigenous production will have fallen by more than a third since 2004. So how are the main channels responding?

In the first week of August, it became depressingly clear that from now on they are going to acquire as much free programming as possible. The free footage in question comes from police videos, CCTV and the prison service. This was British telly’s “crime and punishment” week. The crime was the lazy preponderance of law and order shows. The punishment was for viewers unlucky enough to watch them. During the week, no less than 11 per cent of primetime viewing (defined as 7pm-11pm) was filled with the video detritus of our justice system.

On Monday 3rd August, Channel 4 pitched Cherie Blair on knife crime against BBC1’s Panorama about drugs in prisons. Blair was reporting on the results of her campaign against street weapons. As ever with matters criminal, you needed a doctorate (sorry, PhD) in acronyms. VRU? Violence Reduction Unit. MIT? Mobile Intervention Team. HEMS? Helicopter Emergency Services, of course. Come on, keep up. The best moment was when justice minister, Maria Eagle, was confronted on the lack of progress. Cherie wanted “national plans” and “London-wide strategies.” But the minister demurred, arguing central government was not the answer. This is the turf on which parts of the next general election will be fought.

Over on BBC1 Panorama was explaining a mystery—how do skipfuls of drugs get into secure prisons? CCTV footage showed how stashes are brought in (usually in visitors’ private parts) and discreetly swallowed by inmates to be regurgitated later. BBC1 also hosted Nick Ross on Tuesday, completing a series about crime in Oxford and people’s attitudes to it. It found that the public are far more worried by vandalism and litter than by the knifings and drugs that the media get so excited about.

At least these three programmes were serious attempts at crime reporting, albeit with oodles of that free footage. The rest of the week, however, deteriorated into a crime pornfest. The same Tuesday evening poor old ITV had Car Crime UK, with a sententious voiceover from Trevor MacDonald, Send in the Dogs, and, God help us, Police Camera Action! (I’ll give you one guess which channel has to make the biggest spending cuts.) BBC1 added Neighbourhood Watched for good measure. Wednesday saw ITV keep at it with Total Emergency. Five weighed in with CCTV Cities. Thursday saw ITV headlining with Real Crime: The Tesco Bomber and Friday offered Traffic Cops on BBC1 and You’re Nicked on Five. Crime and punishment week was also bolstered by copious quantities of crime drama—mainly American programmes for cost reasons. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its two spin-offs appear by the yard on Five, also the home of the Law & Order franchise.

Meanwhile, ITV was heavily promoting The Bill, chiefly because they have shifted it from 8pm to 9pm. This was another emergency measure—the channel had to halve the number of episodes and then move them to take the place of more expensive decommissioned dramas. It was therefore with relief and not a little affection that I settled down to watch Midsommer Murders (ITV 8pm Wednesday) and New Tricks (BBC1 9pm Thursday)—the two jewels in the crown of the week. Both were new first-run editions of dramas that cost in the region of £750,000 an hour to produce. The village of Midsommer is, famously, the murder capital of the world, far exceeding the homicide rates of Mexico City or Mogadishu. The bad news from this bucolic charnel house is that John Nettles will be hanging up his police whistle and quitting the part of Inspector Barnaby. My theory is that he was the only actor never told that this is a work of comedy rather than a thriller. When he rumbled this ruse, he resigned.

New Tricks is the BBC’s most popular crime drama. And to see the extraordinary cast of Alun Armstrong, Dennis Waterman, Amanda Redman and James Bolam work together is a joy. True, the plots are getting far fetched, but no matter. This week it concerned a murder at a film studio. The film itself was described in the script as, “a reflexive, post-structuralist exploration of the nature of film itself.” Dennis Waterman’s down-to-earth character called that “a real J Arthur Rank,” the description summing up the rest of the week perfectly.