Articles by Rob Buckley

About Rob Buckley
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
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UK TV

What’s ITV for?

21 October 2008 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

ITV1 logo

From the ITV web site

ITV is the biggest commercial television network in the UK, broadcasting the most talked about television and making a major contribution to the UK’s culture, economy and communities.

What is ITV for? This isn’t just an idle question. We know what the BBC’s for (sort of): it’s for public service brodcasting and higher quality populist fare – that sort of thing. That’s why we watch it. Channel 4’s there for a brave stab at public service broadcasting, US imports and daft rubbish. Five is there for, well, that’s actually a tricky question but US imports plus whatever else their Lucky 8 ball suggested that week, or what they could get away with making for crap-all budget.

But ITV’s trickier. Not only is it contemplating giving back its terrestrial licence to get out of public service broadcasting, no one really has an idea of what it’s for, apart from rubbish these days. It used simply to be an alternative to the BBC for the ‘common man’, designed to increase competition, improve standards and make programmes the Beeb wouldn’t because it was too snooty. But now the Beeb makes some very good programmes, not all of them snooty, and ITV makes some very bad programmes – is the television of the ‘common man’ simply crap TV or should it be something better?

Okay, standards are improving, with a number of goodish shows making it on to our screens of late (eg The Fixer and Lost in Austen). But we all know roughly what BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4 are for. Do you honestly know what ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 are doing with their lives? Here’s the blurb:

ITV1: Britain’s most popular commercial channel
ITV2: An exciting mix of talent, celebrity gossip and factual shows
ITV3: Delve into the archives with classic drama from the ITV vaults
ITV4: Challenging drama, cult films and premium sports events

Are you feeling any wiser? Do these feel like well thought out focuses? Does it help to realise this is all lies anyway (eg Secret Diary of a Call Girl on ITV2, US imports like Life and BBC shows like Lovejoy on ITV3, old ITC shows like Space: 1999 and manly documentaries on ITV4).

So if ITV’s not there for public service broadcasting and doesn’t produce good TV, does it have a purpose? Or is it simply just another broadcaster these days – just like Five? And if it’s just like Five, are ultimately its ratings going to end up just like Five’s unless it can think of a proper place for itself in the world?

Over to you…

December at the BFI

21 October 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Time for our regular round-up of tele events at the BFI.

  • 14th: The return of the yearly "Missing Believed Wiped" season. This features some of the first exhibits from Bob Monkhouse’s vast TV and film collection, and some BBC recoveries. Bob’s lot includes The Flip Side, an episode of My Pal Bob, some Top of the Pops and John Osborne in Chelsea at Eight. The Beeb’s efforts includes trailers for some 60s shows, a programme that’s gone through the Beeb’s new colourisation process designed to recover colour programmes from B&W-only recordings (Doctor Who or Year of the Sex Olympics, maybe?), and an episode from a 1950s classics-adaptation. 
  • 17th: Episodes of The Goon Show: The Whistling Spy, Tales of Men’s Shirts and The Last Goon Show of All. Part of the "Enduring Talents" season.
  • 22nd: To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the show, a collection of clips, rare footage, etc from Dad’s Army. Part of the "Enduring Talents" season.

Members’ priority postal booking opens 27 October
Members’ online and phone booking opens 3 November
Public booking opens 7 November

Despite promises in last month’s catalogue, it looks like An Englishman in New York isn’t in the programme this month; it’s probably a last minute removal, since it’s listed in the index under both "John Hurt in conversation" and "An Englishman in New York" and the front page talks about an "In focus" dedicated to TV literary adaptations. Fingers crossed for next month, then.

As always, visit the BFI web site for more details