Some timestheywere taken tocourt,some times no t.The ruleswere so oldandcon fused that nobodyreallyknew wha twasand what wasn'tlegal.Itwasagreedthatso m e thi ng had to bedone.Onone side
Trang 11 1)0 15The econom yan everydaylife
Some well-knownnames
The best kno wn superm arket chains arc Sainsbury and Tcsco altho u gh there arc others Asda is the best known of many discount stores.
There is on ly one department store with a large number of bra nches Th is is Marks & Spence r It
is so well -known that it is often refe rred to as 'Marks and Sparks' or just 'M and S' To the British, clothes
at M and S arc typ ical of the middle range: thcj -are ne ither cheap nor expensive fairly good qualit y and rather co nserv ative Unlike most othe r departme nt stores, M and S also has a 'food hall' , where item s arc mor e expe nsive than they are in super mar kets.
In a catego ry all b I selfis Wool-wort h 's, wh ich used to have a
br anch in alm ost every high stree t in the co unt ry It sells mostly sweets, mus ic foys an ch ildren 's clo thes of the chea per kind.
QUES TIONS
stay openv rylate onso m e eveningsasa way ofputting new life into their'dead'towncent res
But themost significantchange in recent years hasbeen with
reg ardtoSu nd ays By the early I 990Smanysho p s,including cha in
sto res,wer e ope ningo so meSundays espe cially in the per iod
before Chr istmas In doing th is they were takingariskwith thelaw
Some timestheywere taken tocourt,some times no t.The ruleswere
so oldandcon fused that nobodyreallyknew wha twasand what
wasn'tlegal.Itwasagreedthatso m e thi ng had to bedone.Onone
side werethe 'Keep SundaySpecial' lobby, agroupof peoplefrom
vario usChristian churc esand trade union s.They argued that Sunday
shou ld be spec ial, a day of rest ,a dayfor all thefamil yto beto gether
The y also feared that Sun day- o p en in g wo uldmeanthatsh pworke rs
would b forcedtoworktoo manyhours.On the othe rside werea number of lobbi es,especiall ypeople from women 'sandconsum er groups.Theyarguedthatworkingwomenneed edmorethan one
day (Saturday) in which to rush around doing thesho p p in g.In any
case,theyargued , shop ping wasalso so m eth in gthat hewhol e familycoulddotogether.In 1993 Parliament voted onthemailer
Byasm all majority,theid ea of a comple te'free-for-all'wasdefeated Sma llsho ps areallo w edto op en on Sundaysforaslongasthey like,
butlarge sho ps andsuperm arketscan onlyopen foramaximum of
six hours
I What are the differences (if any) between the
present roleof trade unio nsin Britainand their
rolein yourco untry ?
2 How can banking be suchan important pan of
theBritisheconomywhen someBritish people
don't even havebank accounts?
3 Here isan extractfrom a book written bya
Frenchm an who has spent a long timelivingin
Eng land:
Continentalsarealwaysdisconcertedby the English uuitude towork.Th eyappearneithertoview ita s a h eary
burdenimposedb fate nor toe mbracei a as acred
obligation Effort isa matter of personal choice, and paymentsimplyaquidpro quo
(fromLesAnglaisbyPhillipeDaudy)
Do youfind theBritishattitudeto work co nfus
-ing?Inyo ur country, do people see work asa 'heavy burden ' ora 'sacred obligatio n ' (or
some th ingelse) ?
4 In your country.do sho psSlayopen for more
orfewer ho ur s a weekthan theydo in Britain?
Doyouth inkthede-regulati on of h p opening hoursisa good thing ?
Trang 2The media
Britishpeople watch a lotof television They arcalso reportedto be
the w o rld 's m ost dedi cated home -vide o users But th is doesnot
mean th at they have g ive n up reading They are t he wor ld' s hird
biggestnewspaperb yers; only theJapaneseandtheSwe des buy
mor e.
Th e imp ortance of th e nationa l pr es
Newspaperpublicationisdominated bythe nationalpress, whic is
an indication of th e c o m parative weakne ss o f regi onal identit y in
Britain(see chapterf). Nearly 80%ofall hou seh old sbuya cop of
o ne o f he ma in nation al papers everyda y There are more than
eighty localand region aldailypapers;but th total circulation of all
o f them tog ether i s much less than t h e co m bined circulation o f the
national 'dailie s', The o nly non-nat i o nal p ape rs w ith sig nificant
cir-culatio ns are published in the eve ning s.when t hey do not comp ete
w ith the nation al paper s , which alw ays appear i n the mo rnin gs.
Most localpapersd not appearon Sundays soon thatdaythe
do min ance of the nation al pre ss is abs olut e The 'Sunday paper s ' are
so -calledbecause that isthe only dayo whichtheyappear.Someof
them are sistersof a daily(pub lished bythe same co m pany) but
employ ing separateedito rsand journalists
The morni ngnewspaperisa Britishho useholdinstitution ;such
an imp ortant o n e that, un til the law s were relax ed in the earl y 19 9° 5 ,
newsagent swerethe onlyshopsthatwere allowedto openo
Sundays.Peop le could not beexpectedtodo witho ut their new
spa-pers for even o ne day, especially a day when there wasmore f ree
timetoread th m.Th Sunday papers sellslightlymore co piesthan
t he nat io n a l d ailies a nd are t hicker Some o f them h ave s ix or m o re
s ec t io ns makin g up a total of w e ll over 200 pages.
Ano the rind icalon of the impa rlanc e ofthe pa pers' is the mornin g
' paper roun d ' Mo s new sa gents organi ze the s e , and more than half
of theco untry'sread ersgel theirmorning paper de li vered to their
doorb a teenagerwh getsup ataro und half-past fiveeveryd yin
ord er to earn a bit of ex tra pocket m o n e y
The national p ap ers a nd Scotland
T here i s an exce ptio n to the domi
n-a nce o f t he n atio nal press thro ughout B ritain T his is i n SCOl
-l and where one paper, the Sunday
Pos t sells wellovera million copies
Ano therweek ly.Scotland on Sunday.
a lso has a largc circulation There are
t hree ot herno table'Scotla nd only'
p ape rs.but two of these, the Clesgev
H erold a nd t he Scots man, a re quali ty
pa pers (see p age I p) w ithsmall cir
-c ulatio ns a nd t he o ther, t he D aily Record, i s a ctually th e s ister p aper of
the (L o ndo n) Da ily Mirro r Theo ther
n atio na l Briti sh p ap ers a r a ll s o ld i n
Scotland altho ugh som etim es i n spe cial S cottish e ditions.
Trang 315 2 16Themedi a
Different approaches, different subjects Here arc o m e det ails of th e fron t
pa ges o f some na ti onald a ilie s for
o ne date (21) Ma rch 1993) For ea ch paper the first line is t he m ain head -line and the figures in b rac kets ar e
the height of t he l etters used f or it.
I'V E MES SED UP MY LIF E (Hcm hig h )
To pic: a n i nterview wit h t he
Duchess of Yo rk
Total tex t on page: 1I) I) wor ds
(one a rticle)
• TheDail yMirror
£S m F ERGI E' S HIJA CK ED OUR
C HA R I T Y (3 I) em)
To pic : he activ ities of t he D uch ess
o f York Total text o n page: 240 + w o rd s (two anicles)
Th e two ty pes o f na tional new spaper
Eachof the natio nalpaper s can be character izedasbelong ing to one
oftw odistin ct catego ries.The 'qualitypapers' ,or 'broadsheets', caterfor thebetter ed ucatedreaders.The'pop ular paper s', or 'tab -loids',sell to a muchlarger readership.They conta infar lessprint
thanthe broa dsheetsandfarmore pictur es.The uselar ger headlines andwrite in asim plerstyleofEnglish While the broads hee tsdevote
much space to politicsand other'serio s' new s, th tabloidsconcen
-trateon 'h man interest 'stories,whichoften mean s sex andsc ndal!
How ever,the broadshee ts do notcompletelyign ore sex and
scandalor anyother aspect of publiclife.Bothtypesof paperdevote equalam ounts ofatten tiontosport Thedifferenc betw een them is
in thetreatm ent of the topicsthey cover,andin whic topicsare
given themostprominen ce (e-Differentap proaches,drfferentsubjects)
Thereason th t h qualitynew spapersarecalled broadsh etsand
th popularonestabloidsisbecause theyare differentshapes.Th
broadsheets are twice aslarge asthe tablo ids.Itisamysterywhy, in
Britain,readingintelligent papersshouldneed highly-de velop ed skills
of paper-folding!Butit cert ainl y seems10b therule.In 1989anew
pape rwaspublished, the Sunday Correspondent ,advertisingitselfasthe count ry's first'qualitytabloid'.It closed afte roneyear
~ How many dotheysell?
-DailyExpressStar - - Sunday ExpressMailo Sunday -
-IndependentTimes - - lunday TelegraphObserver -
-• TheDail y Exp re ss
MI NIST ER URGES SC H O O L
C O N D O M S (3 em)
To pic: g o vernment c am paign to
red uce te enage pr egnancies Tota l te x t on p age: 2 60 + wo rds
( three ar ticles]
• TheTimes
So u th Afr ica had nucl ear bombs, admits de Kl erk ( t 7 em ) Total te o n page: 1 ,9° 0 + words
( five ar ticl es)
• TheGuardian
Se rb sh elling h alts U N a ir li ft
(1.7 em)
Topic: t he wa r i n th e form e r Yugo -sla via
Total text on pag e: t 900 + words ( fo ur articl es)
• TheDailyTelegraph
T ory M aastricht r ev olt i s b eat en off {r c cm)
T opic: d iscussion o f t h e M aast r ich t
Tr eat}' in Pa r li am ent
To tal text on page: 2 100 + words (five arti cle s )
* Thi s is the com bined figu re fo r the
D aily Mi rror a nd t he Dail y R eco rd
The graph s abo ve s how th e app roxi
-m ate a verage daily ci rculatio n figur es fo r n atio nal n evvs papers i n the carl}' 19 9 0s Y o c an s ee t hat th e
tabl oid s s ell abo ut s i x t im es as ma n}' cop i es as the b road shee t s This
• t abloids
• broadsh eets
h ow ever, is an i m provement o n p ast decades I n 191)0, f or examp le t hey
sold twe nty times as m an y E
duca-t io n see ms to be hav ing an e ffect o
pe opl e 's r ead in g hab it s.
Trang 4Th e c ha racteristics o f the nat ional pre ss: p olitics
Thewaypoliticsispresentedinthe natio nalnewspapersreflects the
fact that Britishpolitical partiesareessentially parliam entary organ
-izations (see chapter 6).Althoughdifferen tpapershavedifferin g
politicaloutlooks, noneof the large new spapersisanorgan of a
politicalparty.Manyareoften obviouslyin favourof the policies of
this or that party (andeven more obviouslyagainstthepoliciesof
anot her party).but none of them would ever use'w e'or 'us' torefer
toacertainparty ( e>Papersand politics)
Whatcounts for the newspaperpublishersisbusiness.All ofthem
arein thebusinessfirstand foremosttomake money.Th ir primary
concern istosell asmany copiesas possibleand to attract asmuch
adverti sin gaspossible.Theynormallyputselling copiesahead of
politicalintegri ty.Theabrupt turnabout inthe stance ofth Scouish
edition of the Sun in early 1991 is a good example.Ithad previously,
alongwith theConser vativepartywhich i norma llysupports, vigor
-ouslyopposedanyidea of Scottish indepen denceor home rule ;but
whenitsaw the opinio pollsin early 1 9 9 1(andbearing inmind its
comparativelylo w salesinScotland), itdecid ed to change itsmind
The Britishpressis controlled bya rather sma ll number of
twonot able featu res Oneof these isitsfreed omfrominterfer ence
from governm cnlinfluence, whichisvirtually absolute.Theprcssis
so powerfulin thisrespect that itis sometimesreferr ed to as 'the
fo ur th estate' (theother threebeing the Commons,the Lordsand
Thepress:p litics [5"3
No ne of th e bi g nat ion al n ew sp aper s
' belon gs' t o a p olitica l part y.
H ow e v e r, eac h p aper h a a n i dea of
wh at k ind of re ade r it i s ppealing
t o and a fair ly pre dic tabl e po litica l
o utlook Each ca n therefo re be s een
ra th er si m plis tically, a occupying a
ce rtain position o n the right- lef t
s pec trum
As rOll ca n see, the right s eems to
be h eavily over -represented i n the
n ational pr ess T his i s n t becau se
such a la rge majorny of Briti sh
peo ple hold r ight - w ing views It i s
p art ir because the pr e s te nd s to be
o w ned by Conse rvauvc part)' s up-porters I n a n)' case a la rge nu mber
o f read ers a re not ' ·crr Intere sted in
t he polit ical cove rage o f a p aper
T hey b uy it f or the sport or t he human m rercst s tories o r for some oth er r eason
Trang 5154 16The media
~S e x a nd scandal
Sex and scandal se ll ne wspapers I n September 1992, when there were plenty of such stories aroun d invo l -ving famous p eop le and royalty
sa les of tabloids went up by
12 2,000 But in Octobe r, w hen stories of this kind had dried u p, they fell by more than 200 ,000 E ven the quality O bserver got in on the acr O n
I I O cto ber 1 99 2, its m agazine
section feature d n ine pages of photos of the pop~star Madonna taken from Sex (her best -se lling
book) That week its sa les w ere
74,000 greater than usual T he next Sunday, w ithout Madonna , they were exac tly 74 ,000 l ess than th ey had been the week before
feeling in the country that 'freedom ofspeech ' isabasiccons titu-tional right.A strik ing exampleof the importance offreed omof
speech occurred during the Second WorldWar Durin gthistim e ,
th country had a coalition govenunent of Conser vativeand Labo ur politician s,so that there wasreallyn opposition in Parlia m ent at
all.At onetime, thecabine twantedtouseaspecialwartimeregulation
to temporaril yban theDailyMirror, whic h had been consistently criticalofthe government The Labo urparly ,which until then had
been co m pletelylo yal to the government ,immediatelydemandeda
d bate on the matter, and the other nationalpapers, altho ugh they
disagree dwith theopinions ofthe Mirror, allle pttoitsdefen ceand
opp osedthe ban.The government wasforcedtobackdown and th Mirrorcontinued to appear throughoutthe war
The other featureof the national presswhichis part ially theresult of
thecommercialintere sts of itsownersisits shallowness.Few othe r European countrieshavea popular press which is so 'low' Someof the tabloidsh ve almostgiven up eventhepreten ceof dealing with seriousmatters.Apart from sport , their pagesare fullof lutle except
stories aboutthe privatelivesoffamouspeopl e So m etimes their 'stories' are not articlesat all, theyarejustexcuses toshow picture s
of almost nake wo m en Duringthe I980s, pagethree ofthe Sun
b cam e infamousin thisrespectand the wome nwho posedfor its photographs became knownas'pagethreegirls'
The desire to attract moreread ersat allcos ts hasmeantthat,
thesedays,even thebroadsh eetsin Britaincanloo k rather 'popular'
whe c mparedto equivalent 'quality'papersin someothe r countries.They arestillserio us new spapers containing high-quahty
articleswhose presentationof factual infor mationisusually reliable
But even they now give a lot of coveragetonew switha'hu m an
interest'anglewhen they havethe opportunity.(The treatm ent by The SundayTimesof PrinceCharlesandPrin essDiana isan example
-see chapter7.)
Thisemphasis o revealing the detailsof people's private lives has
led todiscussion about th possibleneedtorestrictthefreedom ofthe
press.Thisisbecause ,inbehaving thisway,the press has fo unditself
in conflictwi h anotherBritishprincipl ewhich isas stro n glyfelt as
thatof freedom ofspeech- the rig ht to privacy.Many jo urn alists now appearto spend theirtimetrying to disco verthe most sens a-tionalsecretsofwell-knownpersona lities,orevenofordinary people who, by chance,find themselvesconnectedwithsome new sw orthy
situation.There isawidespread feelingthat,indoin g so, theybehave too intrusively
Compla intsregardinginvasionsofprivacyaredealt withbythe PressComplain tsCommission(PCC) Thi s organ izatio n ismadeu
Trang 6ofnew spaper ed itorsand journa lists In othe r words,the pressis
suppose dtoregul ate itself.Itfollowsa CodeofPracticewhich sets
limits on theextent to which new spapers should publish details of
people'spriva telives Many peopleare not happ ywiththis
arrange-ment andvariousgovernmen ts havetried tofo rmulatelaws onthe
matter.Ho w ever , against theright to privacy the presshas
success-fully beenabletoopposethe conce pt ofthepubli c's'right to kno w '
Of course , Britain is notthe onlyco untrywhe re the pressiscon
-trolled bylarge companies with the samesingle aim of making
profits So whyisth Britishpressmoref ivolou s? Thea sw ermay
liein th functionof the Britishpressfor itsreaders Britishadults
never readcomics.Thesepublications,which consist ent ire lyof
picture sto ries,are read onlyby children.Itwould be embarrassin g
fo r an adulttobe seenreading one Adultswhowant toreadso
me-thing very simple,withplenty ofpictures tohelp them,havealm ost
nowhere to go but the national press Mostpeople don'tusc
news-papers for 'serious' news Forthis, they turn toano th er so
urce-broadcasting
BEHIND SERB
The press: sex and scandal l S"l) "
There st ofth e p re s s
Ifyou go into any well-stocked
newsagcm 's in Britain you will not
only find newspapers You will also see rows and rows of magazines cater ing for almost every imaginab le taste a nd specia lizing in almost
we ekli es dea ling w i th n ews and
o ften s o t rivial) , some o f t hese
culation of more tha n a hu nd red
t ho usand The Economist is of the same type as Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel and L'Expres s.
Its analyses however , are generally more thorough It is fairly obviously right-wing in its view s but the writing is of very high -quality and that is why it ha s the reputation of
be ing one ofthe best weeklies in the
wo rld.
T he New S tatesmen and Society is t he
l cfi-wtng equiv alent ofT he Economist
-wri tt en
PrivateEyei s a satirical magaz ine whic h makes fu n of all panics and
mainstream press It specializes in politica l scandal and , as a result is forever defending itself in legal actions It is so omrageous that some chains of newsagems sometimes refuse 10 sell it Although its humour
is often very 'schoolboyish' it is also well-written and it is said that no politician can resist reading it.
T he country's bestsell ing
maga-z ine is t he Rad io T imes, which, as w ell
contains some fif ty pages of ar ticles.
(Note t he typica lly British appeal (Q
continuity in the name 'Rad io
pub-lished before television existed and has never bothered to update its mle.)
Trang 7156 16The media
BroadcastingHause, headquartersafthe BBC
T he ref ere nce to o ne man i n the ins cription o n t he righ t which i s fou nd i n thee ntra ncet o Broad -cas ting House ( headquarters of t he BBC) is appro priate B ritish politi-cians were slow (0 appreciate the social significanceofthewirel ess ' (t his iswha tt he rad io w as ge nerally
kno w nas unt il t he 1 9 60 s) More
-o ver, bein g B ritish, th ey did not lik e
in Par liam ent T hey were o nly to o
h appy 1O leave thema tter[0 a sui t-able organization and its d irector general John (later Lord) R eith
R ei th was a ma n w ith a miss io n.
He s aw i n r ad io an o pport unity for 'e ducation ' a n d initi ati o n into ' hig h
c ulture' fo r t hema sses.He includ ed
li ght entertain ment in t he prog ram·
mingobuto nly as a way of c apturing
an aud ience for the more 'impor t-ant' programmes of classical music and drama, and the discussions of various to picsbyfa mou s a cade m ics
a nd au thors w hom R eith had per
-s uaded t o tak e p an
Ju st as the Br itish Parliamen t h a s th e r e putatio n f o r bei ng ' the m oth e
of parliaments' ,sothe BBCmight be saidto be 'the mother of
inf o rmatio n s ervices ' It s epu tatio n for im partialit y an d o b j ect i v i ty
in n ews r ep o rting i s , at l east when co mpa re d t o n ew s br oad casting
b ia s b y o ne s i deofthe politi cal s pec trum, it ca n a lways p o int o ut th at
th e o ther si de h as co mp l ained of t h e sa m e thin g at s o me o ther tim e
so the com plaintsareevenlybalanced.Infact, th BBC has often
shown itself tob ratherproud of the fact thatit getscom plaintsfrom
b thsidesof thepolitical divide, beca se thistestifiesnot onlytoits
i mpartialit y b ut a l so to i ts ind e pend ence.
Interestingly,though, thisindependen ceis as muchthe result of
h abit an d comm on agr eem ent a s it i s th e re sult of i ts l egal s tatus It
i s t rue th at it d e pend s n ei th er o n advert i s ing n o r ( direc tly) o n t he gove rnme n t f or it s inc om e It ge ts t hi s fro m th e lic e nce fee whic h
ev erybody w ho use s a tel evision s e t ha s t o p ay Ho w ever, th e gove rn
-mentdecid es howmuchthisfeeisgoing10 b ,appoints th BBe's boardof governorsanditsdirec torgeneral, has the right10 veto any
T HI S TE MPL E T O THE AR TS AN D MUSES
I S DEDI CATED
T O AL M IG H TY GO D
BY TH E FIR ST GO VERNORS
I N T H E YEAR OF OUR LORD 19 3 1 JOH N RE ITH BEING D IRE CTOR -GE NERAL AND THEY PRAY THAT TH E GOOD SEE D S O WN MAY BRI NG FORTH G OOD H ARVEST S
TH AT ALL THI N GS F O U L O R H O STIL E T O P EACE
A ND TH A T TH E PEOPLE I N CLI NI NG T H EIR EA R
TO WH ATSOEVER THI NGS AR E LO VELY AN D HONE ST WHATSOEVER THI NGS ARE OF GOOD REPORT
M AY TRE AD THE PATH OF VIRTU E
Trang 8BBC programme beforeit has been transmittedand even has the
Nevertheless partlyb historicalaccident (I>Highidealsand
licence to b ro adcast fi rst t o th e e m pire an d th en to o ther part s of the
the Prime Minister of I nd ia, Mrs I ndh ira G hand i , was a ssassinated
When herso n Rajivfirstheard reportsthatshe had been attacked.h
co uld rel y O il. T h e BBC al so runs five national rad io s tations in side
I n t er m s of t he size o f it s a udience, telev i s ion h as l on g since ta ken
over from radi o a s t he mos t ign ifican t f o rmofbroadcastin g in
B ritain It s in de pe ndence fr om g ov e rnm ent interferenc e i s lar ge l y a
m atter of ta cit a greem ent Th ere have b ee n occ asio ns when the gov
Bu t h e e have also b een man y occ asio ns whe n t he BBC ha s r e fused
[Q bow t o gove rnment p re ssu re M o st rece nt cases h ave i nvolved
No rthern Ireland.Fora briefperi od starting in the late t980s.the
govermnent broke with the co nvention of no n -in terference and
banned the tran smi ssion of i ntervi ew s with membe rs of outlawed
screen with an actor'svoice (withjustthe right accent)dub bed over
th e mov ing mouth of t h e int erview ee!
There is noadverti sin g onthe BBC.ButIndepende nt Television
vertise-m ent s it sc reens It co nsis ts o f a numbe r o f p r i vately own ed
com panies , e ach of wh ich i s r s ponsibl e for pr ogramnling in di ffer
t hese co m panies ca nno t aff ord to ma ke a ll th eir o wn progr amm es ,
When commercial television began, it was fea red t hat a dvert i sers
w ould have too mu ch c o ntrol over programming a nd that the n ew
channe l wouldexhibit all the worstfeaturesof tabloidjournalism
The Labour party, in o ppo sitio n a t the time of it s int roduction , wa s
T ele vision : organizati on I~7
BBC radi o Radio 1 began broadcas ting in
1967 De votedalmost enti rely to
po p m usic , i ts birth was a S ignal tha t
e stablishedi nsunuions.I n s pite of
ndepend-ent comme rcia l r adio stat ions i t st ill has over ten m illi on li steners.
Radio 2 broad casts m ainly ligh t music and chat s ho ws
R adi o 3 i s devoted to class ical m usic.
Rad io 4- b roadcasts a var iety o f p ro-gramme s from pla ys and comedy
s ho ws to co nsumer advicepro
-grammes and in-depth news cove rage It has a small but dedicated
fol lowi ng.
s po rts c overage and n ews.
s ho uld b e m entioned So ap o peras arc normally a ssociated with t elevi-sion but TheArch ersi s a ctua ll y the longest -runn ing s o ap i n the world
It describ es itself a s 'ane veryday
s t o ry o f c ou n tr y f olk ' I ts a udience , which i s m ainlymid dle-c lasswit h a large prop ortion of elde rly pe ople , cann o t com pare in s ize w ith t he
t elevisionsoaps but it has become
kno ws a bo ut it a nd tourist attrac-tions have been designed to
c apitalize o n its fame.
A no ther r adio 'institut ion' is the liv e co mmentary o f cricket T est Match es i n t he s limmer (s ee
c hapter 21)
Trang 9158 1 Themedia
absolutel y againstit.So wereanum berof ConservaliveandLiberal
politicians.Over theyears,however,thesefearshaveproved tobe
unfou nde d.Com me rcial television inBritain hasnot developed the habitof showing programmes spo nsored by man ufac tu rers.There
ha recentlybeensom e relaxationofthispolicy,but advertisers have
never had theinfluence over pro gram m in g that they havehad in
theUSA Most im portan tlyfor thestructu re ofcom merc ial elevision, TV newspro gram mes re no tmade byindividualtelevisio co m pa nies
Independen t Television News (ITN) is ow ne d join tlybyallof them
For this and otherreasons,it hasalwaysbeenprotected fro m com- The four channe ls
Th ese are the channels which a ll v iewe rs i n th e co unt ry rec eive
Start ed 1982
Ye s
magazine punctuated with more
fo rmal news summarie s
Open U niv e r s ity
pr ogr amm es
A very informal breakfa st sho w
M ornings and early afterno ons
L ate aftern oons
P opu lar discu ssion progr ammes quizzes soaps a nd a r elaxed type o f
m agazine pr ogramm e, u sua lly wit h a
m ale-female p air of p resenters Children 's programmes , wh ich vary greatly in st yle and cont ent
N ews ( including r egiona l ne ws
pr ogramm es) a nd t he m o st p o pular soaps dra mas com edies , films and various p rogrammes of light
en tertainment and general i nt erest
Educat ional prog ra mmes, s ome aimed at s choo l s a nd others with
a m ore gene ra l educatio nal p ur pose
Gen eral d oc umentary an d feat ures
D ocumentar ies and programme s
ap pea ling to m ino rity inte rests;
drama and 'a lternative ' comed y ;
c o mparat ively se riou s and ' in-depth ' news programmes
Open University ( late at n ight)
the most popu lar live v ariety shows
13,;;,1,14' Started in 1997 -lt is a commercia l channe l ( it g ets i ts m oney
fr o m adve rtis ing) which i s rece ived by about two-third s of
B ritish h ou seh olds I t s em phasis is o n e nte rtai nme nt (for example , sc reens a fi lm every nigh t at peak viewing tim e).
H oweve r , it makes all o ther types of prog ramme t oo
Of particular note i s its u nconvention al presentation of the news , which i s designed t o appe al t o y o unge r a dults
Th er e is al so a W e ls h lang uage channel for viewe rs i n Wa les.
Trang 10mercialinfluence.Th re is no sign ificamdifferencebetweenthe style
satellite and cable televisio n This timethefears mayb mo re justified ,
big ne\vspape rs(and insome casesare actu allythe sameco m panies)
cable ,and so far these channe ls haven tsignificantly redu ced the
Te levision : s tyle
make itsoutpu t po pular.InisearlyyearslTV captur ed nearl ythree
then,there has been little significant differen cein whatis ho wn on
th BBCand com m ercialtelevisio n.Bo th BBCI and lTV (and also
largest audience (thisiskno wn asthe ratingswar) But they do not
people (althoug hseries suchasD allasandDynasty aresometimes
area nearManchester, and BBC1'sEastEnders,which is set in a wor kin
co me dies, certainlyd not pain tan idealizedpictu reofHfe.Norare
theyver y sens atio na lordram atic.Theydepict(relatively) ordinary
livesin relatively ordinary circum stances So why aretheypopular ?
The answ er seemstobe that their viewerscan seethemselv sand
thin gsthathappento thesecharacters
The Britishprefer thiskind of pseudo-realismintheir soaps In the
early I 990S,the BBCspent alo t of money filming a new soap called
Television:,>tyk I ~9 Glu ed to th e gogg le b o x
As l o ng ago as 191) 1 it wavc:urnatcd tha t rwc n tj - million viewer
watche d t he BBC\ cmc'rage of the coro na tion of Queen Elizabeth II.By
197° 9+ % of B nush house holds
had a t elevision set (kno w n
collo-qu ially a s a 'g oggle box ') m ostly
r ented rat her t ha n b o ught No w.
99 % of h ome h old s ow n o r r en t a
telev ision and the most pop ular pro -grammcs are wat ched by a many people as claim t o r ead t hc S un and the Daily Mirr or c ombined
Tele visio n broadc asti ng in Brita in
ha s expande d to fi C\"CT}' p an of every day o f t hc week O ne of thc
f our ch an nel (l T V) neve r t akes a
b reak ( it broadcas ts for twenty-fou r
ho urs) and the othe rs broadcas t
fr o m a ro un d six i n t he morning until
aft er m idnight A su rvcy reported in
e arly [99 + t hat + % of Br itish
pe ople watc hed more t ha n t hree
hour s o f telev ision cvery d ay: and [6 % \ v at chcd seve n h o ur s or m or e !
Television new s i s wa t ched ever y
d ay by mo re than half cfthc popu la
-tio n As a result , it s prc scntcrs are among the be st-kn own name s and faces in the wh ole c o u nt ry - o ne of
them o nce b oasted t ha t h e wa s mor e
famous than ro yalty!