As listeners and watchers, it can be very easy to adopt a passive role. This is not to say, watching and listening to something, that we can’t or don’t have feelings – it’s simply that in assessing a text, we often forget what lies beyond. Sitting in a chair, flicking through the television or the radio, our job is primarily a critical one; to absorb and engage. However, getting so wrapped up in all this assessment can make it difficult to escape the viewing contract.
We focus on the text itself so regularly we frequently neglect the infrastructure producing it. Nothing we see on television and in the movies, or hear on radio has sprung from the ether unsupported, and a truly critical viewer/listener will remember this.
But it can feel so disempowering. As onlookers, we are certainly free to hate anything we like, but the prospect of actually changing it seems a distant one. Voice of the Listener & Viewer is trying to combat this. Their 21st autumn conference starts on the 30th of November, and again, the emphasis is on criticism, but this time it’s organisational rather than textual.
What does all this mean? The very idea of a listener’s voice seems slightly sacrilegious, but it shouldn’t be, particularly in the realm of public broadcasting. Voice of The Listener & Viewer was born in response to the Thatcher government’s plan to make BBC 4 an all-news station. That campaign was, obviously, very successful, and it highlighted the need for a representative body. Where our money goes as tax payers and citizens is important, as is what we see. Amongst many competing voices in the media, a viewer’s should be audible.
This year, the conference will focus predominantly on the BBC and Channel 4, and what the future holds for them in a digital age. Ed Richards from Ofcom will be talking about Phase 2 of the Review of Public Service Television for the opening address, while Luke Johnson (the chairman of channel 4) will follow.
How will broadcast stations survive when multi-channelling is a regular part of life? Revenues will shrink, programming will expand, and niche markets will flood across formerly monolithic television screens. Gone are the days when broadcast was driven by a catch-all approach; small subsets can now be catered for because transmission is becoming cheap.
In many circles, this has been hailed as a long-awaited victory for democracy. People will finally be able to watch what they want, when they want it – all for a small fee, of course. But there are a host of caveats attached to multi-channelling that these rhapsodies fail to consider.
The notion of viewer choice – whilst noble – is related very intimately to the idea of voting with your feet. It comes back to that viewer-orientated command: if you don’t like it, switch off. For the private sector, this is relatively unproblematic; theoretically, switching off can kill a program very quickly. However, when public funding is involved, switching off isn’t enough. Even if we tune out, our money is still being funnelled into something we neither like nor watch. This happens regularly today; in the context of multi-channelling we can expect the problem to multiply a hundredfold.
Multi-chanelling will destroy the large audience blocks traditional television has become accustomed to. This won’t spell the end of mainstream, but it will divide, divert and distract previously homogenous audience groups. Our pounds, faced with the possibility of hundreds of shows, will be spread far and wide.
This in turn highlights another big problem with public funding in the digital age. Transmission has indeed become cheaper, but production still costs the same. Production still is, on the whole, quite expensive indeed. With small, split audiences watching a huge variety of programs, we have to consider where the money will come from. Advertising revenue is going to plummet – it has already started to – and viewer subscription is not yet filling the gap; would be hard-pressed to do so, in fact.
Audiences will be diffuse and programming will expand exponentially, but the money to finance it will be hard to find. Ultimately, it has to come from us, the viewers, either through advertising, subscription rates or tax pounds. But how much money can there be? Without giving undue credence to the doomsayers, we have to acknowledge the problems associated with quality control in a multi-channel system.
Voice of the Listener and Viewer chairman, Jocelyn Hay, says, ‘Voice of the Listener and Viewer’s 21st anniversary this month falls at possibly the most critical point in British broadcasting history. The new communications regulator, Ofcom, which is reviewing the future for public service broadcasting on the commercially funded terrestrial TV channels, predicts that declining audiences and revenue for ITV and Channel 4 will make it difficult for them to maintain their public service remits in the multi-channel, digital environment of the future. Meantime, the Government is aiming to switch the country to digital transmission by 2012 and also reviewing the future of the BBC, whose Royal Charter expires in 2006.’
As viewers and listeners, we are living in very interesting times. Profound changes to the way we produce and digest media are taking place, making our voices heard – beyond the criticism, beyond the cant and the remonstrations – will be difficult. Ultimately, it comes back to that injunction to switch off. The fact is, we cannot switch off anymore. Blackening the television will not return your licence fee; listening to commercial radio does not bless it with your tax pound. Furthermore, do we actually want to switch off? Do we, as people, want to live in an artificial silence, ears stoppered with wax to keep out the baddies? Surely, multi-channelling is the very antithesis of this idea.
We need to embrace these possibilities, both as viewers, listeners, and citizens – and that mean engaging in a dialogue; not watching, and not merely listening. We need to speak. Voice of the Listener and Viewer, in its 21st year, is asking us to switch on, giving us the opportunity to talk and be heard. More than ever, we should be fostering this dialogue.
For more information see www.vlv.org.uk .