Social Accountability and Television

Abstract

During the great I. T. V. franchise reallocation of 1967, Lord Hill, Chairman of the I. B. A., after a tiring day spent judging the contest of impossible promises between rival consortia, is said to have remarked in a dead-pan aside to an attendant journalist: ‘The wonderful thing about it is that none of them wants the thing for the money.’ British broadcasting often gives the impression of consisting of a number of highly determined groups of people, all kneeling in ostentatious prayer before the shrine of public interest. Never more so than in the last two years as the evidence to Annan has piled up, much of it published. Nearly all of it consists of public interest arguments for the granting, extension or confirmation of private or institutional prerogatives. For Lord Annan the task must be rather like looking for the ‘best buy’ in an oriental bazaar.

Originally delivered as a paper to the Royal Television Society in London, summer 1976.