Chapter 1 – “You'll Never Know What You'll
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Contents Introduction Page 3 Acknowledgements Page 8 Chapter 1: “You’ll Never Know What You’ll See!” Page 9 Chapter 2: “Swing Your Pants!” Page 22 Chapter 3 – Strong Sustainable Saturdays Page 41 Chapter 4 – “Have You Ever Stroked A Weasel?” Page 56 Chapter 5 – A One Horse Battle Page 78 Sub-Chapter – What’s That Tune? Page 91 Chapter 6 – “You Know Where It’s At!” Page 97 Chapter 7 – “You Asked For It!” Page 125 Chapter 8 – DaD Vs MoM Page 147 Chapter 9 – The Beginning Of The End Of The Shows Page 180 Chapter 10 – “It’s Not Like The Old Days!” Page 207 2 Introduction Imagine the scenario. A visual cornucopia of entertainment, pop music, phone-ins with big name guests and viewers questions that know no boundaries, cartoons, games, the occasional adventure stunt, and comedy all taking place within one show. The viewer on the other hand is relaxed, possibly still in their pyjamas with a bowl of cereal on hand, knowing that amongst the fast paced antics, they’re in safe hands of up-for-a-laugh presenters, with a one-to-one relationship that’s crucial within a thriving atmosphere of this kind. All those conventions when blended together are associated with only one genre of television; the live Saturday morning magazine show. For over 30 years, both the BBC and ITV spent that one day of the week breaking the rules of conventional television, and that fact that it was primarily aimed at children meant that if anything went wrong, no one cared. It was one of the rare strands in television where the viewers both at home and in the studio were central to the proceedings. In fact the very name of ITV’s best regarded Saturday morning series Today Is Saturday Watch And Smile better known as Tiswas was sent in by a viewer. It was the training ground of many a television presenter, Noel Edmonds, Chris Tarrant, Phillip Schofield, and Ant & Dec, many of whom still survive in the competitive world of television, where satellite channels and the internet have gained notoriety. They were allowed to get away with things that would be unthinkable in today’s restricted and tightly formatted television. It has also seen success behind the scenes, breeding producers and directors such as Tony Gregory ( Big Brother ) Angelo Abela ( My Parents Are Aliens ), Joe Mace (Head Of Entertainment Development at ITV) and some bloke called Andi Peters… 3 But it’s a great shame that what was once the most inventive format in television is now looked back in retrospect, as a result of being overlooked by viewers, and frowned on by television executives. In the last five years, children’s programmes have been scaled down from terrestrial television, and Saturday morning shows have suffered with it. In 2001, Steve Williams in a column for the much missed website Off The Telly wrote in his analysis of Live & Kicking of how ITV were then the channel to watch on Saturday mornings due to the immense success of SM:tv Live . It stated that whilst it was a very good programme, it would be a shame for a generation of children to lose the long-standing tradition of watching BBC 1 on a Saturday morning. What no one predicted at the time was that in less than 10 years, Saturday morning shows themselves would disappear from both channels and it’s easy to point fingers at who was ultimately responsible. Some would suggest the programme makers and executives themselves, who decreed that adults shouldn’t be watching the programmes despite the fact that they made up half the viewing figures. Only when they tried to aim the shows solely towards children, it emerged that they preferred to watch the likes of Spongebob Squarepants, Hannah Montana , The Suite Life Of Zack and Cody and other US imports on satellite channels. Either that, or opting for the excitement of the internet and games consoles, the latter of which actually achieves the aim of television being interactive. Others would blame Jamie Oliver, whose successful campaign for healthier school meals opened up another struggle, when in 2006 junk food advertising was banned from UK television in children’s hours, giving ITV an excuse to pull the plug altogether on children’s programmes with immediate effect. Partly thanks to the station lobbying the easy-to-give-in regulator OFCOM. This leaves the BBC with a monopoly on producing home-grown children’s programmes as other terrestrial broadcasters have followed ITV’s suit, as a result of decreasing television budgets. 4 Channel 4 have disposed of both children’s programmes and their award-winning animation department to focus towards the over 15s with T4. And whilst Channel 5 may still have Milkshake and its counterparts, the strand has been hit by the departures of long-serving presenter Naomi Wilkinson to the BBC, and head of department Nick Wilson, who had a firm track record in producing television for younger viewers. Not to mention the channel itself being bought out by Richard Desmond, a man whose background in television couldn’t be any further from children’s programming. The BBC continue to produce very well made children’s programmes such as Tracy Beaker Returns, The Slammer, and Horrible Histories, the latter of which is set to transfer to prime time BBC 1, proving that they still have influence. But whilst the programmes themselves are successful, presentation has been lacking, with in-vision links banished to the CBBC digital channel and presenters replaced by performers, playing desperately for laughs with little viewer interaction. Fragmentation has also played a major part which with regards to the success of CBeebies has proved worthwhile in that respect. But the main worry is the BBC’s belief that viewers stop watching their children’s output as soon as they start secondary school, leading to many programmes being scaled down and compromised, and Saturday mornings are one of the victims, not helped by a demotion to BBC 2. The most recent Saturday morning winter magazine show TMi has been through the motions, shortened to half it’s length from series 2, moved half an hour early to 8:30am from series 4, and the most recent series was switched to Friday evenings on the CBBC Channel only, guaranteeing the death knell. The BBC believed teenagers should be served separately, but the opportunity was wasted, with BBC Switch proving disastrous from the offset. Mainly due to the getting-it-completely-wrong approach, and bad scheduling, resulting in the fact that many potential viewers in the demographic profile didn’t even know such a strand existed. 5 Joe Godwin, the current director of children’s programmes for the BBC recently stated in an article on the BBC News website that the demise of three hour Saturday morning shows from CBBC is not an observation we should be looking at poignantly; “We make programmes for children, not nostalgic old farts ” Ironically, Saturday morning entertainment is now found on satellite television, as Nickelodeon have recently hired Jamie and Anna from GMTV’s Toonattik to front their Big Weekend strand, and Soccer AM continues to provide raucous entertainment on Sky Sports every Saturday during the football season. And to counter the “ nostalgic old farts ” sentiment from Godwin, Russell T Davies countered that argument in a BAFTA speech in 2009 stating that there’s a difference between being cynically nostalgic, and remembering something that was inventive, fun, and exciting even by today’s standards, using the Broom Cupboard as an example. Davies himself being no stranger to Saturday mornings, as a writer in the late 80s at BBC North on what he now refers to as “the BBC’s Saturday morning show that wasn’t Going Live!” And he’d know a thing or two about resurrecting a long-lost television series from the past and making it successful again in the present day. Or maybe the decline could be pinned down to the politicians, as both Labour and the current “government” in economic struggles have seen ITV closing down many of their regional studios around the UK, and to make things more twisted , David Cameron has frozen the license fee for the next seven years. It beggars the question in this so-called “Nanny State” as to whether any politicians actually watch or own a television, seeing as they’re screwing it up. The most worrying thought is how future generations of children will have no home-grown shows of their own, if programme quality continues to decline. The importance of the situation has been stated by Simon Hickson, one half of arguably the funniest comedy double act to grace Saturday mornings; “The children of today are the programme makers of tomorrow ” 6 But rather than look bitterly at the present state, a more constructive approach would be to take a joyful look back over the years as to how we got here, through the many shows, presenters, pop stars, puppets, (and not forgetting the crushes), that defined the best part of a television weekend. And more importantly, how the genre shaped the face of television as a whole , with a look into what happened for better or worse behind the scenes. Expect to see the names of many important and commendable figures from the production side, such as Paul Smith, Ged Allen and Vanessa Hill, Chris Bellinger, Nigel Pickard, the late Cathy Gilbey, and even Lewis Rudd. Although many Tiswas fans may despise the last name as much as Doctor Who fans despise Peter Cregeen, if it wasn’t for Rudd commissioning Central’s Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It starring a certain Steve Ryde, the idea for the equally anarchic Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow may never have happened.