Credit where credit’s due

Published Monday 11 February 2008 at 18:20

I read with interest your article on on-screen credits and the statement from the BBC saying it was canvassing reaction to a new formula rolled out last year in which “some people have said the font is too small to read and we are currently looking to enlarge it” (January 30, The Stage Online).

In a recent article in the Telegraph, Roly Keating, controller of BBC2 and acting controller of BBC1, commenting on behalf of the BBC, intimated how sensitive the Corporation was to the problem of illegibility.

I regret to say these seemingly hopeful words sound very hollow. As a performer and elected council member of my union Equity, I have been involved in several meetings with the BBC over the speed and size of end credits since the latter part of the nineties, and despite murmurings of sympathy, the situation has got progressively worse.

It would seem that the marketing and presentation departments of the BBC have more power than the programme makers, and the concerns of audiences and creative talent take second place. Time and again I was told that the audiences are not interested in credits and so it would seem any protests of the contrary by them are politely ignored. Indeed, one BBC employee was quoted in the press as saying, a couple of years ago, when there was yet another outcry, that the only people interested in credits were actors’ mothers. There was a hasty and embarrassed apology from her employers, yet nothing has changed.

Yes, actors in particular, but production teams too, need credits to advertise their work and get their next jog. No television company airs their programme without their logo prominently displayed at the end. This is not for vanity, it is for commercial reasons, and for the BBC, in particular, by the terms of its charter, it is its public duty to inform the audience they serve with up-to-date information. However, it is not just for that purpose. The closing credits are still a part of the programme, and music and style are chosen carefully to reflect the experience both have shared. To intrude on this, by announcements, graphics or squashing it up into moving dots in the corner of the screen, is an act of Philistine proportions and insensitive in the extreme. If there is a viewing public who zap away with total disinterest, and I don’t believe that is the majority, then the BBC has created it.

Throughout my conversations with the BBC it has been suggested that viewers can go to the internet for the information. I don’t believe that’s what viewers want. They want the information there and then whilst they are still ‘living’ the drama. It’s time our public broadcasting service stopped bowing to marketing and presentation’s desire at all costs to stop their audience zapping around the hundreds of television channels on offer. If they go off to the net they are lost for good anyway. What happened to quality? Programme makers strive despite increasing cuts in budgets and work schedules to produce excellent drama and they should not be insulted in this way.

Of course, the BBC should change the guidelines and give us legible on-screen credits. The fact that after so much lobbying it decreased the size, yet again, a year ago makes me wonder whether it really means to do anything. Does it secretly hope the public will give up? In this instance, words mean nothing - we need action.

Jean Rogers

Equity Vice President

Hurtsfield Road

West Molesey

Surrey