The Stage

Bragg calls for arts channel to show South Bank archive

Published Tuesday 16 January 2007 at 15:50 by Liz Thomas

Melvyn Bragg is pushing ITV to create a new arts channel in a bid to capitalise on The South Bank Show’s huge collection of programmes.

The series, which begins its 30th season next month, has featured profiles on most of the major players across the arts including Paul McCartney, Harold Pinter, Judi Dench, Miles Davis and Sylvie Guillem. Bragg said that this year he would be putting together plans to turn 30 years of material from the archive into a branded channel that could fit into ITV’s digital strategy.

He added: “There is 800 hours from The South Bank Show and about 1,000 to 1,200 hours altogether [from specials and spin-offs]. I think we could use the archive as the basis for some programmes on the channel. The material could be repackaged and recontextualised for modern audiences - that is really exciting. We hope we can find a place for it under the ITV umbrella.”

Bragg said he had been in talks with director of television Simon Shaps and director of ITV Productions John Whiston about the idea and wanted to put more pressure on the broadcaster to find a space for an arts channel. However he stressed that The South Bank Show itself, which is already the first network programme available as a podcast and vodcast, would premiere on ITV1.

The acclaimed series, with Bragg at the helm, has now been commissioned until the end of 2009 as part of a move by the broadcaster and new executive chairman Michael Grade to signal its commitment to the arts and to more intelligent programming with a broader appeal.

Grade, who first signed Bragg to front the series in the seventies, said: “Little did I know in 1977 a risky new arts strand would still be flourishing 30 years later.”

Creating the new channel would put the network on a par with its rivals - BSkyB owns Artsworld while the BBC uses BBC2 and particularly BBC4 for the bulk of its programming of the genre.