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Robinson attacks TV’s lack of risk-taking

Published Tuesday 21 October 2008 at 15:35 by Matthew Hemley

Actor and presenter Tony Robinson has lamented the lack of risk-taking in British television and has blamed deregulation of the broadcasting industry for depriving audiences of quality programming.

Addressing attendees at a debate organised by the Federation of Entertainment Unions into the future of public service broadcasting in the UK, Robinson argued that a “free market” had brought the television industry “to its knees” and seen a reduction in quality, home-grown programming.

“We were told an unfettered free market would give us choice and diversity and quality. In a sense that’s true. We can watch more Hollywood movies now than were able to before regulation, there are more high-end cop shows and Sky News is exemplary. But that is about the end of it, the list peters out after that. That is not much of a trade-off given what we have lost. We have lost those bits of television that are so difficult to make because they require a lot of people, a lot of thought, a lot of expertise and investment,” he said.

Robinson, best known for playing Baldrick in Blackadder and a former vice-president of Equity - said this had seen children’s programming “choked under the weight of dumped foreign import” and added that “high-end drama was increasingly difficult to make”.

“I think what worries me most is that the whole culture of risk-taking, which has driven every new step forward in British TV over the last 30 or 40 years, is now almost a dead duck,” he concluded.

At the event, speakers - including BBC director-general Mark Thompson - outlined their views on media regulator Ofcom’s plans for the future of public service broadcasting.

The regulator has outlined three potential models for the future of PSB, because it claims the existing model- a publicly-owned BBC with competition from commercially-funded broadcasters - is under pressure and will not survive the transition to an all-digital broadcast world.

Speaking at the event, Thompson criticised Ofcom for creating alternative models - including one where ITV and Five cease to be public service broadcasters - that are “too defeatist”.

He said the BBC had an alternative model, which would see it enter into partnerships with other public service broadcasters to share technology and commercial resources.

However, Robinson warned that the BBC had to enter into partnerships that “genuinely acknowledge what the other public broadcasters require”.

“There is the Ant and Dec partnership where two friends work affably together and one just happens to be bigger than the other, and there is the Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai type of partnership. Sometimes those of us on the outside think the BBC sees the second as preferable,” he said.

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