British Telly’s Online Shangri-La

Our darling Beeb has taken a boot to the pants for years on both sides of the Atlantic. While often these trips to the woodshed have been deserved, the BBC has done a fair amount of good in the world that gets overlooked quite a bit.

In a move that should go a long way toward garnering that institution greater respect online,  the BBC has set out to create a Web-based repository for its more than 80 years of programming. As this piece from The Guardian’s Web site explains:

“…the project will create a web page for every episode of every single programme ever broadcast on the BBC, and be the basis of a future plan to introduce a searchable vault of archived shows.”

The possibilities here are endless. And on behalf of myself and my fellow non-British TV fans, I only hope that this “vault” is accessible by everyone.

In recent years the Beeb’s rival, ITV, has done an impressive job of unearthing classic shows for viewing online, only to lock out we foreign types. In May, for example, ITV’s Web site posted a lost episode of its classic soap opera Crossroads. You can read about that rare find here, but heaven help you if you actually want to watch it if you’re living outside the UK.

There are literally dozens of wonderful ITV programs waiting to be watched online here, safely locked away from all but British eyes. Rising Damp, Cold Feet, Chancer, Cracker…it’s pretty maddening, actually.

And while an argument can be made that these companies can hardly pop for unlimited bandwidth, would it be so difficult for ITV, and the BBC for that matter, to allow foreign users to pay a nominal sum to see these programs online? While Rising Damp and Cracker are readily available in American DVD editions, other series such as the Kevin Whately/Amanda Burton doctor drama Peak Practice are not.

Let us hope that, in the name of good will and celebration of this wonderful art form, the BBC will throw open the doors of this groundbreaking archive for the enjoyment of people the world over.

Countdown to Homogeny

The good news is that you can stock up on DVDs, read and reread your copy of 30 Years of British Television, and basically relive the best that British television has had to offer.

“Well that is a very good suggestion,” l hear you say, “but what ever are you getting at?”

Oh my brave little British TV fan, I read  this in the news today and oh boy. Let me just give you the first sentence:

ITV, the UK broadcaster, has signed a potentially ground-breaking deal to develop new programmes with Twentieth Century Fox TV using joint funding and combined teams of US and British writers and producers.

You see where this is going, don’t you? If not, let’s lend our attentions to Lee Bartlett, the new head of global content at ITV (and a former Fox executive):

“From this development fund, we could actually create scripted formats that could be produced in both countries at the same time,” he told the Financial Times.

“There could be differences – the cast for the British version could be more British than for the American version – but you could be making two series on top of each other, if I can put it like that. That could get you some pretty good production synergies.”

Now when we’re growing up, somewhere after learning our ABCs and how many capfulls of water can be swapped for Daddy’s vodka before the alarm is raised, we are taught that “synergies” are to quality what Hollywood is to originality.

You have only to picture a planning session for the creation of Are You Being Served some 30 odd years ago to see how this might work:

British Planner: Now let’s see. We have the middle-age woman who goes on about her “pussy” cat — hilarious! I can hear the laugh track already.

American Planner: Um, excuse me. I don’t want to be a wet blanket or anything, but there is really no way we could have that joke on American TV – we just don’t call kitties THAT here. At least we’ll keep that out of OUR version of the show.

Bean Counter: (Clears throat.) Sorry to butt in here but we can only afford a handful of writers and they have to knock out both sets of scripts in a small amount of time. Whatever they write, it’s gotta go in both shows.

British Planner: Awwww no. Lee Bartlett quite clearly implied we could sort of ‘British up’ the British version and ‘American up’ the American one.

Bean Counter: Yes, well I’m afraid he was over-egging the pudding a bit there. Not Lee’s fault, really. We were all so keen at the time, but that’s before we realized that Steve couldn’t write twice the number of scripts in just a few months time.

American Planner: (Pause.) Steve?

Bean Counter: Er, yes. When I mentioned our “handful” of writers, it was I who was over-egging the pudding that time.

Now if you all don’t mind, I really must be off. I don’t want to miss the first episode of “Lost in Brideshead Revisited.”