Geldof, sharks and Celebrity Love Island a mixed year for factual international TV
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By Daniel Nelson
There has been a resurgence in factual international programming on British TV, reversing 14 years of steady decline, new research published today shows. But that positive finding of the University of Westminsters annual analysis conceals a number of negative developments. Firstly, last years resurgence was driven almost entirely by the BBC: the trend was not followed by other channels (some of which showed significant drops in output). Secondly, factual programming featuring developing countries did not recover as strongly as factual international programming overall despite coverage of Iraq and a special focus on Africa in 2005. The report, Bringing the World to the UK, sees this as cause for some concern. The rise in coverage is also diluted by the fact that though the number of channels monitored has doubled to eight since the annual surveys began, output devoted to international programming (the definition excludes news and current affairs programming) has risen by just 15 per cent. Another minus factor is that some of the programmes designated factual and international are of little or no value in understanding the world: Travel (especially of the Brits abroad variety) and Miscellaneous (which tends to include softer and sometimes more sensationalist coverage) make up half of all factual international coverage, and Celebrity Love Island, filmed in Fiji, forms three-quarters of ITVs output. Harder factual international programmes such as politics, development, environment and human rights account for just 10 per cent of the total. To make matters worse, the reports authors, Emily Seymour and Steve Barnett, point out that Ofcom, the industrys regulator, is becoming less insistent on imposing public service obligations on ITV1 or Five. The overall trend thus appears to be a ghettoisation of factual international programmes: if you want to see such programmes, youll have to switch to the BBC; if you watch other channels youll see hardly any. In terms of impact, wildlife programmes scored highest, though, as with other categories, responses varied 58 per cent of respondents felt they learned a lot from Elephant Diaries compared with only 2 per cent for Sharks on Trial. The biggest inspirational response which provoked audiences to find out more about the subject covered was recorded with RCA (religion, culture and arts) programming, particularly Geldof in Africa and Brian Sewells Grand Tour. Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4's head of news and current affairs, has attacked the methodology of the report for excluding news and current affairs and including programmes such as Celebrity Love Island: "This report just counts a quantity of programming filmed in the developing world...as far as I know you didn't see a person from a developing country in it", she told Monday's Media Guardian. What counts is the quality of what you are doing." * The report was commissioned by 3WE, whose parent charity is the International Broadcasting Trust |
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