Post by Tony Walshaw on Apr 8, 2012 8:45:58 GMT
Probably the decline of TV is linked with lifestyle changes. You can compare it with popular music.
Rock n Roll arrived in 1955, just after rationing had ended, and in the same year as commercial television. Music and TV gradually got into their stride and were really 'swinging' ten years later. As people have mentioned, they were creatively-driven, and helped along by massive technical improvements like stereo and eight-track within music, and colour within television. This 'golden age' of popular culture continued into the 80s taking new wave music, home video recording and Channel 4 into its stride.
From the mid-1980s, with Margaret Thatcher in her pomp, life changed from 'inclusivity' to 'profitability'. Work practices and conditions changed, the onus began to shift to purely making money and any other considerations were secondary.
At the time, the 80s were portrayed as fresh and new, and the 60s portrayed as 'old hat' in music and television terms. However, many prominent behind the scenes figures in radio & TV like Johnny Beerling, Stanley Appel, Verity Lambert, Johnny Goodman etc had been around since those same 60s, therefore radio & TV was still effectively being run by the same people. By the early 90s as they approached retirement, the tumbleweed began to blow through popular entertainment.
Music in its post-Live Aid state of machines, power ballads, global artists and stadium rock was starting to stiff creatively. Such figures as Paul Gambaccini and Muff Winwood commented on how nothing new was emerging on the scene, which according to one prominent writer (someone like Wells, Collins or Maconie in the NME) was "choking on its own entrails" as automated re-mixes and re-issues proliferated. The period from the 1950s-80s began to be referred to as 'The Rock Era'. And the downturn for television corresponds to this. Satellite broadcasting began in 1989 and it is reputed that Margaret Thatcher had a hand in the Thames franchise loss which was determined around this time.
Perhaps some earlier seeds of decline had been sown by the deposing of Lew Grade in 1982 by the cynical Australian Robert Holmes A Court. He made it clear that he was running things purely on money-making terms and had no time for creativity and good relations within the industry. This thinking probably enabled the commissioning of the "adult-Tiswas" show 'OTT', and also its fairly prompt abandonment. It pre-cursed 80s alternative comedy which led to such as 'The James Whale Radio Show' and 'The Word' at the turn of the 90s. "Gross-out television" had arrived.
Satellite broadcasting as run by the Murdoch organisation was also an early sign of globalisation. Music increasingly had some other kind of media tie-in (with films, TV, advertising etc) and did not exist purely on its own terms. The charts, with a faster turn-over, became irrelevant. And although the music scene was rejuvenated to some extent by the indie/Britpop artists of the time, and the rise in popularity of festivals etc, it was apparent that for the first time it was borrowing extensively from its past and 'retro' as a current genre was born. Even the best of the uplifting dance music borrowed from the late-60s 'hippy/chill-out' vibe. And if you look beyond the likes of Blur, Oasis, Jarvis Cocker etc, much of the other 90s music really was 'pulp'. Terrestrial TV did maintain some credence, with a rejuvenated 'Top of the Pops', and programmes like Vic Reeves 'Shooting Stars' and 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' (when first aired) did well on the back of the new music. But all the time, the subversive influence of the internet was creeping in.
By the 2000s, globalisation totally took over, using the internet as the corporate blood to flow through the veins of society. This applied to everything in life, with local businesses first becoming national and then in turn being owned by American or far-eastern conglomerates. From Walter Wilson to Asda to Walmart for instance. The ITV regions became extinct. Programmes are now squeezed in between endless adverts. It is difficult to distinguish between the two. 'Celebrity' has had all the juice squeezed out of it now, with TV filled with anonymous embarrasing bodies.
Media, politics, business, sport and entertainment are one big incestuous mass. It is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. This is epitomised by the recent revelations about the Murdoch organisation, and the levels of influence that such driven and unpleasants like Wade and Coulson have been able to attain. Television has broken down, but the field is no longer being ploughed, it is merely left fallow.
Rock n Roll arrived in 1955, just after rationing had ended, and in the same year as commercial television. Music and TV gradually got into their stride and were really 'swinging' ten years later. As people have mentioned, they were creatively-driven, and helped along by massive technical improvements like stereo and eight-track within music, and colour within television. This 'golden age' of popular culture continued into the 80s taking new wave music, home video recording and Channel 4 into its stride.
From the mid-1980s, with Margaret Thatcher in her pomp, life changed from 'inclusivity' to 'profitability'. Work practices and conditions changed, the onus began to shift to purely making money and any other considerations were secondary.
At the time, the 80s were portrayed as fresh and new, and the 60s portrayed as 'old hat' in music and television terms. However, many prominent behind the scenes figures in radio & TV like Johnny Beerling, Stanley Appel, Verity Lambert, Johnny Goodman etc had been around since those same 60s, therefore radio & TV was still effectively being run by the same people. By the early 90s as they approached retirement, the tumbleweed began to blow through popular entertainment.
Music in its post-Live Aid state of machines, power ballads, global artists and stadium rock was starting to stiff creatively. Such figures as Paul Gambaccini and Muff Winwood commented on how nothing new was emerging on the scene, which according to one prominent writer (someone like Wells, Collins or Maconie in the NME) was "choking on its own entrails" as automated re-mixes and re-issues proliferated. The period from the 1950s-80s began to be referred to as 'The Rock Era'. And the downturn for television corresponds to this. Satellite broadcasting began in 1989 and it is reputed that Margaret Thatcher had a hand in the Thames franchise loss which was determined around this time.
Perhaps some earlier seeds of decline had been sown by the deposing of Lew Grade in 1982 by the cynical Australian Robert Holmes A Court. He made it clear that he was running things purely on money-making terms and had no time for creativity and good relations within the industry. This thinking probably enabled the commissioning of the "adult-Tiswas" show 'OTT', and also its fairly prompt abandonment. It pre-cursed 80s alternative comedy which led to such as 'The James Whale Radio Show' and 'The Word' at the turn of the 90s. "Gross-out television" had arrived.
Satellite broadcasting as run by the Murdoch organisation was also an early sign of globalisation. Music increasingly had some other kind of media tie-in (with films, TV, advertising etc) and did not exist purely on its own terms. The charts, with a faster turn-over, became irrelevant. And although the music scene was rejuvenated to some extent by the indie/Britpop artists of the time, and the rise in popularity of festivals etc, it was apparent that for the first time it was borrowing extensively from its past and 'retro' as a current genre was born. Even the best of the uplifting dance music borrowed from the late-60s 'hippy/chill-out' vibe. And if you look beyond the likes of Blur, Oasis, Jarvis Cocker etc, much of the other 90s music really was 'pulp'. Terrestrial TV did maintain some credence, with a rejuvenated 'Top of the Pops', and programmes like Vic Reeves 'Shooting Stars' and 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' (when first aired) did well on the back of the new music. But all the time, the subversive influence of the internet was creeping in.
By the 2000s, globalisation totally took over, using the internet as the corporate blood to flow through the veins of society. This applied to everything in life, with local businesses first becoming national and then in turn being owned by American or far-eastern conglomerates. From Walter Wilson to Asda to Walmart for instance. The ITV regions became extinct. Programmes are now squeezed in between endless adverts. It is difficult to distinguish between the two. 'Celebrity' has had all the juice squeezed out of it now, with TV filled with anonymous embarrasing bodies.
Media, politics, business, sport and entertainment are one big incestuous mass. It is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. This is epitomised by the recent revelations about the Murdoch organisation, and the levels of influence that such driven and unpleasants like Wade and Coulson have been able to attain. Television has broken down, but the field is no longer being ploughed, it is merely left fallow.