Abstract
This chapter provides an analysis of how British indies have revolutionised the form and narrative structure of factual television, drawing on an analysis of ground-breaking programmes from the 1980s onwards. From the innovative talk television innovations of After Dark (Channel 4, 1987–97), to the factual innovations of ‘Cutting Edge’ (Channel 4, 1990–present) and the high-jeopardy factual narratives of reality programmes such as The Apprentice (BBC, 2005–present), Undercover Boss (Channel 4, 2009–present) and Wife Swap (2003–present), British indies have been at the forefront of factual television innovations over the last 30 years. Despite the recent growth in studies of media production, many display little or no interest in the actual cultural products created by workers within the various spheres of productions. This chapter explicitly tackles this issue, focusing on a critical and materialist analysis of independent television content. In doing so, it positions these programmes as emerging from specific social, cultural and economic contexts. The relationship between craft, value and place is considered, as is the shift towards formatting and commercialisation from the 1990s.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The show was dropped by the then Channel 4 Chief Executive, Michael Grade, in 1991, leading to a campaign for its reinstatement by a range of public figures, with this programme of occasional specials seen as the ‘killing off’ of the series (Wells 2003).
- 2.
Lambert, has a career biography that is emblematic of this shift in style: a postgraduate academic researcher at Nuffield College, Oxford who wrote a book on broadcasting policy and independent television production in 1982 (Lambert 1982), he then moved to the BBC documentaries department where he worked on some of the key ‘serious’ documentary strands of the 1980s and 1990s such as Modern Times etc. Then, in 1998, he moved into the indie sector, to RDF where he quickly became known for his uncanny ability to develop factual entertainment formats that resonated with cultural appetites of the time. Leaving RDF in 2007 in the wake of the fakery scandal around the documentary The Queen, he then created his own company, Studio Lambert, which has been responsible for formats such as Gogglebox and Undercover Boss (Channel 4, 2009–2013) (see Brown 2007a for a colourful profile of Lambert, including an account of the period when he left RDF).
- 3.
Channel 5 has undoubtedly created some of the most exploitative programming in this genre in the UK. For a discussion of the channel’s track record in this area, see Postans 2016.
Bibliography
Banks-Smith, N. 1987. The Guardian, 4 May.
Beck, U., A. Giddens, and S. Lash. 1994. Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Benyon, J., and J. Solomos. 1988. The simmering cities: Urban unrest during the Thatcher years. Parliamentary Affairs 41 (3): 402–422.
Born, G. 2003. From Reithian ethic to managerial discourse accountability and audit at the BBC Georgina Born. Javnost-The Public 10 (3): 63–80.
Brooker, C. 2014. Benefits street – Poverty porn or just the latest target for pent-up British fury? The Guardian, January 12. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/12/benefits-street-poverty-porn-british-fury. Accessed 12 July 2017.
Brown, M. 2007a. A licence to be different: The story of Channel 4. London: British Film Institute.
Brown, W. 2007b. A fatal flaw. The Guardian, October 10. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/oct/10/comment.bbc. Accessed 4 Aug 2017.
Bruzzi, S. 2001. Docusoaps. In The television genre book, 132–134. London: British Film Institute.
———. 2006. New documentary: A critical introduction. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Chalaby, J.K. 2010. The rise of Britain’s super-indies: Policy-making in the age of the global media market. International Communication Gazette 72 (8): 675–693.
Cody, S. 2008. After dark, David Kelly and lessons learned. Lobster, 55. Available online at https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue55.php. Accessed 12 Jan 2016.
Collier, H. 2014. Channel 4’s benefits street claims 4.3 million viewers. The Guardian. [Online] January 7. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/07/tvratings-channel4. Accessed on 21 Nov 2014.
Corner, J. 2002. Performing the real: Documentary diversions. Television & New Media 3 (3): 255–269.
Cowburn, A. 2016. The big benefits handout is poverty porn at its worst. The Independent, February 16. Available online at http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-big-benefits-handout-is-poverty-porn-at-its-worst-where-desperate-families-are-reduced-to-a6877086.html. Accessed 2 July 2017.
De Benedictis, S., K. Allen, and T. Jensen. 2017. Portraying poverty: The economics and ethics of factual welfare television. Cultural Sociology 11: 337–358. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975517712132.
Fisher, M. 2009. Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? Winchester: Zero.
Gill, R., and C. Scharff, eds. 2013. New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. London: Springer.
Harvey, S. 2015a. Response from Sylvia Harvey BBC Trust review of the BBC’s arrangements for the supply of television and radio content and online services. Available at: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/content_sup ply/2015/prof_sylvia_harvey.pdf.
———. 2015b. ‘National Broadcasting in an International Context’, Response to the BBC Trust Review of the BBC’s arrangements for the supply of television and radio content and online services. Available online at downloads. bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/.../prof_sylvia_harvey.pdf. Accessed 11 Aug 2017.
Hay, C. 2004. The normalizing role of rationalist assumptions in the institutional embedding of neoliberalism. Economy and Society 33 (4): 500–527.
Hesmondhalgh, D., K. Oakley, D. Lee, and M. Nisbett. 2015. Culture, economy and politics: The case of New Labour. Basingstoke: Springer.
Hobson, D. 2007. Channel 4: The early years and the Jeremy Isaacs legacy. London: IB Tauris.
Kennedy, H. 2003. The neverending story. The Guardian, February 17. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/feb/17/tvandradio.television. Accessed 8 June 2017.
Lambert, S. 1982. Channel Four: Television with a difference? London: BFI.
Lambert, A. 1991. A modern twist to an old, old story. The Independent, September 15.
Lee, D., and J. Corner. 2017. After dark: Channel 4’s innovation in television talk. Journal of British Cinema and Television 14 (4): 445–463.
Littler, J. 2017. Against meritocracy: Culture, power and myths of mobility. London: Routledge.
MacDonald, R., T. Shildrick, and A. Furlong. 2014. ‘Benefits Street’and the myth of workless communities. Sociological Research Online 19 (3): 1–6.
Matthews, V. 1987. The media: Right on the night – The clean-cut late shows. The Guardian, June 8.
McRobbie, A. 2004. Post-feminism and popular culture. Feminist Media Studies 4 (3): 255–264.
Meier, L.M. 2011. Promotional ubiquitous musics: Recording artists, brands, and “rendering authenticity”. Popular Music and Society 34 (4): 399–415.
Paul, A.S. 2013. ‘Poverty porn’? Who benefits from documentaries on Recession Britain? Available online at https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/%E2%80%98poverty-porn%E2%80%99-who-benefits-documentaries-recession-britain. Accessed 4 Aug 2017.
Postans, A. 2016. Channel 5 is still baiting the unemployed with yet another show about benefits. The Mirror. Available online at http://guerillawire.org/welfare/channel-five-and-the-empire-of-poverty-porn/. Accessed 5 Feb 2018.
Shaw, G. B. 1957. Pygmalion: A romance in five acts. 1914. The Complete Plays of Bernard Shaw, 716–757.
Wagner, B. (2015). People like us? People like them? Contemporary media representations of social class. Doctoral dissertation, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Wells, M. 2003. “Risky” after dark chat show to return. The Guardian, January 29. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jan/29/broadcasting.uknews. Accessed 25 July 2016.
Zoellner, A. 2009. Professional ideology and program conventions: Documentary development in independent British television production. Mass Communication and Society 12 (4): 503–536.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lee, D. (2018). Independent Creativity. In: Independent Television Production in the UK. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71670-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71670-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71669-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71670-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)