TELEVISION
Meeting season
GEORGE SCOTT -r-t- With the Txrc conference behind us, the political party conferences loom alteaff. What is the proper iv treatment of these events? The audience for a live transmission, during the day, from a party conference, can fall as low as 100,000. Much of the proceedings at any such conference is quiet, dull, flat-footed, flatulent. Are these good reasons for not giving conferences live coverage? Should these annual political, get- togethers be treated any differently from those of the mining engineers or estate agents. or teachers?
Last year, the BBC had determined to do little or nothing by way of live coverage, leaving it to the News and 24 Hours to pick up what they thought fit for their own- purposes. In In the event, they relented—or weakened, as some would say—and BBC2 put out several live sessions. Unfavourable comparisons were made with Irv, where all- day coverage was 'available' to the network; the amount actually transmitted by pro- gramme contractors ranged from a couple of hours to sixteen hours.
The pattern of rry coverage this year will be much the same as last year—with my again carrying a special insert into the News at Ten, and World in Action and This Week deciding nearer the time whether they will give their half-hours to conference issues. Bac viewers will again have to take their chance during the day on whether Bac2 decides that this or that debate promises to be exciting or important enough to command the cameras. At night, however, 24 Hours will be 'looking for normal 24 Hours-type material', with interviews and discussions% and, following 24 Hours, there is to be a• nightly report, taking the form of straight, edited excerpts from the debates, with the minimum linking narrative necessary to make sense of the bits and pieces.
My own view is that these party con- ferences do merit distinctive treatment. Even with the counting of heads by the Bac and ITV at its most frenetic,-there must surely remain some programmes which are trans- mitted because they ought to be shown and. not only for their audience-appeal. Or has that concept of public responsibility been stowed away in the Reith Museum?
I do not think it is too much to ask that, for three weeks each year (or four, putting the TUC, as one should, into the same category) Tv should show the parties goiswo about their formal business. But I do not want the opportunity merely of hearing every cliche and witnessing every pompous gesture. What better time could there be than the conferences for reflecting and inter- preting the moods of the parties, for inquiring into their morale, their feelings about their leadership? Gathered at the con- ferences are activists of party politics, the people who do the jumbling, the canvassing, the manning of committee-rooms, the knock- ing-up on polling day. Without them the parties would cease to function effectively, Tv gives the impression that conferences begin and end in the conference hall. I long to see the cameras being less static, less lazy. Why don't they go into the conference hotels, to the receptions, the dances, all those bibulous affairs which are the delegates' rewards for another twelve months of un- glamorous slog in the constituencies? My criticisms of the way Tv treats the conferences can also be applied, though not without some modification, to its treatment generally of politics. It is too narrow, too studio-bound in its coverage.
Some, at least, of the blame lies with the parties. Indeed, the trouble starts there. So fearful have the parties been of the possible excesses and abuses which TV might practise, so insistent have they been upon the ideal of 'balance' that they have gradually in- duced a condition of defeatism. The enthusiasts for political Tv have met too many impediments, too much interference, and had their knuckles rapped too many times. Those who regard politics as a bore have been reinforced in their arguments.
Now, as another general election approaches, it looks as though Tv may be even more restricted than before. The most ludicrous provisions of the Representation of the People Bill—whereby a chairman of a discussion might have been held to have shown partiality and to have committed an offence if one party politician had hogged the cameras to the detriment of a rival— were dropped. It does seem, too, that party leaders will be allowed to take part in pro- grammes so long as they do not score points which could profit them directly as candi- dates in their own constituencies. But, leaders apart, the new Act does forbid the showing on Tv of any candidates in a constituency if one of them refuses to appear—unless that candidate waives what amounts to his power of veto. The parties, who make laws to suit themselves so far as Tv is concerned, may think they are doing themselves—and the country—a service. In truth, they have impoverished the medium and contributed to the decline of interest in politics and respect for politicians.
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