TELEVISION AND RADIO
THE foundation of the BBC's considerable reputation as • a public service has been its capacity to rise to the great occasion. How many tawdry television programmes were for- given and forgotten in the acclaim for the telecast of the Coronation?
This past week has shown the most miser- able failure to rise to the occasion in the whole history of the BBC. It may be that monopoly has drained the last trickle of enterprise or that the remaining vitality is so braced to meet competition that nothing else matters. Whatever the explanation, the treatment of Sir Winston Churchill's resignation by the television service was worse than dull. It was drab.
What an opportunity was missed to create the atmosphere lost by the absence of national newspapers! The scope of the personality concerned offered infinite variety for dynamic observation. We should have seen a film of the highlights in Sir Winston's career. The possi- bility of his resignation must have percolated to some of the ivory towers in the TV centre (still in building at a cost of ten millions of public money). Why was such a film not pre- pared months ago? We should have had at least an hour of reminiscence by leading figures from the many spheres Sir Winston has influenced — Beaverbrook, Menzies, Eisen- hower, Alexander, Mountbatten, de Gaulle, Baruch, etc. etc. We might have heard a historian on his political career, a strategist on the Dardanelles, a crime reporter on Sidney Street----the list is endless.
Sir Winston, having tendered his resignation to his Sovereign and taken leave of his working colleagues, appeared on the balcony of No. 10 at 11 p.m. to acknowledge the public acclaim. Here was the natural climax to the Churchill night on TV. Did we sec it? We did not. What did we see? An earnest sound radio commen- tator giving us the gist of what we had already heard on the Home News followed by a brief newsreel shot of Sir Winston and Lady Churchill greeting their distinguished dinner guests the night before.
After an excited announcement that we were to be taken direct to Downing Street, we saw yet another sound radio commentator who told us that Sir Winston was at home. As though to confirm this electrifying intelligence we saw a lighted window in No. 10 and so 'back to the studio.' At nine o'clock six million people sat looking at a screen filled with the words LORD SAMUEL. We listened to a relay of this radio talk. Good as it may have been, it was
not television. Finally a hastily scratched- together team of commentators treated us to a discussion on 'The Resignation.'
All this shows an inexcusable lack of leader- ship, inspiration and foresight. Could we hope for news of further well-timed resignations?
JOHN IRWIN
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