2011 – definitely not a vintage year
Raymond Snoddy looks back at the events of 2011 – maybe not a total Bah Humbug year but we hope for much better in 2012…
Let’s face it, 2011 was a non-vintage year for the media, with few memories worth bottling and saving for posterity.
It was a hanging on recessionary sort of year when many things didn’t happen, others nearly happened and most of those that did were wholly negative if not downright depressing.
Journalism was traduced on a daily basis before Lord Justice Leveson – and newspapers as a result could end up facing statutory controls.
The News of the World closed down for no particularly necessary reason, scattering at least 700,000 but probably more than one million newspaper sales to the four winds.
The BBC began the process of getting rid of 2,000 jobs under the ludicrous and insulting Delivering Quality First (DQF) banner – a banner you still hear even now being denounced in the BBC… You mean as opposed to Delivering Quality Second – and anyway, wasn’t quality what we have been trying to deliver day in, day out for the past 50 years?
Absolute numbers are difficult to find but many are convinced that the brunt of job losses at the BBC are falling, as tradition decrees, on those who actually make the programmes – and that the bureaucracy has protected itself once again from the worst of the cuts.
In fact it feels overall like a DQF sort of a year, although at least it was great to see Strictly Come Dancing finally put The X Factor in the shade in the ratings wars.
YouView was supposed to be launched and wasn’t. The fear now is that when it finally does appear it will be a case of too little too late following the Competition Commission’s unfortunate decision to block Project Kangaroo.
But the year wasn’t entirely bleak. ITV returned to serious profit and enjoyed drama success with Downton Abbey as well as finally, belatedly, grasping the Daybreak nettle – a programme that effortlessly wins the turkey of the year competition, a nose ahead of Red or Black?
On a more positive note, ITV’s News at Ten won the Royal Television Society award for best news programme of the year with the words “we’re back”.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt didn’t win many plaudits during the year and failed to get any impetus behind his obsessive plans for local television in 2011. His first list of 20 pilot schemes for local television announced this month included such truly local locales as London, Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh.
We will see what results from the £40 million subsidy coming out of the BBC licence fee but the retention of £5 million or so of the money would help to save jobs at a truly local, established and socially important medium – BBC Local Radio.
Overall it wasn’t a great year for Hunt, whose efforts were largely eclipsed by major events happening off-stage, such as collapsing economies, tsunamis, earthquakes and the “Arab Spring”.
The Culture Secretary hardly covered himself in glory either with the one-off referral of the News Corp bid for BSkyB to the Competition Commission before the deal was dragged under by the hacking scandal.
It was another year, alas, when newspaper circulations continued to slide and there was no real sign of anyone cracking the newspaper enigma of our times – how to find the right economic balance between print and online.
James Harding, editor of The Times, did point out however that if you add all his paying customers together – print and online – the total circulation of the paper has risen by 3% this year, the first time this has happened for more than a decade.
It is a pattern likely to be followed in the local and regional press by Ashley Highfield, the former head of BBC Technology, who now occupies the hot seat at Johnston Press (share price 5p).
One of the year’s leading awards should go to an octogenarian – no not Rupert Murdoch but Sir Ray Tindle, who spent 2011 continuing to open (and buy) local newspapers. Sir Ray was also filling his boots with some of those 5p Johnston shares, purely as a punt of course.
Tribute should also be paid to the bravery of all the journalists who risked their lives to cover the convulsions in North Africa and the Middle East. Unfortunately news is a highly competitive business and first wins all the medals.
Max Hastings was first into Port Stanley during the Falklands War and it was John Simpson who “liberated” Kabul. It will therefore be Alex Crawford and her Sky team who will scoop all the prizes for her live coverage of the fall of Tripoli and they will be the ones who are remembered.
Two other women deserve a mention for their achievements in 2011 – presenter Miriam O’Reilly for taking on the BBC on sexism, ageism etc and won. Nothing much will change of course but at least department heads will not be able to overtly give age as a reason for getting rid of presenters in future. Now they will have to be a little more imaginative and think up some other excuses such as, it is time to move on or time to refresh the format.
The Portsmouth pub landlady Karen Murphy who took on Sky over football TV rights and won also deserves two cheers for tenacity in taking Sky all the way to the European Court. Karen and friends will be able to nibble at Sky’s heels but again not too much will change, unless you are perfectly happy to watch your football with Portuguese or Greek commentaries.
Maybe it’s not a total Bah Humbug year after all… we have the Dickens bi-centenary to look forward to. But 2011 is definitely not a vintage year and we hope for much better in 2012.