Media 1986: the year everything changed

January 1986 kicked off a defining year for media – witnessing Murdoch’s newspaper triumphs, colossal TV viewing figures, a German incursion into UK mags and a proto-Gogglebox. Here, renowned journalist Torin Douglas recounts a fascinating history.

Thirty years ago this week, Rupert Murdoch moved his four national newspapers to Wapping at the start of a year that would revolutionise the media world in Britain.

1986 was a game-changer for all sides of the business – publishers, broadcasters, advertisers, agencies…even for TV researchers.

Murdoch – aided and abetted by Robert Maxwell and Eddy Shah – launched a technological revolution in newspapers, breaking the power of the print unions and unleashing a wave of new titles, new sections and colour. The year saw three national papers launched – Today, Sunday Sport and the Independent – and a succession of other major media moments.

The eagerly-awaited Peacock Report on BBC funding not only dismissed proposals to replace the licence fee with advertising but recommended that ITV franchises should be awarded by competitive tender.

British Satellite Broadcasting – owned by Granada, Pearson, Virgin and Amstrad – won the UK’s Direct Broadcast by Satellite licence, beating a bid from Murdoch. And there were multiple crises at the BBC, as it crossed swords with Norman Tebbit and the Tory government, culminating in the departure of the director-general – all lovingly recounted in Michael Leapman’s book The Last Days of the Beeb.

Plucky AGB Research challenged the mighty Nielsen in the United States with its Peoplemeter, winning headlines in Time magazine and Variety but losing its shirt. At BAFTA, the BARB ’86 conference discussed the challenges facing TV research here.
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Press ’86 took place in Paris with an array of editors, columnists, publishers and ad people. Radio ’86 was held in Marbella with the stars and sales teams of commercial radio. And, just as the Independent launched, the Guardian whisked its biggest advertisers off to taste wine in the Loire.

I covered them all and in this new monthly column, I’ll be looking back to a very different time which laid many of the foundations of today’s media world. I’ll be observing what’s changed and what’s not and what we may have forgotten. My green Channel 4 desk diary records a succession of lunches, parties, dinners, interviews, conferences, launches and stories, of which these are just a taste.

1986 saw the start of the German incursion into UK magazines when Gruner & Jahr successfully launched Prima, paving the way for Best the following year and the arrival of Bauer and Bella.

30 years before Gogglebox, an Oxford academic put a video camera inside a TV set to record what viewers did while supposedly watching television. For TV planners and time-buyers, the footage, shown in a Channel 4 documentary series, was required viewing.

Fears that ‘zapping’ was eroding the viewing of commercials were “grossly over-estimated” according to Brian Jacobs, speaking at BARB ’86. But who really cared either way, when programmes were attracting audiences that today’s media buyers can only dream of?

On 27 January 1986, Coronation Street was watched by 18.8 million viewers (and even that was roundly beaten by the ‘consolidated’ figure for EastEnders, seen by 23.25m on Thursday 30 January and Sunday 2 February).

A single episode of Coronation Street in January 1986 was viewed by a colossal 19 million viewers.

But despite the strength of TV, it was newspapers that took centre stage in January 1986 – and not just because of Wapping.

It’s often forgotten that it was Maxwell rather than Murdoch who made the first breakthrough in reducing overmanning. In December 1985 he cut his workforce at Mirror Group Newspapers by a third, with the grudging agreement of the unions. “The gravy train has hit the buffers,” he proclaimed.

Maxwell, like Murdoch, had been spurred into action by the imminent launch of Eddy Shah’s Today, a national daily newspaper which would use the electronic technology that the Fleet Street unions still wouldn’t allow. Not only would it be in colour, it would have drastically lower costs. Shah’s Messenger Group had already won a bitter dispute in Warrington, helped by the Thatcher Government’s legislation allowing employers to de-recognise unions.

The best-selling author Bill Bryson was a sub-editor on The Times in the 1980s (he subbed my media column for two years, as he once charmingly reminded me). In Notes From a Small Island, he wrote: “To say that Fleet Street in the early 1980s was out of control barely hints at the scale of matters. The National Graphical Association, the printers’ union, decided how many people were needed on each paper (hundreds and hundreds) and how many were to be laid off during a recession (none), and billed the management accordingly…it was crazy.”

The man who always wins? Rupert Murdoch, January 1986, in his new Wapping printing plant.

On 24 January 1986, after months of negotiations over new work practices, 5,500 members of News International’s print unions went on strike. This in itself was not uncommon. Seven years before, The Times and the Sunday Times had been shut for 11 months because of a printers’ strike – a significant factor in the decision to sell the papers to Murdoch.

This time things were different. With four national newspapers – two daily, two Sunday, quality as well as popular – Murdoch was now in a stronger position to take on the unions.

In great secrecy his managers had built a printing plant at Wapping, equipped with the new technology. They immediately switched production there, with the agreement and support of the electricians’ union, the EETPU.

On 25 January, the first copies of the Sunday Times and the News of the World were printed at Wapping, and successfully distributed throughout most of the UK (by road, bypassing the rail unions). The next day The Times and the Sun were printed there too.

Raymond Snoddy wrote in the Financial Times: “Fleet Street, for many years as much a synonym for a set of work practices and the legendary earnings they brought as a geographic description, may have come to an end yesterday.”

As so often, Snoddy was right – but the dispute lasted 14 months and led to violent battles between police and pickets, reinforcing Murdoch’s reputation as a hate-figure among the left. And it didn’t take long for the violence to come to a head…

Next month: riot shields and ratings.