This article examines Channel 4's critically acclaimed series, Grayson Perry: Who Are You? (2014). Using interviews with those involved in making the series and textual analysis, we argue that the elements that contributed to the success of the series are inherently difficult to replicate due to the political economy of contemporary television production thereby threatening the sustainability of the genre. However, while arts television rarely constitutes a commercial success in a traditional ratings sense, we outline the strategic value of the genre in contributing to Channel 4's identity as Britain's alternative public service broadcaster.
Today more than half of all radio listening in the UK is occurring through digital platforms. Within this context the BBC's current arts proposition provides a valuable insight into how public service broadcasters are adapting and responding to this burgeoning digital audience. In particular, attention is drawn to the ways in which digital platforms are used to supplement and enhance the auditory listening experience. In doing so, the present article argues that radio continues to occupy a significant position in furthering public engagement with the arts due to, rather than despite of, advances in digital technology.
The British Broadcasting Corporation occupies what is often considered to be a unique position within UK culture as both a respected national institution that is a pillar of enlightenment values and, increasingly, an agile, entrepreneurial business that has to deliver ‘value-for-money’. This study will contribute to the existing body of literature examining the impact of a neoliberal marketisation discourse on BBC policy by focusing specifically on the provision of arts programming as a key indicator of how the logic of the marketplace has permeated the BBC’s commissioning culture. In doing so, it argues that the loss of the topical arts magazine and discussion formats from BBC television, in contrast to radio, is symptomatic of the ways in which arts broadcasting has been reimagined both in the corporation’s internal production culture and in its public pronouncements as a product for consumers rather than a service for citizens.
The history of the BBC's regional programming is one of perennial tension between representing and reflecting the diversity of the UK's nations and regions and what is often perceived as an unrelenting ‘metropolitan centricity’. Through charting the mixed fortunes of English-language arts television for and about Wales, this article examines how the narrow range of cultural representation available on BBC television is situated within a public service broadcasting strategy that continues to regard regional arts as inherently ‘provincial’ and as such, inferior to that of London. The data and analysis presented derives from a broader study based on 21 qualitative interviews conducted with key figures directly involved in the production and commissioning of arts content across the BBC's television, radio and online services. The accounts provided by these interviewees are also contextualised by analysis of broadcasting policy and internal BBC documents, including annual yearbooks and reports. The article concludes by arguing that if the BBC is to reflect more adequately the true diversity of the UK's nations and regions and the distinct arts and cultures constituted within them, it must start by devolving its commissioning powers more equally. Rather than merely shifting centralisation from London to allocated ‘centres of excellence’ such as Scotland in the case of arts broadcasting, an effective public service arts proposition should strive to give greater autonomy and agency to the nations and regions so that they might build their arts strategies in their own image as opposed to that of the capital.
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