IV.

New Problems, New Proposals, New Interests

The vulnerability of commercial television to strikes that could cause an instant blank screen meant that industrial relations became major factors for the ITV companies during the 1970s. The culmination was a disastrous 11-week stoppage from August 10 to October 24, 1979, which resulted in a loss of revenue estimated at £90-100 million.

A further committee was set up on the Future of Broadcasting under the chairmanship of Lord Annan in 1974, and finally published its report in 1977. The length of the committee’s considerations was largely due to new interest groups that had sprung up in relation to television, including the trade unions, religious interests, groups seeking to “clean up” television, the broadcasting organizations, and the programme-makers. Annan had been preceded by a technical committee, which had recommended that the new colour transmission system be extended to provide a new fourth channel.

ITV was pressing for parity with the BBC and wanted the fourth channel to be an ITV 2. The programme-makers had other ideas. Many saw a business opportunity in the making of programmes and wanted a new British broadcast outlet that would buy programmes rather than make them itself. Anthony Smith came up with a wholly new idea for the fourth channel: a National Television Foundation. The Foundation would be an electronic publishing house with a pluralist approach to the programmes it commissioned, and would be financed by subscription and sponsorship. Smith’s idea found favour intellectually, but its weakness was the financial plan. The Annan Committee came up with its own variant: an Open Broadcasting Authority. This would control the programmes on the fourth channel, which would be paid for by a combination of sponsorship, advertising, subscription, and government grant. The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA, formerly the ITA) would effectively be demoted to be the regulator of local broadcasting. The Labour government (1976-1979) was against doubling the number and cost of regulators and, while a number of compromises were discussed, the plan to start a fourth channel remained unfulfilled.

When the Conservatives returned to power in 1979, the new Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, challenged the IBA to come up with a plan that would combine the best of the Smith/Annan proposals with a viable system of finance. The IBA would then have responsibility for setting up and controlling the new channel. Within weeks the IBA, led by Director-General Sir Brian Young, had arrived at the concept of a channel that would buy its programmes; would have a responsibility to embrace minority interests; and would be required to be innovative, educational, and not to duplicate the type of programmes broadcast on ITV. Importantly, the channel was also required to commission “a substantial proportion” of its programmes from independent producers. The new channel would be financed by a “subscription” from the ITV companies, who in return would be allowed to sell the channel’s advertising airtime. The proposal was accepted by the Home Office.