channel vision
Robert Kirby
BBC Prime is running a repeat of a splendid documentary series called Peoples’ Century. This was first broadcast in the late 1990s and was an intriguing retrospective, presenting 100 years of history in thematic episodes.
For anyone parent wanting to give the offspring a humanly intelligent overview of the last century, this series is a must. I don’t know whether, like many other BBC programmes, People’s Century is available on purchasable videos and DVDs, but it should be.
In a finely balanced episode the development of the arts and entertainment across the century was explored in the series and, in one of the most fascinating episodes, the changing role of sport was analysed, especially the mutation of originally recreational activities into what today are furious competitions where the stakes are no longer of the village green or the local football clubs, but have become of patriotic significance. Headlines in newspapers, on radio and television, regularly use synechdoches: “England Fails Again at Lords”, “France Humiliates Italy”. “At the Olympic Games China Has Picked Up 11 Golds”.
It was with the Berlin Olympics of 1936 that Hitler was first to demonstrate just how potent a medium for political advantage sport could be. What better forum for the promotion of the bermensch than this? His lead has long since been taken up by other, if only minimally less fascist entities, in the shape of the gigantic corporations that now control and prosper from games such as tennis, golf and, at last, even tame old cricket. Watching sport these days is like what being under enemy fire must have been, an unremitting bombardment, in this case, of the mind.
In the plethora of televised sport that comes with the northern hemisphere summer, the commercial factor had reached its saturation point a few years ago. In rugby matches fields are surrounded by literally dozens of billboards, players’ gear is covered in logos, even the ball carries its maker’s name. Today our rugby heroes advertise beer on their chests, the field itself is adorned with slogans, the billboards crank around so as to carry yet more advertising. I remember, a year or so ago, counting the trade names that occupied the spaces between the various levels of the public stands at a rugby match. Those and the others advertised no fewer than 23 different products and services. Quite a few more were out of camera reach.
When it comes to the intrusion of advertising material, the television coverage of Wimbledon this year has been worse than ever. M-Net’s SuperSport has far less to do with presenting entertainment to its viewers than it has to do with generating commercial income.
The sheer crudity of television’s commercial inserts identifies the level of thinking that inspires their use. Not bad enough to swamp the action with commercials, they now try to make them part and parcel of the sport. What prickhead caste of an advertising copywriter could dream up the supermarket squeezebacks used at Wimbledon? An ace is served by a player. Up comes, “Hot Service! Hotter Rolls at So-and-So Supermarket.” At deuce point up comes the embarrassing pun, “Juice! Advantage Such and Such Supermarket.” Once or twice was wincing enough. They did it hundreds of times. Just another sign of how salesmen are trying to kill off our minds.
I don’t know how they did it but SABC3’s programme buyers somehow hijacked a container-load of material condemned by the United States Television Disease Control Board. It must have been rounding the Cape on one of “those” ships. SABC3 is showing this infected waste in the series of early-evening showings I referred to in last week’s column.
The worst example so far was broadcast last Saturday evening, a half hour called Show Me the Funny. It is almost impossible to describe something as low down the cretin scale as this one. It would makes the average trailer-park inmate cringe. There is some profit here. This sort of programming reveals the depth of contempt in which SABC3 holds its viewers.
Not so SABC2, which is running the superb new Kananagh QC series with the wonderfully restrained John Thaw as the eponymous barrister. This is the BBC at its very best. Articulate, intelligent and all of 90 minutes a shot. What is more, SABC2 keeps the commercial breaks as few and as brief as possible. Saturday evenings at 9.15pm. This one is worth staying in for.