A land fit for babies?
Although reluctant to return to the subject of Angel, since there are only so many ways to say that Channel 4 doesn’t give a damn about viewers of “cult” programmes, I think I need to revisit the subject once more.
“Hang on a minute,” you might be saying, “hasn’t Channel 4 moved Angel to a later slot where they show it uncut?”
Well, yes, Angel has been moved; whether it is uncut or not is a different matter since a few people have voiced the opinion some of these episodes have been trimmed a little. This may be completely trivial, a few seconds at the edges of commercial breaks, but, as many people have pointed out, if C4 advertises a programme as being uncut, it should be uncut.
The other side of the coin is that the episodes which have already been shown in hacked-to-pieces form have still not been shown uncut and three episodes have not been shown at all. Additionally, although one cannot really blame C4 about this, the combination of the elision of three episodes, the double-bill screening of the “uncut” episodes and the BBC’s penchant for dropping SF&F programmes to make way for snooker and less interesting sports has ensured that Angel and Buffy are now wildly out of synch.
Not really C4’s fault, it must be admitted; if anything, it begs the question why the BBC did not make sure they got Angel for BBC 2. Buffy is, after all, proving popular on BBC 2 and you might have thought that the opportunity to get the spin-off would have been irresistible.
On the other hand, it is possible that the BBC buyers actually thought about it and realised that there was no way Angel could be edited appropriately for an early evening slot; since BBC logic (as with C4 logic) treats the equivalence of SF&F with kid’s programming as axiomatic, they may not have felt inclined to buy a “kid’s programme” which they had to screen later in the evening. It is difficult to work up much ire over this since this attitude has been displayed for so long that I (along most others I know) am resigned to it.
Where Channel 4 does deserve blame is (to reiterate): buying a programming unsuitable for a 6pm slot and butchering it in an attempt to fit the slot; and failing to show the three episodes omitted earlier in the series when Angel was finally moved to later. Still, at least they listened, right?
Wrong.
Despite all the complaints that they were butchering Angel and despite the petition (2678 signatures when I looked recently), Channel 4 would have been happy to leave Angel at 6pm.
Much wielding of scissors would have been necessary, and much of the hour supposed to be occupied by Angel would in fact have been taken up with pop videos. None of this would have troubled C4 in the least, and if you have any doubts about that go back to read the beginning of this little thread of rants.
Channel 4 were forced to shift Angel to after 11pm on Sundays (not as late as Crusade’s graveyard, but that’s the only good thing to say about the move) not because of the howls from Angel fans who wanted to see the programme intact, but because of complaints from people who were not Angel fans and did not want to see this sort of thing at tea-time (or, in some cases, at any time).
Ultimately, complaints were made to the ITC who ruled that even the butchered episodes were unsuitable for early evening viewing. Hence the move to after the watershed. Ananova has a brief summary of this; note just how much (yes, that is sarcasm) Channel 4 took note of the fury of Angel fans: the slicing and dicing of the Angel episodes, they claim, “allows younger as well as older viewers to enjoy the show.”
One thing about this entire business I haven’t mentioned, though, is the whole question of the watershed. Something that American readers may be unaware of is that British terrestrial TV does sometimes show programmes and films featuring some violence and sometimes more than a little nakedness, as well as some robust Anglo-Saxon language. However, such material can only be shown after 9pm, the watershed.
Before 9pm there is an assumption that children might be watching. After that time, it is assumed that young, impressionable minds will be asleep. These are obvious assumptions; there are plenty more hidden away beneath the surface.
One is that the television companies, and only the television companies, are responsible for what children see before 9pm. Parents, it seems, are not. I know many people say, “Kids have TVs in their rooms these days, and it’s difficult for parents, especially single parents, to supervise their viewing.” Unless these kids are getting a lot of pocket money, someone has bought these TVs; in any case, the fact remains that parents have a responsibility to supervise their children.
This is not some draconian laying-down of the law I’m talking about: a child’s parents are the source of most of the information it needs to learn about the world, and that has to include the help of the parents in making sense of the information which is presented by TV.
Note very carefully that I am not saying that the concept of some programmes being unsuitable for children is wrong. There are clearly programmes which are unsuitable for children because children have not developed to the point where they can deal with the subject or the presentation; there are also those unsuitable because the children have not reached a stage where the subject would be interesting to them. What I am saying is that it is not the responsibility of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 or the ITC (or OffCom when it arrives) to protect children: it is the job of parents.
Take the analogy of a bookshop. If I were to go to one of the large bookshops in the city centre, I would find a section of “children’s books” — very easy to find, just follow the Harry Potter posters.
But in the same shop I can find books on: crime (fiction and nonfiction), biography, history, science, technology, art, photography, design, military stuff, SF, fantasy, travel, cooking, religion (the full spread from Asatru to Zen, taking in Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Paganism, Vedanta, and Witchcraft), philosophy, poetry, “literary” fiction, erotica (text, art and photography), “gay” (ditto), self-help books — and so on.
Clearly, some of the books in these other areas will be fine for children: I believe that Father Brown and Mr. Holmes have never yet been found to corrupt the young. On the other hand, much of the content of the main part of the bookshop will not be suitable — and why should it be? These books are, after all, aimed at adults — I would say they are “adult books”, but that term is, annoyingly, generally taken to mean “porn”. Adults can read, cope with and enjoy, books which children would find either incomprehensible or disturbing.
No one complains that books on — well, pick a grown-up subject of your own — should not be stocked by these shops “in case a child should happen to pick one up and read it”, yet that is precisely the argument used against television. “You can’t show that, a child might see it…”
Yes, that is true: a child might, if the child is in the room and the television is on and it is tuned to the relevant channel and the child is inadequately supervised. Yes, it might well happen — but I think that the onus of responsibility should be on the parent or parents, not the broadcasters.
Look at it from another direction. You’re an adult. Let’s say you are thirty; you are living on your own or you are in a couple without children. Both these situations are increasingly common. The effect of this watershed concept is that, assuming you work 9 to 5-ish, you get in from work and have to watch television, the news partially excepted, which is deemed suitable for children.
If you have a taste for something with sex in it, or some action involving people getting getting hurt, or you simply like good drama with grown-up themes, you will have to wait until 9pm to see it. If you have work the following day, you may well not want or be able to wait up for it.
(No, VCRs are not a solution because the TV companies are inordinately fond of changing transmission times at short notice.)
If you are not working 9–5, for whatever reason, it is even worse. Almost the entire day’s output is aimed either at children or incredibly dim housewives. Occasionally there is a decent film — but that’s all you can expect.
The situation for someone who wants something other than “family” entertainment is worse than I have suggested, because I have used the accepted term, “watershed”.
Now a watershed would be a dividing line with one thing on one side and something else on the other. That is what the word means. So you would expect, therefore, that up to 9pm you will find material bland enough to be watched with children in the room, and after 9pm you can have anything you want — Aliens, Graham Norton, Eurotrash, The Exorcist, Die Hard; even, perhaps, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In fact, this is not the case.
One series which won much acclaim yet was clearly not for children is Cracker. One episode of it, broadcast at 9pm, featured a fairly ungraphic (clearly not suitable for “before the watershed”, though) while disturbing rape within its first 15 minutes. After 9 o’clock, you’d have thought that was all right. You’d have been wrong.
It drew much vocal criticism for showing such material “so soon after the watershed”. So you see that, far from being a dividing line, the so-called watershed casts a shadow (sorry about the mixed metaphor). How long before 9:30 or even 10 becomes the de facto watershed and grown-up material cannot be shown at 9:45 or even 10:15?
Presumably there would come a point at which even the most insanely overprotective person would admit that there are unlikely to be any children watching. That that might mean anyone wanting to watch grown-up fare would have to sit up into the early hours of the following morning (or risk missing a substantial chunk of the programme in question because of some witless last-minute rescheduling) is unlikely to bother these self-appointed moral guardians.
Parents make no bones about wanting television that their children can watch without them worrying — this is entirely reasonable. But why should there not also be television for adults who do not have children to consider? By all means, let BBC 1 and ITV show cartoons or drama aimed at children in the early evening, and later some of the bland pap which passes for family entertainment (I don’t know why, but Des O’Connor has just come to mind…); and, if they really, really must, some garden/cooking/home decorating programmes.
Why can’t, at the same time, BBC 2 and Channel 4 show stuff suitable for grown-ups? These are, after all, supposed to be minority channels, yet the one minority which never gets any consideration is that of the child-free households who would quite like to see the sort of programmes they enjoy without sitting up to the small hours.
In those circumstances, parents would know to avoid C4 and BBC 2 if they had small children. Meanwhile, C4’s advertisers would be getting an audience with quite a bit of disposable income (kids are to money as black holes are to matter), and the BBC would be meeting the needs of a chunk of its audience — who get stuck for the same licence fee as everybody else — it has hitherto ignored, at least during the hours of daylight.
I’ve been tapped on the shoulder by a kind soul pointing out that I haven’t mentioned Channel 5. Thanks a lot.
Well, Channel 5 could carry on, I suppose, with its deep commitment to dragging the lowest common denominator ever downhill.
© DC 2000. All rights reserved.