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BBC drama not all that it's cracked up to be
Looking for something to watch this evening? Log on to BBC iplayer and catch up with the latest series of Jimmy McGovern's The Street. Fantastic writing and acting - even from the usually irritating Anna Friel. Unfortunately, the current issue of Private Eye explains why you'll be lucky to see the likes of it again any time soon:
Although transmitted by the BBC, which has a pretty secure income, The Street was produced, under a pretty standard post-deregulation arrangement, by ITV. It's true that 20 years ago The Street would simply have been on ITV, but you can't have everything and this seemed the best of both worlds, combining the production skills of ITV with the scheduling possibilities of BBC1. Until - to save money - ITV pretty much closed down its drama unit, except for Coronation Street. ITV insists McGovern could have continued with a lower-budget version . . . but . . . he decided not to collaborate in vandalism.
The decimation of quality ITV drama - popular but not populist, made with a respect for people from different regions and social classes - is not one one of the most headline-grabbing effects of Thatcherism, but it is one of the most pernicious. And one, typically, that has accelerated under 12 years of a New Labour government.
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