Topic: the media: press, radio and television

List of questions:

1. Press

2. Radio

3. Television

4. Government and the media

Literature:

1.Нестеров Н.М. Страноведение: Великобритания. Ростов на Дону, «Феникс», 2006.

2. Михайлов Н.Н. Лингвострановедение Англии. М., «Академия», 2003.

3. Артемова А.Ф. Великобритания. Книга для чтения по страноведению. М, «АСТ: Восток-Запад», 2006.

45. M. Pugh A History of Britain. Oxford, 2001.

6. M. Vaughan-Rees In Britain. Lnd., 1999.

 

THE PRESS

Britain’s first newspaper appeared over 300 years ago. Now, as then, newspapers receive no government subsidy, unlike in some other European countries today. Advertising has always been a vital source of income. As long ago as 1660, King Charles II advertised in a newspaper for his lost dog. Today, income from sales is as crucial as income from sales. There are approximately 130 daily and Sunday papers. 1, 400 weekly papers and over 6, 500 periodical publications. More newspapers, proportionately, are sold in Britain than in almost any other countries. The British are great newspaper readers. They used to read even more 50 years ago, when there was no competition from television, but even so almost every adult in the country reads or at least glances at, a daily newspaper. The sales and readership figures are tremendous. The high numbers reflect the fact newspapers are not only popular with educated middle-class but also with working-class people. On average, two out of three people over age 15 read a national morning newspaper. National newspapers have a circulation of about 13 million on weekdays and 17 million on Sundays, but the readership is twice this figure. At first glance, therefore, the British press seems in good health.

The national newspapers, both on weekdays and on Sundays fall into broad categories: “popular” and “quality” press. The more serious, the weightier papers are known as broadsheets, a term which refers to their big page size. The lighter, easier-to-read papers have a page size half as big, and are called tabloids. The Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, and Independent are broadsheets; the Sun, Mirror and Star – tabloid in size, but semi-broadsheet in content.

The cultural gulf between the broadsheets and the tabloids is enormous; it is almost seems strange to call them both newspapers. A serious paper like The Independent gives long, detailed news stories with historical analysis, and carefully balanced comment which is usually separate from the news reporting. It has a lot of foreign news; it has sections on books, education and computers; it rarely mentions National Lottery except to discuss its organization. The lightest of the tabloids, the Sun, has very short items on politics and world events in which it freely mixes facts and comment; it has many pages of gossip about TV celebrities and lots sex stories; it has competitions and horoscopes and semi-pornographic photos of women; it is obsessed with lottery and lottery winners.

In spite of the apparently light content of the tabloids, they appear to have as much if not more political influence than broadsheets. Although television has taken over as the main news provider, the law prevents TV from taking sides in politics. So it is left to the newspapers to support parties and give interpretations of the news. None of the daily newspapers is actually run by the political parties, however. Several are owned by companies, controlled by individuals: there is a tradition of rich and powerful press barons. Viscount Rothermere dominates the Mail; Lord Hollick, the Express. Some of these press barons are not English but from Commonwealth countries: Conrad Black of the Daily Telegraph is Canadian; Rupert Murdoch of the Sun is Australian. Actually, Murdoch’s multinational company, News Corporation, also owns The Times, The Sunday Times and the massively popular Sunday paper News of the World; it also controls the satellite TV channel BSkyB various media companies in the USA, satellite TV based in Hong Kong and 70 per cent of all Australian newspapers. Many observers are concerned that with these media interests Murdoch has bought himself too much influence in politics.

The Sun is by far the biggest selling paper in Britain, and it always has a clear political line. In addition, many of its readers are floating voters who change their minds at election time and so decide the results. Throughout the 80s and early 90s it gave solid support to Mrs. Thatcher, and the Conservatives won four elections in succession. As the Labour party moved to the political right, Murdoch deserted his old allies and switch his support to Tony Blair in 1997, so once again The sun was on the winning side. It is not possible to say that Murdoch actually delivered these election results, but in some cases his intervention made a very great impact. 

As in all democratic countries, press freedom is an important aspect of British life. In this country, without written constitution, such freedom is not actually set down in the law, but there are no laws restricting it, so the end result is much the same. In fact, it is fairer to say that there are very few laws restricting it; for example, it is illegal to incite racial hatred.

 

RADIO

Television is more glamorous and everyone watches it. But 90 per cent of people say that they listen to the radio in their spare time – in fact it is the third most popular leisure activity after watching TV and visiting friends. But in spite of predictions when television first arrived, radio has not died, in fact it popularity has risen.

Because radio is comparatively inexpensive, it can fill far more niches than television: there is local radio even in small communities, and there are hundreds of specialist stations. People living in Birmingham, for example, can receive 27 stations on FM, including no fewer than nine BBC stations (national and local), a Welsh language station and variety for pop music.

 In 1936 the government established the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to provide public service in radio. It also began broadcasting that year on the recently invented radio. At first solely through its agency, television and radio changed the entertainment habits and the culture of the nation. In 1955, however, the establishment of independent and commercial television and radio removed the BBC’s broadcasting monopoly.

In spite of its much reduced evening audience, BBC radio still provides an important service. Its five radio stations (BBC Radio 1 – 5) provide: (1) non-stop pop music; (2) light entertainment; (3) minority interests, e.g. classic music, arts programs and academic material (some for Open University courses); (4) news and comment and discussion programs; (5) sport. The BBC additionally runs 38 local radio stations, providing material of local interest.

 At one time, the BBC had a monopoly on radio in Britain, whereas today it has to compete with lots of commercial stations, both local and nationwide. Radio 3, the BBC’s classical music station, is very academic and serious, but it used to do quite well because it had no competition. Then in 1992, Classic FM came on the air, with Vivaldi, Mozart, jokes and recipes all day long, and Radio 3 lost most of its audience. Surprisingly, however, in the pop-music field, BBC radio 1 fought back against fierce competition, and it remains the favorite music station for young people in Britain.

In addition there are 180 independent local radio stations which provide news, information, music and other entertainment, coverage of local events, sports commentary, chat shows and “phone-in” programs. The latter provide an important counseling service to isolate, aggrieved or perplexed people. An important but separate part of the BBC’s work is its ‘external services’. The BBC World Service broadcasts by radio in English and 43 vernacular languages. The service is funded separately from the rest of the BBC, by the Foreign Office. Although the BBC has freedom in the content of what it broadcasts, the government decides in which foreign languages it should broadcast, and the amount of funding it should receive. As such, the service is a promotional part of British foreign policy. The BBC World Service reaches an audience of approximately 140 million listeners, who are predominantly young (aged between 25 and 35) and male. The strength of the BBC’s external services has been the provision of relatively objective and impartial news and comment to listeners in countries where local censorship exists.     

 

TELEVISION

Regulation of TV is very different from regulation of the press. Whereas newspapers are mostly about news, the TV is mostly entertainment and so is subject to more rules on sex, violence and bad language. As watchdogs, there are the Broadcasting Standard Council and Broadcasting Complaints Commission. They make sure, for example, that there is very little pornography on TV; and they police the 9 p.m. watershed: the time before which all programs must be suitable for children. Strangely, more complaints are received from the public about bad language – swearing – than anything else; the British seem to be particularly sensitive to this rather superficial issue.       

It is on the question of politics that TV rules differ most from those which apply to newspapers. While newspapers express any political views, or support any political party they wish to. TV channels are not permitted such freedom; they are obliged to maintain a strict balance between the political parties, to be impartial. One program which shows the Conservative in a good light must be followed soon after by one which favours Labour. The system seems quite heavy-handed, but it is easy to see why it has come into being.

Although newspaper readership is high, people actually tend to get most of their news from television: recent survey showed that 62 per cent rely on TV and only 17 per cent on newspapers as their main source of national news. At the same time, there are only five terrestrial TV channels – so without regulations, one rich political party could completely dominate the news on the commercial channels. The government of the day, of whichever party, could manipulate the state-owned company, the BBC.

The BBC is not an organ of the government; it is run by governors, some of whom are appointed by the government, but there is little political control. All political parties complain sometimes about the BBC’s treatment of them, and that includes the party in power: the last Conservative Government often said that the BBC was against it. The BBC is funded by a TV license fee; everyone with TV has to buy one each year for just over £100.

In 1990 the BBC also commenced a commercial operation called Worldwide Television, which provides 24-hours new coverage and entertainment to broadcast networks in 80 countries and reaches an estimated 45 million homes. BBC World has only one rival, the America network, CNN, Where CNN has three times as many camera crews; the BBC has almost twice as many correspondents.

Television is the single most popular form of entertainment in Britain. In the mid-1990s viewers spent on average over three and half hours daily in front of the television set. Until 1997 they had four terrestrial channels to choose from: BBC1 and BBC2, ITV (Independent Television) and Channel 4, Channel 4, which was established in 1982, specializes in minority interest programs, but proved highly successful. A third commercial channel, Channel 5, began broadcasting is likely to expand further.