The Times: Interview - Jonathan Dimbleby
Jonathan Dimbleby, now a lone exponent of the long political interview, tells David Rowan that "ratings anoraks" are ruining the corporation
Jonathan Dimbleby, the broadcasting scion who first exposed Ethiopia's famine and later the Prince of Wales's adultery, will this weekend chalk up another journalistic triumph to the family name: when his eponymous ITV series returns on Sunday, it will be the last surviving "forensic" political interview on British television.
Last month the BBC axed On the Record after 14 years, admitting that its long set-piece confrontations had failed to stem a "democratic wave of disengagement". In its place from next month will be The Politics Show, a more youth-focused successor presented by Jeremy Vine, as well as "accessible" new programmes from Rod Liddle and Andrew Neil. Unless David Frost's sofa becomes a rather less cosy political battleground, that leaves Dimbleby alone on Sundays occupying the journalistic high ground.
Yet Dimbleby, 58, appears less than triumphal in his victory, if that is what it is. Sixteen months into the BBC's wide-ranging review of its political coverage, he is keen to go on the record himself with his reservations.
He has a range of worries about the BBC, including its "deplorable" policy of ghettoising arts coverage on digital channels and its failure, as he sees it, to justify the continuation of the licence fee.
His words, chosen deliberately as he paces across the living room of his sprawling Somerset farmhouse, could perhaps be dismissed as a competitor's attempts to garner cheap publicity at the BBC's expense. But Dimbleby, who has presented Radio 4's Any Questions and Any Answers for 15 years, is also a Corporation man, acutely aware of how sensitive the BBC is to criticism.
He was On the Record's founding presenter, and, like his successor John Humphrys, questions the BBC's "odd" decision to abandon its only fixed slot for in-depth political interviews. "I ought to rejoice in the fact that our principal rival has died, but I don't," he says. "The long forensic interview really matters. A lot of the trade commentators don't make the distinction between the sharp exchanges on the Today programme or Newsnight -which last for three, four, up to ten minutes - and the sustained 25-minute interview."
Humphrys, James Naughtie and Jeremy Paxman are, he concedes, "terribly good inquisitors -but they can't, in five minutes, test an idea to destruction". For a broadcaster to abandon the extended political interview, "you have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place".
He is not convinced that the BBC is on course to achieve this in its much vaunted politics review.
"It's rather a damp squib," he says of the initial results. "Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won't be using long words...I don't want to prejudge The Politics Show -though it's hardly a strikingly original title -but if they are trying to attract younger viewers, I do think it's a very odd project. I seem to remember Janet Street-Porter trying valiantly to do 'yoof' programming in the 1980s. Trouble is, the yoof's always in front of you. It's very difficult to avoid being shallow or patronising."
His worries stretch across news and current affairs, and beyond. He fears that, by pursuing ratings ahead of its broader public-service mission, the BBC risks undermining the case to continue charging a licence fee. "If you talk about informing, educating and entertaining, then you might think that a bit of high-class traditional current-affairs reporting of the type that Panorama is capable of should be rescued from its ghetto," he says. "You might also think that not every programme dealing with issues of global significance has to be fronted by last week's winner of Have I Got News For You -but I suppose you might be wrong. I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat.
"The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish. Until it gets rid of the rubbish, the pressure will always be there for people to ask, 'Why pay this poll tax?'.
As a "profound supporter" of the BBC, he hopes that renewal of the licence fee is not taken for granted in 2006. "I hope Tessa Jowell did not volunteer the last word when she said that the licence fee is safe next time round," he says. "I hope it is tested hard, and that test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter, even if I as a viewer don't want to watch that particular programme. That's why the ratings anoraks shouldn't hold sway."
Should the licence fee continue? "If it can be justified, yes, and I believe it can be justified. But I'm not certain that the BBC at the moment can claim to be making a wide enough range of distinctive programmes to make the case convincingly."
As an example, he asks why the BBC is not making ground-breaking documentary series about Iraq, or the Israel-Palestine conflict, on a scale that only its resources would allow. Instead, he identifies a sharp decline in foreign current affairs and documentary output, while the "ratings anoraks" pursue more populist approaches. "To me, telephone voting on all fronts is for the birds. I don't mind if they conjure up good programmes about Churchill or Brunel. It's absolutely fine to think of new ways of doing things, and I'm not just asking for the traditional reporter to look into our living rooms night after night."
The BBC's treatment of serious arts programmes exemplifies what is going wrong. "I deplore the loss of arts on BBC One and Two," he says. "Licence-payers should not be required to go digital before they can see arts programmes on TV. I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for. For me, that violates a basic principle."
Dimbleby is probably best known for his 1994 documentary Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role, in which the Prince of Wales confessed to adultery. They remain friends: visitors cannot fail to notice the strategically placed Christmas card by the coffee table, folded to reveal the greeting: "Jonathan and Bel -with lots of love from Charles".
Bel is Bel Mooney, the novelist and broadcaster and his wife of 35 years. They met while he was studying philosophy at University College, London, and she remains his enthusiastic unofficial ambassador, smoothing the way for The Times to profile her "Renaissance man". Certainly he maintains a rich, well-connected life, riding when staying on the farm, overseeing the organic food business, and even flipping burgers -"Dimbleburgers" -on his stand at Glastonbury. He also serves as president of the Soil Association, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Voluntary Service Overseas.
But let's just say that he also found time to run BBC One. What would he do then?
"The challenge is the culture," he says after a pause. "You have to have a vision for the BBC -it can't merely be that it's big and has a place in the market. Gavyn Davies has been very good at humanising the Corporation. But I'd like to hear from the top a clarion call that made it clear that they do have a vision, a mission, as the BBC has the obligation to think big. And at the moment, that clarion call sounds an uncertain note to me."
(The Times, January 10, 2003)
Jonathan Dimbleby, the broadcasting scion who first exposed Ethiopia's famine and later the Prince of Wales's adultery, will this weekend chalk up another journalistic triumph to the family name: when his eponymous ITV series returns on Sunday, it will be the last surviving "forensic" political interview on British television.
Last month the BBC axed On the Record after 14 years, admitting that its long set-piece confrontations had failed to stem a "democratic wave of disengagement". In its place from next month will be The Politics Show, a more youth-focused successor presented by Jeremy Vine, as well as "accessible" new programmes from Rod Liddle and Andrew Neil. Unless David Frost's sofa becomes a rather less cosy political battleground, that leaves Dimbleby alone on Sundays occupying the journalistic high ground.
Yet Dimbleby, 58, appears less than triumphal in his victory, if that is what it is. Sixteen months into the BBC's wide-ranging review of its political coverage, he is keen to go on the record himself with his reservations.
He has a range of worries about the BBC, including its "deplorable" policy of ghettoising arts coverage on digital channels and its failure, as he sees it, to justify the continuation of the licence fee.
His words, chosen deliberately as he paces across the living room of his sprawling Somerset farmhouse, could perhaps be dismissed as a competitor's attempts to garner cheap publicity at the BBC's expense. But Dimbleby, who has presented Radio 4's Any Questions and Any Answers for 15 years, is also a Corporation man, acutely aware of how sensitive the BBC is to criticism.
He was On the Record's founding presenter, and, like his successor John Humphrys, questions the BBC's "odd" decision to abandon its only fixed slot for in-depth political interviews. "I ought to rejoice in the fact that our principal rival has died, but I don't," he says. "The long forensic interview really matters. A lot of the trade commentators don't make the distinction between the sharp exchanges on the Today programme or Newsnight -which last for three, four, up to ten minutes - and the sustained 25-minute interview."
Humphrys, James Naughtie and Jeremy Paxman are, he concedes, "terribly good inquisitors -but they can't, in five minutes, test an idea to destruction". For a broadcaster to abandon the extended political interview, "you have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place".
He is not convinced that the BBC is on course to achieve this in its much vaunted politics review.
"It's rather a damp squib," he says of the initial results. "Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won't be using long words...I don't want to prejudge The Politics Show -though it's hardly a strikingly original title -but if they are trying to attract younger viewers, I do think it's a very odd project. I seem to remember Janet Street-Porter trying valiantly to do 'yoof' programming in the 1980s. Trouble is, the yoof's always in front of you. It's very difficult to avoid being shallow or patronising."
His worries stretch across news and current affairs, and beyond. He fears that, by pursuing ratings ahead of its broader public-service mission, the BBC risks undermining the case to continue charging a licence fee. "If you talk about informing, educating and entertaining, then you might think that a bit of high-class traditional current-affairs reporting of the type that Panorama is capable of should be rescued from its ghetto," he says. "You might also think that not every programme dealing with issues of global significance has to be fronted by last week's winner of Have I Got News For You -but I suppose you might be wrong. I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat.
"The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish. Until it gets rid of the rubbish, the pressure will always be there for people to ask, 'Why pay this poll tax?'.
As a "profound supporter" of the BBC, he hopes that renewal of the licence fee is not taken for granted in 2006. "I hope Tessa Jowell did not volunteer the last word when she said that the licence fee is safe next time round," he says. "I hope it is tested hard, and that test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter, even if I as a viewer don't want to watch that particular programme. That's why the ratings anoraks shouldn't hold sway."
Should the licence fee continue? "If it can be justified, yes, and I believe it can be justified. But I'm not certain that the BBC at the moment can claim to be making a wide enough range of distinctive programmes to make the case convincingly."
As an example, he asks why the BBC is not making ground-breaking documentary series about Iraq, or the Israel-Palestine conflict, on a scale that only its resources would allow. Instead, he identifies a sharp decline in foreign current affairs and documentary output, while the "ratings anoraks" pursue more populist approaches. "To me, telephone voting on all fronts is for the birds. I don't mind if they conjure up good programmes about Churchill or Brunel. It's absolutely fine to think of new ways of doing things, and I'm not just asking for the traditional reporter to look into our living rooms night after night."
The BBC's treatment of serious arts programmes exemplifies what is going wrong. "I deplore the loss of arts on BBC One and Two," he says. "Licence-payers should not be required to go digital before they can see arts programmes on TV. I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for. For me, that violates a basic principle."
Dimbleby is probably best known for his 1994 documentary Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role, in which the Prince of Wales confessed to adultery. They remain friends: visitors cannot fail to notice the strategically placed Christmas card by the coffee table, folded to reveal the greeting: "Jonathan and Bel -with lots of love from Charles".
Bel is Bel Mooney, the novelist and broadcaster and his wife of 35 years. They met while he was studying philosophy at University College, London, and she remains his enthusiastic unofficial ambassador, smoothing the way for The Times to profile her "Renaissance man". Certainly he maintains a rich, well-connected life, riding when staying on the farm, overseeing the organic food business, and even flipping burgers -"Dimbleburgers" -on his stand at Glastonbury. He also serves as president of the Soil Association, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Voluntary Service Overseas.
But let's just say that he also found time to run BBC One. What would he do then?
"The challenge is the culture," he says after a pause. "You have to have a vision for the BBC -it can't merely be that it's big and has a place in the market. Gavyn Davies has been very good at humanising the Corporation. But I'd like to hear from the top a clarion call that made it clear that they do have a vision, a mission, as the BBC has the obligation to think big. And at the moment, that clarion call sounds an uncertain note to me."
(The Times, January 10, 2003)
posted by David Rowan at Friday, January 10, 2003
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