Interview: Peter Bazalgette, Endemol UK (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
HE is, according to his critics, the cynical vulgarian who killed serious television with Big Brother and Fame Academy, a "cold manipulator of people", in Victor Lewis-Smith's view, or quite simply one of the Daily Mail's "100 worst Britons". So imagine the highbrow fury last week when the Royal Television Society, no less, praised Peter Bazalgette's "unabashed populism" as it gave him a special award for "changing the terms of factual television".
Wasn't this the man for whom " factual" broadcasting meant Jade Goody's observations that "East Angular" was abroad and Rio de Janeiro a person? Bazalgette, the rather posh chairman of Endemol UK, has become accustomed to criticism for shows ranging from Changing Rooms to Pet Rescue, their popularity blamed for helping take television downmarket. "I call it the Tchaikovsky first piano concerto syndrome," he says in a wine bar near his Notting Hill home.
"It states that if everybody likes something, it can't be any good. How many food snobs would still be raving about white truffles if they were ubiquitous? I've always enjoyed entertaining people - and the more the better."
A gastronome himself, who created the formats for Ready Steady Cook and Can't Cook Won't Cook, Bazalgette, 49, has become a powerful force in the television establishment since bringing mass audiences to Changing Rooms, Ground Force and, most famously, Big Brother. He delights in the fact that, as last summer's third series was being mauled by critics, its viewing figures were up by almost 30 per cent - and that 110,000 people applied to be in Big Brother 4 this summer.
"We're down to the last 50 or 100, and that's after weeding out all the Sun reporters," he says. "This year there's also been a Daily Telegraph reporter - he admitted it to me the other night." There will be a few changes to provide more "wit and warmth" - the house partition lowered audience satisfaction last year, so it won't be returning - but as Bazalgette admits, not everything can be planned for. "We thought that last year's were the nicest bunch of people, but they bickered more than earlier groups."
The public ridiculing of Jade, however, put Bazalgette on the defensive last year, as the programme faced accusations of exploiting her apparent emotional instability. He still resents the barbs. "We pick people very carefully, using psychologists to screen them, and giving them the 'talk of doom' to warn them of the pressures ahead. Only robust people get through, and Jade was robust - she's splendid. We were told we had ruined her life, even though she was able to complete her education with money she earned from the News of the World.
"The Jade phenomenon was extraordinary. A lot of the things the tabloids said about her were disreputable. It's one of the only times I can recall where the papers realised how cruel they were being and atoned for it by urging her to win." Last December, on behalf of the the Conservative Party, Theresa May invited Bazalgette to join a non-partisan commission to examine why young people were not voting.
Some interpreted this as an attempt "to improve Iain Duncan Smith's image - which was mindcrunchingly ghastly, more than I could bear." He did not pursue Ms May's call. Bazalgette is astutely aware of politics with a small "P", though, and sprinkles our discussion with flattering references to executives with influence. He's also no slouch at being upbeat about his own successes, skimming lightly over any disappointing viewing figures.
AFTER leaving Cambridge, where he was president of the Union, Bazalgette joined the BBC in 1977 as a news trainee. He worked as a researcher on That's Life and reported for Man Alive before getting his big break producing the Food and Drink programme, where he claims to have created the celebrity chef. He continued producing the show under his own company, which is now part of Endemol, a company that extends to 21 territories.
He is just back from a management meeting in Courchevel, where attention focused on designing shows which, like Big Brother, can be exploited on a variety of media, from digital TV to mobile phones. "We are saying to people: 'join in, it's yours'. And the audiences love being drawn in. It's the beginning of something very big." But how far can the "reality TV" trend stretch? Bazalgette disdains the very phrase. "I don't know what 'reality TV' means," he says, aware that, to his critics, it has become a term of abuse. "TV programmes used to be either light entertainment, sitcom, soap, sport, or news. We've invented shows that are all this and more. Look, when TV does something new, it doesn't replace what went before it; it adds to it. All I'm concerned about is delivering entertainment experiences to people on multiple media.
"On current evidence, this type of programming has rather a good future. When there's a breakthrough in a TV format, it'll instantly be ripped off and they'll be lots of lookalike shows. The broadsheet commentators might slag it off, but they're neophytes." Are there any populist formats, then, that he would not pursue? "Well, I've heard of one idea that was too extreme," he says. " Infertile couples would play in a game show to win free IVF. Now, that's not a show I'd like to be involved in." He smiles. "I'd hate to think of where the webcam would be."
(Evening Standard, March 26 2003)
HE is, according to his critics, the cynical vulgarian who killed serious television with Big Brother and Fame Academy, a "cold manipulator of people", in Victor Lewis-Smith's view, or quite simply one of the Daily Mail's "100 worst Britons". So imagine the highbrow fury last week when the Royal Television Society, no less, praised Peter Bazalgette's "unabashed populism" as it gave him a special award for "changing the terms of factual television".
Wasn't this the man for whom " factual" broadcasting meant Jade Goody's observations that "East Angular" was abroad and Rio de Janeiro a person? Bazalgette, the rather posh chairman of Endemol UK, has become accustomed to criticism for shows ranging from Changing Rooms to Pet Rescue, their popularity blamed for helping take television downmarket. "I call it the Tchaikovsky first piano concerto syndrome," he says in a wine bar near his Notting Hill home.
"It states that if everybody likes something, it can't be any good. How many food snobs would still be raving about white truffles if they were ubiquitous? I've always enjoyed entertaining people - and the more the better."
A gastronome himself, who created the formats for Ready Steady Cook and Can't Cook Won't Cook, Bazalgette, 49, has become a powerful force in the television establishment since bringing mass audiences to Changing Rooms, Ground Force and, most famously, Big Brother. He delights in the fact that, as last summer's third series was being mauled by critics, its viewing figures were up by almost 30 per cent - and that 110,000 people applied to be in Big Brother 4 this summer.
"We're down to the last 50 or 100, and that's after weeding out all the Sun reporters," he says. "This year there's also been a Daily Telegraph reporter - he admitted it to me the other night." There will be a few changes to provide more "wit and warmth" - the house partition lowered audience satisfaction last year, so it won't be returning - but as Bazalgette admits, not everything can be planned for. "We thought that last year's were the nicest bunch of people, but they bickered more than earlier groups."
The public ridiculing of Jade, however, put Bazalgette on the defensive last year, as the programme faced accusations of exploiting her apparent emotional instability. He still resents the barbs. "We pick people very carefully, using psychologists to screen them, and giving them the 'talk of doom' to warn them of the pressures ahead. Only robust people get through, and Jade was robust - she's splendid. We were told we had ruined her life, even though she was able to complete her education with money she earned from the News of the World.
"The Jade phenomenon was extraordinary. A lot of the things the tabloids said about her were disreputable. It's one of the only times I can recall where the papers realised how cruel they were being and atoned for it by urging her to win." Last December, on behalf of the the Conservative Party, Theresa May invited Bazalgette to join a non-partisan commission to examine why young people were not voting.
Some interpreted this as an attempt "to improve Iain Duncan Smith's image - which was mindcrunchingly ghastly, more than I could bear." He did not pursue Ms May's call. Bazalgette is astutely aware of politics with a small "P", though, and sprinkles our discussion with flattering references to executives with influence. He's also no slouch at being upbeat about his own successes, skimming lightly over any disappointing viewing figures.
AFTER leaving Cambridge, where he was president of the Union, Bazalgette joined the BBC in 1977 as a news trainee. He worked as a researcher on That's Life and reported for Man Alive before getting his big break producing the Food and Drink programme, where he claims to have created the celebrity chef. He continued producing the show under his own company, which is now part of Endemol, a company that extends to 21 territories.
He is just back from a management meeting in Courchevel, where attention focused on designing shows which, like Big Brother, can be exploited on a variety of media, from digital TV to mobile phones. "We are saying to people: 'join in, it's yours'. And the audiences love being drawn in. It's the beginning of something very big." But how far can the "reality TV" trend stretch? Bazalgette disdains the very phrase. "I don't know what 'reality TV' means," he says, aware that, to his critics, it has become a term of abuse. "TV programmes used to be either light entertainment, sitcom, soap, sport, or news. We've invented shows that are all this and more. Look, when TV does something new, it doesn't replace what went before it; it adds to it. All I'm concerned about is delivering entertainment experiences to people on multiple media.
"On current evidence, this type of programming has rather a good future. When there's a breakthrough in a TV format, it'll instantly be ripped off and they'll be lots of lookalike shows. The broadsheet commentators might slag it off, but they're neophytes." Are there any populist formats, then, that he would not pursue? "Well, I've heard of one idea that was too extreme," he says. " Infertile couples would play in a game show to win free IVF. Now, that's not a show I'd like to be involved in." He smiles. "I'd hate to think of where the webcam would be."
(Evening Standard, March 26 2003)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, March 26, 2003
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