Interview: Stuart Murphy, BBC3 (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
AT 26, he became British television's youngest channel controller. At 31, he launched BBC3, the celebrity-packed "young adult" channel initially blocked by the Government as "undistinctive". Now 33, Stuart Murphy rattles energetically through its track record - including six Baftas and five British Comedy Awards - as proof that his two-and-a-half-year-old is finally playing with the big boys. "Not that I feel young here," he reflects in his White City office. "I feel as if I'm about 45."
After a shaky start, BBC3 now has nine million weekly viewers and a 2.6 per cent audience share among its target 25 to 34 age range. It has spawned distinctive comedies such as Little Britain, original drama such as Casanova, and riskier adventures including Flashmob: The Opera.
Yes, the evening news has struggled, and ratings still rely rather too heavily on the hardly cuttingedge EastEnders. "But it's like a two-year-old in nappies at sports day," Murphy enthuses. "We're supposed to be running 100 metres against seven- and 15-year-olds, and in some areas we're beating them."
Murphy wants to shake things up. "It really annoyed me as a white lower-middle-class lad in Leeds that the BBC newsreaders, the voice of authority, came with a southern accent. It must be doubly annoying for a smart black kid from Leicester. So I wanted to do something where I could make a difference."
Rivals complain that Murphy has disproportionate amounts of cash with which to distort the market. His £93 million budget lets him risk licence money on shows which competitors say could never be justified by their audiences: according to one calculation, some BBC3 programmes have cost £1,300 per viewer.
Disingenuous, he replies: such calculations ignore the huge audiences which his more popular programmes attract when repeated on BBC1 and 2. Besides, he adds, his budget matches an "expensive" remit of developing current affairs, animation, original drama, factual and comedy shows.
"Yes, sometimes we've done things that were incredibly expensive that didn't work," he says - series such as Fightbox, a ratings disappointment which cost millions to make. "If you take big risks, you do get big failures. Equally, we came up with Little Britain. I'd like to see Five's Little Britain - they're on a similar budget, so there's no reason why they shouldn't have one. We've already won more awards than Sky One, ITV2, Five and E4 put together in their 20-year history."
Despite moans from commercial rivals, BBC3, he insists, is not simply staking out the same turf. "Where does the commercial sector make original drama for this audience?" he retorts. "Sky One doesn't. It makes Mile High, about people having sex on planes, without using new writers. On Sky One, ITV2, E4, Living, it's almost all bought in, and when they do do original stuff, it's either big analogue programmes spun off, or a superficial bit of crap like [Sky One's] Celebrity Snatch.
"Show me an animated satire like Monkey Dust, or something like our new thriller Funland, from a writer of The League of Gentlemen, directed by the director of Shameless, with The Royle Family's executive producer. That's something new that's adding to our culture, not simply buying in foreign culture."
But why spend licence money targeting the already well-served young-adult audience? They hardly represent the "digital refuseniks" whom the Government demanded the BBC attract. Indeed, the DCMS report last year into its digital channels, by Patrick Barwise, concluded that BBC3's "obsession with 25 to 34s" was "a creative straitjacket" from which it should be released.
"If you're in your mid-fifties, you'll love the BBC," Murphy says. "If you're a teenager or in your twenties, you've got Radio 1, bits of Radio 2 and BBC1 and 2, but no service which speaks to you about your distinct life stage, where you're old enough to have kids and a mortgage, yet still young at heart. You're part of a generation that's increasingly relaxed about drugs, or has seen your parents get divorced. That audience is feeling increasingly disengaged from mass institutions like politics ... or the BBC."
They're not watching the youth-oriented 7pm news, though, a key element in the Government's service requirement. Some days it has drawn too few viewers to measure. The Barwise report said the bulletin "achieves nothing and attracts tiny audiences" and represented poor value for money; the BBC governors, too, recently acknowledged that it "has not yet succeeded".
It sounds as if Murphy, too, is ready to give up. "We were asked to supply a news service that pulled in an audience, but we've got to be honest about the environment we're in, with seven rolling TV news services, hourly news on the analogue channels, the internet." He will not disclose his plan, only that it has been submitted to the DCMS for approval. In the meantime, he points to the ratings success of the channel's 60-second mini-bulletins.
IT IS odd to think that this fast-talking "creative wunderkind", as he has been described, once planned a diplomatic career. He took the Foreign Office exams while at Cambridge, only to mess up the final paper. Instead, he joined BBC Manchester as a tea boy, fortuitously catching the eye of Jane Root and Roly Keating. At 26, after spells at MTV and The Big Breakfast, he was running the music and comedy channel UK Play, before taking on BBC Choice. (He also found a BBC wife: Polly Ravenscroft, with whom he has two young sons, used to be head of press at Radio 1.)
His declared mission "to change people's perceptions" may not be the obvious inference from his autumn schedule. Yet he sees a factual series such as Honey We're Killing the Kids, which "scientifically" predicts how diet will affect a child in adult life, as "a catalyst for parents to alter their lifestyle". On Little Britain, back again but premiering on BBC1, the characters Lou and Andy "make people a lot more relaxed about seeing wheelchairs on screen".
It is tougher to divine any grand attempt at social engineering in Julia Davis's returning dark comedy Nighty Night, or a new allwomen sketch show, Tittybangbang. His biggest gamble is Funland, the thriller set in Blackpool, which, in Murphy's view, is his edgiest show yet - "very dark and Twin Peaksy, and a lot of people just might not like it".
So how will he measure the season's success? "It's a fair point. Success isn't an easy thing to define at the BBC. If you rate through the roof, generally you'll get criticism; if you don't rate, you'll get criticised. How would you define the channel's success?" Probably by the smile Mark Thompson gives Murphy at his summer party.
"That might be a worrying sign," he jokes. "Look, you're always going to be criticised. When senior BBC management vents anger at newspapers for criticising the BBC - well, it's so boring, as they say in Tittybangbang. Just get over it, and produce great shows that make a difference and take a risk."
(Evening Standard. August 10 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
AT 26, he became British television's youngest channel controller. At 31, he launched BBC3, the celebrity-packed "young adult" channel initially blocked by the Government as "undistinctive". Now 33, Stuart Murphy rattles energetically through its track record - including six Baftas and five British Comedy Awards - as proof that his two-and-a-half-year-old is finally playing with the big boys. "Not that I feel young here," he reflects in his White City office. "I feel as if I'm about 45."
After a shaky start, BBC3 now has nine million weekly viewers and a 2.6 per cent audience share among its target 25 to 34 age range. It has spawned distinctive comedies such as Little Britain, original drama such as Casanova, and riskier adventures including Flashmob: The Opera.
Yes, the evening news has struggled, and ratings still rely rather too heavily on the hardly cuttingedge EastEnders. "But it's like a two-year-old in nappies at sports day," Murphy enthuses. "We're supposed to be running 100 metres against seven- and 15-year-olds, and in some areas we're beating them."
Murphy wants to shake things up. "It really annoyed me as a white lower-middle-class lad in Leeds that the BBC newsreaders, the voice of authority, came with a southern accent. It must be doubly annoying for a smart black kid from Leicester. So I wanted to do something where I could make a difference."
Rivals complain that Murphy has disproportionate amounts of cash with which to distort the market. His £93 million budget lets him risk licence money on shows which competitors say could never be justified by their audiences: according to one calculation, some BBC3 programmes have cost £1,300 per viewer.
Disingenuous, he replies: such calculations ignore the huge audiences which his more popular programmes attract when repeated on BBC1 and 2. Besides, he adds, his budget matches an "expensive" remit of developing current affairs, animation, original drama, factual and comedy shows.
"Yes, sometimes we've done things that were incredibly expensive that didn't work," he says - series such as Fightbox, a ratings disappointment which cost millions to make. "If you take big risks, you do get big failures. Equally, we came up with Little Britain. I'd like to see Five's Little Britain - they're on a similar budget, so there's no reason why they shouldn't have one. We've already won more awards than Sky One, ITV2, Five and E4 put together in their 20-year history."
Despite moans from commercial rivals, BBC3, he insists, is not simply staking out the same turf. "Where does the commercial sector make original drama for this audience?" he retorts. "Sky One doesn't. It makes Mile High, about people having sex on planes, without using new writers. On Sky One, ITV2, E4, Living, it's almost all bought in, and when they do do original stuff, it's either big analogue programmes spun off, or a superficial bit of crap like [Sky One's] Celebrity Snatch.
"Show me an animated satire like Monkey Dust, or something like our new thriller Funland, from a writer of The League of Gentlemen, directed by the director of Shameless, with The Royle Family's executive producer. That's something new that's adding to our culture, not simply buying in foreign culture."
But why spend licence money targeting the already well-served young-adult audience? They hardly represent the "digital refuseniks" whom the Government demanded the BBC attract. Indeed, the DCMS report last year into its digital channels, by Patrick Barwise, concluded that BBC3's "obsession with 25 to 34s" was "a creative straitjacket" from which it should be released.
"If you're in your mid-fifties, you'll love the BBC," Murphy says. "If you're a teenager or in your twenties, you've got Radio 1, bits of Radio 2 and BBC1 and 2, but no service which speaks to you about your distinct life stage, where you're old enough to have kids and a mortgage, yet still young at heart. You're part of a generation that's increasingly relaxed about drugs, or has seen your parents get divorced. That audience is feeling increasingly disengaged from mass institutions like politics ... or the BBC."
They're not watching the youth-oriented 7pm news, though, a key element in the Government's service requirement. Some days it has drawn too few viewers to measure. The Barwise report said the bulletin "achieves nothing and attracts tiny audiences" and represented poor value for money; the BBC governors, too, recently acknowledged that it "has not yet succeeded".
It sounds as if Murphy, too, is ready to give up. "We were asked to supply a news service that pulled in an audience, but we've got to be honest about the environment we're in, with seven rolling TV news services, hourly news on the analogue channels, the internet." He will not disclose his plan, only that it has been submitted to the DCMS for approval. In the meantime, he points to the ratings success of the channel's 60-second mini-bulletins.
IT IS odd to think that this fast-talking "creative wunderkind", as he has been described, once planned a diplomatic career. He took the Foreign Office exams while at Cambridge, only to mess up the final paper. Instead, he joined BBC Manchester as a tea boy, fortuitously catching the eye of Jane Root and Roly Keating. At 26, after spells at MTV and The Big Breakfast, he was running the music and comedy channel UK Play, before taking on BBC Choice. (He also found a BBC wife: Polly Ravenscroft, with whom he has two young sons, used to be head of press at Radio 1.)
His declared mission "to change people's perceptions" may not be the obvious inference from his autumn schedule. Yet he sees a factual series such as Honey We're Killing the Kids, which "scientifically" predicts how diet will affect a child in adult life, as "a catalyst for parents to alter their lifestyle". On Little Britain, back again but premiering on BBC1, the characters Lou and Andy "make people a lot more relaxed about seeing wheelchairs on screen".
It is tougher to divine any grand attempt at social engineering in Julia Davis's returning dark comedy Nighty Night, or a new allwomen sketch show, Tittybangbang. His biggest gamble is Funland, the thriller set in Blackpool, which, in Murphy's view, is his edgiest show yet - "very dark and Twin Peaksy, and a lot of people just might not like it".
So how will he measure the season's success? "It's a fair point. Success isn't an easy thing to define at the BBC. If you rate through the roof, generally you'll get criticism; if you don't rate, you'll get criticised. How would you define the channel's success?" Probably by the smile Mark Thompson gives Murphy at his summer party.
"That might be a worrying sign," he jokes. "Look, you're always going to be criticised. When senior BBC management vents anger at newspapers for criticising the BBC - well, it's so boring, as they say in Tittybangbang. Just get over it, and produce great shows that make a difference and take a risk."
(Evening Standard. August 10 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
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