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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday November 12 2000 10.38 GMT
- The Observer, Sunday November 12 2000
There was a time when 'commercial' was a dirty word at the BBC. Not so long ago, and many years after the puritanism of Lord Reith had been watered down, the sight of a branded cereal packet on a fictional BBC kitchen table or the accidental filming of a car manufacturer's name during a dramatic police chase was enough to send the prop handlers scurrying off for plain cardboard boxes or masking tape. Blue Peter had nothing on the creative inventions of BBC programme makers determined to protect the untainted name of the non-commercial BBC.
One might be charitable and say that BBC producers were demonstrating an admirable determination to protect their public funding. After all, many of their public-service counterparts around the world were slipping into that dangerous mixed economy which eventually saw the demise of the licence fee.
I suspect, however, that the attitude had less to do with preserving the sanctity of the licence fee and more with a patronising distaste for all things commercial. Advertising was grubby. Worse, it smacked of trade. It was sales manship, the kind of thing those horrid, spotty youths in white nylon shirts indulged in at your front door, trying to get you to buy an insurance policy or encyclopaedia.
One didn't enter a career in distinguished public service - even if it was making soap operas or sitcoms - to have it sullied by the tacky practice of feeding on other people's greed. As George Orwell once said: 'Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.'
Things have changed since then. Nevertheless, there is still a sneaking suspicion of ambivalence towards all things commercial at the BBC. This, presumably, is what lies behind Greg Dyke's critical comments about the BBC's business coverage, not to mention the words of his new business editor elect, Jeff Randall, about patronising, middle class, guilt-ridden do-gooders at the BBC. We haven't heard such unstinting praise since Norman Tebbit chaired the Tory Party.
I'm therefore reluctant to condemn unconditionally Dyke's idea of putting ads on the BBC s internet services. Nevertheless, it is a thoroughly lousy idea. This is not just because of the now well-trodden arguments about tips of icebergs, domino effects, or being-a-little-bit-pregnant - though I have no doubt that the principle, once breached, would be hard to sustain on other services. It is also because we ought to be interested in keeping a little cultural haven across all electronic media which is not steeped in the language of salesmanship.
Before I'm accused by Randall of indulging in the worst kind of guilt-ridden do-gooding, I should explain that I love advertising. Not only are some of the country's most ingenious and creative minds employed in producing some thoroughly entertaining commercial content, advertising is also the engine-room of a dynamic economy. It creates and sustains demand; it provides jobs. At its best, it is an art form.
Moreover, it offers vital information. Without advertising, I would never have known that my seven-year-old craves a Teksta interactive robotic puppy for Christmas. Nor, for that matter, would she - or the hundreds of other parents who have piled down to their local toy shops in the past few weeks, making it impossible to find a Teksta and, presumably, creating in the process one very successful toy manufacturer (not to mention one potentially very miserable seven-year-old).
Every media platform, every kind of content, almost every tangible surface has been given over in some form to brand names, symbols or outright pleas to buy. Advertisers are racking their brains to think of new ways of insinuating their messages into our lives. (The most novel idea I heard was for pubs to sell the space on men's urinals to makers of beer and hangover cures.) As media proliferate, so does the need for commercial ingenuity.
There's nothing wrong with that. Equally, there is nothing wrong with wanting to maintain a small public space - be it on television, radio or the internet - where we know we are not being targeted by people who want to sell us something. In a week when a former Goldman Sachs partner spent £40 million in New Jersey to advertise himself into the American Senate, we should think very carefully before surrendering our last remaining commercial-free public space to the salesmen.
The pro-advertising lobby usually consists of free-market enthusiasts who believe that a commercial environment guarantees greater sensitivity to the needs and wishes of consumers. But those who argue for consumer choice must accept that in Britain many people choose to watch TV or radio without interruptions from advertisers or sponsors. Dyke should accept that the same applies to the internet.
