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- guardian.co.uk, Monday October 23 2000 15.05 BST
- The Guardian, Monday October 23 2000
Greg Dyke's ruthless crusade to revitalise BBC1 raises the question: what is BBC2 for? To experts and viewers alike it seems it is being sacrificed, stripped of distinctive features, to shore up the main channel in its battle with ITV. "I'm not quite sure what it's about - a heritage channel for the over-45s, middle England, which sees history as something comfortable?" suggests Tim Gardam, director of programmes at Channel 4.
A crucial signal of BBC2's newly demoted status came last week, when Attachments, the Tony Garnett-produced dotcom drama, a rare treat for BBC2, was pitted against Men in Black, the blockbuster Hollywood movie. It slumped to a 4% share, and audience of 1m. Experts gasped because both products appealed to younger audiences. A former BBC scheduler commented: "Before all of this, Attachments would have been sheltered." But then perhaps it looks out of place on what BBC2 seems set to become.
The most high-profile example of plunder is the sudden loss of its biggest hit, Have I Got News for You, which switched to BBC1 to run at the same time, 9pm on Fridays. It was expected to move next autumn, not this. This dealt a sudden death blow to BBC2's established Friday night comedy zone. Now BBC1 has cornered the Friday comedy slot and another on Mondays for good measure (One Foot in the Grave and The Royle Family). Friday night on BBC2 is to settle down as a soft history/documentary zone, the place where gardening and lifestyle gives way to programmes liked by middle-aged viewers. True, it also has a History Zone on Saturday nights, but that's for tougher history series, following on from the foreign affairs gem Correspondent. BBC1 doesn't want the Arts Zone either - that stays on BBC2 on Sundays.
Where BBC2's new comedy zone will go is still not clear: Mondays and Thursdays are being researched, says scheduler Liam Keelan, but as there is nothing urgent to go in them, this probably won't be resolved until January when series like Never Mind the Buzzcocks return. It will not lose its role as a nursery bed for comedy talent - it still has the pilot of a predicted new Johnny Vaughan hit, 'Orrible - but whether the priority is to make new BBC2-style hits or programmes that might be suitable for transplanting to BBC1 remains unclear.
As Lorraine Heggessey, controller of BBC1, made clear last week, there will be more collaboration between the two. Greg Dyke rather let the cat out of the bag at Edinburgh when he said he wasn't quite sure what BBC2 was about. One producer saw the BBC's rethink this way: "It's a huge problem for [BBC2 controller] Jane Root." "I feel really sorry for her," agrees Gardam.
Root, meanwhile, claims to be relaxed. The upside, she says, is that there is more capacity to commission other things, and the blows have been softened with an extra £25m this year to boost her budget.
"She thought she was running one sort of channel, and has made a good try at giving it some identity. Now it has got to be an adult channel, with leisure, cooking - home counties television," said an insider. Masterchef has been moved across to BBC2 to compensate, as have repeats of The X Files, and a series about life in PoW camps in the second world war.
Further, a new concept of sharing hit programmes has been conjured up. Though BBC2 will continue to strip The Weakest Link, a hasty weekly champions' version of the show will go on prime-time BBC1. As for Robot Wars, BBC2's cult boys' show, there's a BBC1 Christmas special in the works. Panorama has not moved to BBC2, though Dyke would clearly love it to, because the governors defended its place on BBC1; as with Question Time, though, it is probably only a matter of time.
The real problem for Root is ratings. So far this year BBC2 has averaged a share of 10.8%, close to the figure it has held steadily for a decade. She has the chance to fight back by, for example, pitching comedy against Panorama and the 10pm news. In prime time last week BBC2 was down around 2.3%, and may well slip below 10% as the new schedules bite. In fairness, all the minority channels were hit last week. But television is a tough business. It's hard not to see a controller being blamed for falling ratings, even though it is not their fault.
