Tài liệu Part 14- Britain docx

1 1)0 15 The economy and everyday life Some well -known names The best known supermarket chains arc Sainsbury and Tcsco. although there arc others. Asda is the best known of many d iscou nt stores. There is on ly one department store with a large number of branches. This is Marks & Spencer. It is so well -known that it is often referred to as 'Marks and Sparks' or just 'M and S'. To the British, clothes at M and Sarc typical of the middl e range: thcj -are neither cheap nor expensive. fairly good quality and rather conservative. Unlike most other departme nt stores, M and S also has a 'food hall', where item s arc mor e expe nsive than they are in supermar kets. In a category all by Irse lfi s Wool- wort h's, wh ich used to have a branch in almost every high street in the co untry. It sells most ly sweets, mus ic. foys and children 's clothes of the cheaper kind. Q UES TIONS stay op en very late on some evenings as a way of putting new lif e into th eir' dead' town centres. But the mo st significant change in recent years has been w ith reg ard to Sundays. By the early I 990 S man y shops, includin g cha in stores, were opening on so me Sundays. especially in the period b ef or e Christmas. In d oing this they we re taking a risk w ith th e law . Sometimes they were taken to court, sometimes not. The rules were so old and confused that n obod y really kn ew w ha t wa s and what wa sn't legal. It wa s agr e ed that somethi ng had to be d on e. On one side we re t he 'Keep Sun day Special' lo bby, a grou p of peo ple fro m various Christian churches and trade uni ons. They argued that Sunday s ho uld be s pec ial, a day of rest, a day for all th e f amil y to be tog ether. They also f ear ed th at Sunday- opening w o uld m ean t hat shop wor kers w ould be forced to work too man y hour s. On the other side were a number of lobbies, especially people from w om en 's and con sumer group s. They ar gued that working w om en needed m or e than one day (Satur day) in which to rush around doing the shopping. In an y case, the y argu ed , s ho pping wa s also something that the wh ole fam ily cou ld do tog eth er. In 1993 Parliament vo ted on the mailer . By a small majori ty, the idea of a comp lete 'free -for -all ' wa s d efea ted . S ma ll s ho ps are allowed to open on S undays f or as l ong as they like, but large shops and supermarkets can on ly op en for a maxim um of six hour s. I W hat are the d ifferences ( if an y) between the present role of trade unions in Britain and their role in your country? 2 H ow can banking be such an important pan of the British ec onom y when som e British people d on't even have bank accounts? 3 Here is an extract from a book written by a Frenchman who has spent a long time living in Eng land : Continentalsarealways discon certed by the Engli sh uuitude tow ork . They appea rneither to view it asah ea ry burden impos ed by fate . nortoemb race it asa s acr ed obligation. Effo rt is a matterof personal choice, and pa ymen t simply a quidproquo. (fr om Les Anglai s by Phillip e Daud y) Do y ou find the British attitude to wor k confus- ing ? In your cou ntry, do pe opl e see work as a 'h eavy b urde n ' or a 'sacred obligation' (or someth ing else) ? 4 In your countr y. do shops Slay open for m ore or fewe r hours a week than they do in Britain? Do yo u th ink the de -re gulati on of shop open ing hour s is a good thing? Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 16 The media British peopl e watch a lot of television. They arc also re porte d to be the world'smost dedicated home -video users. But this doe s not mean that they have given up reading. They are the wor ld's third biggest new spaper buyers; on ly the Japanese and the Swedes buy mo re. The imp ortance of the national press Newspaper publication is d omina ted by the national press, which is an indication of the comparative weakness of regional identity in Britain (see chapter f). Nearly 80% of all households buy a copy of one of the main national papers every day. There are more than eighty local and region al daily paper s; bu t the total circulation of all of them together is much less than the combined circulation of the national 'dailies', The only no n-national papers w ith significant cir- culations are published in the evenings. wh en they do not c omp ete with the national papers, which always appear in the mornin gs. Most local pap ers do not appear on Sundays. so on that day the do min ance of the nation al press is absolute. The 'Sunday papers' are so-called because that is the only day on which they appear. Some of them are sisters of a daily (published by the same company) but employing separate ed itors and journalists. The mo rning new spaper is a British househ old institution ; such an important one that, until the laws we re relaxed in the early 199° 5, newsagents were the on ly s ho ps that we re allo wed to o pen on Sundays. People could not be expected to do without their newspa- pers for even one day, especially a day wh en there was m or e free tim e to read them . The Sunday pap ers sell slightly mo re copies than the national dailies and are thicker. So me of them have six or more sections making up a total of well over 200 pages. Ano ther indicalion of the im parlance ofthe papers' is the morning 'paper round'. Most new sagents organize these , and more than ha lf of the country's readers gel th eir morning paper delivered to their d oor by a tee nag er who gets up at aro und ha lf -past five every day in order to earn a bit of extra poc ket money. The national papers and Scotland There is an exception to the domi n- ance of the national press throughout Britain. This is in SCOl - land. where one paper, the Sunday Pos t. sells well over a million copies. Another weekly. Scotland on Sunday. also has a largc circulation. There are three other notable 'Scotland only' papers. but two of these, the Clesgev H erold and the Scots man, are quality papers (see page I p) with small cir - culations and the other, the Daily Record, is actually the sister paper of the (London) Da ily Mirro r. The other national British papers are all sold in Scotland. altho ugh sometimes in special Scottish editions. 15 1 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 152 16The media Different approaches, different subjects Here arc some det ails of the front pages of some nati onal d ailies for one date (21) March 1993). For each paper. the first line is the main head - line and the figures in brackets are the height of the letters used f or it. • T he Sun I'V E MES SED UP MY LIF E (Hcm high) Topic: an interview wit h the Duchess of York Total text on page: 1 I) I) wor ds (one article) • Th e Daily Mirror £S m FERGIE'S HIJA CKED OUR CHA RITY (3.I) em) Topic: the activ ities of the Duchess of York Total text on page: 240 + words (two anicles) The two types of national new spaper Each of the national papers can be characterized as belong ing to one of two distinct categories. The 'quality papers' , or 'broadsheet s', cater for the better educated readers. The 'p opular paper s', or 'tab - loid s', sell to a mu ch larger reader ship . They contain far less print than the broadsheets and far mor e pictures. They use larger headlines and write in a simpler style of English. Whil e the bro adsheets devote much space to politics and oth er 'serious' news, the tabloids concen- trate on 'hu man interest' stories, whic h often mean s sex and scandal! How ever, the broadsheets do not comp letely ignore sex and scandal or any other aspect of public lif e. Both types of paper devote equal am ou nts of attention to sport. The difference between t hem is in the treatm ent of the topics they cover, and in whi ch topics are given the most p romin ence ( e- Differ en t ap p roa c hes, dr ffe rent subj ec ts). The reason that the quality newspapers are called bro adsheets and the pop ular one s tabloids is because they are different shapes. The broadsheets are twice as large as the tablo ids. It is a mystery why, in Britain, reading intellig ent pap ers shou ld need highly-developed skills of pap er-folding! But it certainly seems 10 be the rule. In 1989 a new paper was published, the SundayCorr es pon d ent , advertising it self as the cou ntry's first 'qu ality tabloid '. It closed after one year. ~ How ma ny do t hey se ll? Daily pap ers Sund ay Pap er s millio ns millions 4 0 S un Newsof the Wo rl d Da il yMi rror '" Sun day Mirr or DailyM ai l - People - D ai lyExpress - Mai lon Sunday - S tar - Sunday Expr ess - Dai ly Te legraph - S unda ySp ort • Guard ian - Sund ay Times - Ind epen dent - lun d ay Te legraph - T ime s - O bserver - Financ ia l Tim es • Ind ependent onS unday - • Th e Daily Express MI NIST ER URGES SCHOO L CO NDOMS (3 em) Topic: gov ernment cam paign to red uce te ena ge pr egna ncies Total text on page: 260 + wo rds (three articles] • The Times South Africa had nucl ear bombs , admits de Kl erk ( t. 7 em ) Total text on page: 1 ,9 ° 0 + word s (five articles) • Th e Guardi an Serb sh ellin g h alt s U N airlift (1.7 em) Topic: the wa r in the form er Yugo- slavia Total text on page: t .900 + w ord s (four articl es) • The Daily Telegraph T or y Maas tri ch t rev olt is beat en off {r.ccm) T opi c: discussi on of the Maastricht Treat}' in Parliament Total text on page: 2. 100 + wo rds (five arti cles) * Thi s is the com bined figure fo r the Daily Mirr or and the Daily Record The graph s abo ve s how the app roxi - mate average dailycirculation figures for national nev vspapers in the carl}' 1990s. You can see that the tabloid s sell about six times as ma n}' cop ies as the broadshee ts. This . • tabloids • broadsheets how ever, is an im pro ve ment on past decades. In 191)0, f or examp le. they sold twe nty times as many. E duca- tion seems to be having an effect on peopl e's read ing hab its. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. The characteristics of the national press: politics The way politics is presented in the national newspapers reflects the fact that British political parties are essen tially parliam ent ary organ - izations (see chapter 6) . A lthough differen t paper s have diff ering political outlooks, non e of the large newspapers is an organ of a political party. Many are often obviously in fa vour of the policies of this or that party (and even more obviou sly against the policies of another party). but none of them would ever use 'we' or 'us' to refer to a certain party ( e> P aper s and politic s). What counts for the new spaper publishers is business. All of them are in the business first and foremost to make m one y. Their primar y concern is to sell as many copies as possible and to attract as mu ch adverti sing as possible . They normally put selling copies ahead of political integrity. The abrupt turnabou t in the stance of the Scouish editi on of the Sun in early 1991 is a good example. It had previously, al ong with the Conservative party whic h it no rma lly supports, vigor- ously oppo sed any idea of Scottish independence or ho me rule; but w hen it saw the opinion polls in early 199 1 (and bearing in mind its comparatively low sales in Scotlan d), it decided to change its mind completely (see chapter 12 ). The British press is co ntro lled by a rat her small n umb er of extremely large multinational companie s. This fact helps to explain two notable features. One of these is its freed om f rom int erf erence fr om governmcnl influence, whic h is virtually absolute. The prcss is so power ful in this respect that it is sometim es ref erred to as 'the fourth estate' (the ot her thr ee being the C ommon s, the L or ds and the mo narch). This freedo m is en sured because there is a general The press: politics [ 5" 3 Pap er s and p olitic s None of the big nation al newspapers 'belongs' to a political part y. How ever, each paper has an idea of what kind of reader it is appealing to and a fairly predic table political outlook. Each can therefore be seen. rather simplistically, as occupying a certain position on the right- left spec trum . As rOll can see, the right seems to be heavily over -represented in the national press. This is not because such a large majorny of British people hold right-wing views. It is part ir because the press tends to be owned by Conse rvauvc part)' sup- porters. In an)' case. a large nu mber of readers are not ' ·crr Interested in the political coverage of a paper. They buy it for the sport. or the human mrercst stories. or for some oth er reason . Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 154 16 The media ~ Sex and scandal Sex and scandal sell newspapers. In September 1992, when there were plenty of such stories aroun d invol- ving famous people and royalty . sales of tabloids went up by 122,000. But in October, when stories of this kind had driedup, they fell by more than 200 ,000. Even the quality Observergot in on the acr. On II October 1992, its magazine section featured nine pages of photos of the pop~star Madonna taken from Sex (her best-selling book). That week . its sales were 74,000 greater than usual. The next Sunday, without Madonna, they were exactly 74 ,000 less than they had been the week before. feeling in the country that 'freedom of speech ' is a basic constitu- tional righ t. Astriking e xamp le of the im po rtan ce of freedom of speech occurred du ring the Second W orld War. D urin g this time, the country had a coalition go venun ent of Conservative and Labour politicians, so that there was really no opp osition in Parliament at all. At on e time, the cabinetwanted to use a special wartim e regulation to temp or arily ban the Da ilyMirr or, which had been consistently critical of the government. The Labour parly , which until then had been completely loyal to the go vernment , imme diately d emand ed a debate on the matter, and the other national papers, although they disagreed with the opini ons of the Mirror, all leapt to its d ef ence and opposed the ban . The government was forc ed to back d ow n and the Mir ror continued to appear through out the war. The characteristics of the national press: sex and scandal The ot her fea tur e of the nat ional press w hich is partially the result of the c omm ercial interests of its own ers is its shallowness. Few other European countries have a popular press which is so 'lo w'. Some of the tabloids have almost given up even the pretence of dealing with serious matters. Apart from sport , their pages are full of lutle except stories abou t the private lives of famous people. Sometimes their 'stories' are not articles at all, they are just excuses to s how pictures of almost naked women . During the I 980s, page thr ee of the Sun became infamo us in this respect and the wo men w ho posed for its pho tographs became kn own as 'page three girls'. The desire to attract mor e readers at all costs has meant that , these days, even the broadsheets in Britain can look rather 'p opular' wh en compared to equivalent 'quality' papers in so me other countr ies.They are still serious newspapers containing hig h- quaht y articles whose presentation of factual inf ormati on is usually reliable. But even they now give a lot of coverage to news with a 'human interest' ang le when they have the opport un ity. (The treatment by The Sun day T imes of Prince Charles and Princess Diana is an example - see chapter 7.) This emp hasis on revealing the details of people's private lives has led to discussi on abou t the possible n eed to restrict the freed om of the press. This is because, in behaving this way, the press has found itse lf in conflict with anot her British prin ciple whic h is as strongly felt as that of freedom of speech - the right to privacy. Many journalists now appear to spend their t ime trying to discover the mo st sensa- tional secrets of well- know n personalities, or even of ordinary peo ple who, by chance, find themselves conne cted wi th so me newsw orthy situation. There is a widespread feeling that, in doing so, they behave too intru sively. Complaints regarding invasions of privacy are dealt with by the Press C omp laints Commi ss ion (PCC). This organization is made up Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. of newspaper editors and jour nalists. In other word s, the press is sup pose d to regulate itself. It follows a Code of Practice whi ch sets limits on the extent to wh ich newspapers should publish det ails of peop le's private lives. Many peo ple are not happy with this arrange- ment and va rious governme nts have tried to fo rmu late laws on the matter. However, against the right to pri vacy the press has success- fully been able to oppose the concept of the public's 'right to know '. Of course, Britain is not the only country where the press is con - trolled by large com panies with the same single aim of making profits. So why is the British press more frivolou s?The answer may lie in the func tion of the British press for its readers. British adults never read c om ics. These pub lication s, whi ch consist entirely of picture stories, are read on ly by children. It wo uld be embarr assing for an adu lt to be seen reading on e. A du lts who want to read so me- thing very simp le, w ith plenty of pic tur es to help them , have almost nowhere to go but the nat ional press. Most peop le do n 't usc news- papers for 'serious' news. For this, t hey turn to another so urce- broadcasting. BEHIND SERB LINES ::~'~snia Examp les ofso me we ll- known we ekl y m ag a zin es The press: sex and scanda l l S"l)" The re st ofth e press If you go into any well-stocked newsagcm's in Britain . you will not only find newspapers. You will also see rows and rows of magazines catering for almost every imaginable taste and specializing in almost every i maginab le past ime. Among these pu blications there arc a few weeklies dealing with news and current affairs. Partly because the national press is so predic table (and often so trivial) , some of these periodicals manage to achieve a cir- culation of more than a hu ndred thousand. The Economist is of the same type as Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel and L'Expres s. Its analyses. however , are generally more thorough. It is fairly obviously right-wing in its views. but the writing is of very high -quality and that is why it has the reputation of being one of the best weeklies in the wo rld. The New S tatesmen and Society is the lcfi -wtn g equivalent of The Economist and is equa lly serious and well- wri tten . Private Eye is a satirical magazine whic h makes fun of all panics and politicians. and also makes fun of the mainstream press. It specializes in political scandal and , as a result. is forever defending itselfin legal actions. It is so omrageous that some chains of newsagems sometimes refuse 10 sell it. Although its humour is often very 'schoolboyish'. it is also well-written and it is said that no politician can resist reading it. The country's bestsell ing maga- zine is the Rad ioTimes, which, as well as listing all the television and radio programm es for the com ing wee k, contains some fifty pages of articles. (Note the typically British appeal (Q continuity in the name 'Radio T imes'. The magazine was first pub- lished before television existed and has never bothered to update its mle.) Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 156 16The media Bro adca sting Hause, headqu arters af the BBC High ideals and independence The ref erence to one man in the inscription on the right. which is fou nd in the entrance to Broad- casting House (headquarters of the BBC). is appropriate. British politi- cians were slow (0 appreciate the social significance ofthe wireless' (this is wha t the radio was generally known as until the 19 60s). More - over, bein g British, they did not like the idea of having to debat e culture in Parliament. They were only too happy 1O leave the matter [0 a sui t- able organization and its director general. John (later Lord) Reith. Rei th was a man w ith a mission. He saw in radio an opportunity for 'education ' and initiation into 'high culture' for the ma sses. He included light entertain me nt in the prog r am· mingo but only as a way of capturing an aud ience for the more 'impor t- ant' programmes of classical music and drama, and the discussions of various topics by famou s academ ics and authors w hom Reith had per- suaded to take pan . The BBC Just as the British Parliament has the reputation for being 'the mother of parlia me nts' , so the BBC might be said to be ' the moth er of inf ormation services'. Its reputation for impartiality and objectivity in n ew s reporting is, at least when compared to news broadcasting in many other countries. largely justified. Whenever it is accused of bias by one side of the political spectrum, it can always point out that the other side has complained of the same thing at some other time. so the complaints are evenly balanced. In fact, the BBC has often shown itself to be rather proud of the fact that it gets complaints from both sides of the political divide, because this testifies not only to its impartiality but also to its independence. Interestingly, though, this ind ep end ence is as muc h the result of habit and comm on agreem ent as it is the result of its legal status. It is true that it depends neither on advertising nor (directly) on the government for its incom e. It gets this from the licence fee whic h everybody who uses a television set has to pay. However, the govern- ment decides h ow much this fee is going 10 be, appoints the BB e' s boa rd of gove rnor s and its direc tor general, has the right 10 veto any THI S TEMPLETO THE ARTS AND MUSES IS DEDI CATED TO ALMIGHTY GO D BY TH E FIR ST GO VER NOR S IN TH E YEAR OF OUR LORD 19 3 1 JOH N RE ITH BEING DIRE CTOR -GE NERAL AND THEY PRAY THAT TH E GOOD SEED SO WN MAY BRI NG FORTH G OOD HARVESTS TH AT ALL THI NGS FOUL OR HO STIL E TO PEACE MAY BEBANI SHED H ENC E AND TH AT TH E PEOPLE INCLINI NG THEIR EAR TO WH ATSOEVER THI NGS ARE LO VELY AN D HONE ST WHATSOEVER THI NGS ARE OF GOOD REPORT MAYTREAD THE PATH OF VIRTU E AN D OF WI SDO M Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. BBC programme bef ore it has been transmitted and even has the right to take away the BBC's licence to broadcast. In the or y. therefore. it would be easy f or a government to influence what the BBC doc s. Nevertheless. partly by historical accident ( I> Hig h idea ls and independence). the BBC began. right from the start. to establish its effect- ive independenc e and its reputat ion for impartiality. This first occurred through the medium of radio broadcasts to people in Britain . Then. in 1932 the BBCWorld Service was set up. with a licence to broadcast first to the empire and then to other parts of the world. During the Second World War it became identified wi th the principles of dem ocracy and free speech. In thi s way the BBC's fame became int ern ation al. Today. the Worl d Service still broadcasts around the globe. in English and in several other languages. In 1986 the Prime Minister of India, Mrs IndhiraGhandi, was assassinated. Wh en her son Rajiv first heard reports that she had been attacked. he immediately tun ed to the BBC World Service to get details that he could rely O il. The BBC also runs five national radio stations inside Britain and several local one s ( I> BBC radio) . Televisi on : org anizati on In terms of the size of its audience, television has lon g since taken over from radio as the mos t sign ificant form of broadcasting in Britain. Its indepen dence fr om government interference is largely a matter of tacit agreem ent. There have been occ asions whe n the gov - er nme nt has successfully persuaded the BBC not to show something. But there have also been many occ asions whe n the BBC has refused [Q bow to gove r nment pressure. Most recent cases have involved Northern Ireland. For a brief period starting in the late t 980s . the govermnent broke with the co nvention of no n-in terference and banned the transmi ssion of interviews with membe rs of outlawed organizations such as the IRA on television . The BBC's response was to make a mock ery of this law by showing such interviews on the screen with an actor's voice (wit h just the right accent) dubbed over the mov ing mouth of the interview ee! There is no advertising on the BBC. But Independent Television (lTV). which started in ' 954. gets its money from the advertise- ments it screens. It consists of a numbe r of privately own ed com panies , each of wh ich is resp on sible for programnling in differ- ent pan s of the country on the Single channel given to it. In practice, these companies canno t aff ord to make all their own programmes, and so they generally share those they make. Asa result. it is co mmo n for exactly the same prog ramme to be show ing on the lTV channel th roughou t the country . When commercial television began, it was feared that advertisers w ould have too mu ch control over programming and that the n ew channel w ould exhibit all the wo rst features of tabloid journalism . The Labour party, in opposition at the time of its introduction, was Television : organization I ~7 BBC radi o Radio 1 began broadcasting in 1967 . Devoted almost entirely to pop music, its birth was aSignal that popular you th culture cou ld no longer be ignored by the country's established ins un uions. In spite of recent competition from independ- ent comme rcial ra dio stations. it still has over ten million listeners. Radio 2 broadcasts mainly light music and chat shows . Radio 3 is devoted to classical music. Radio 4-broadcasts a variety of pro- grammes. from plays and comedy shows to consumer advice pro- grammes and in-depth news coverage. It has a small but dedicated followi ng. Radio 5 is largely given over to sports coverage and news. Two particular radio programmes should be mentioned. Soap operas arc normally associated with televi- sion. but The Arch ers is actually the longest-running soap in the world . It describes itselfas 'an everyday story of country folk'. Its audience, which is mainly mid dle-class with a large proportion of elderly people, cannot com pare in size with the television soaps. but it has become so famous that everybody in Britain knows about it and tourist attrac- tions have been designed to capitalize on its fame. Another radio 'institution' is the live co mme ntary of cricket Test Matches in the slimmer (see chapter 21) . Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 158 16 The media absolutely against it. So were a nu m ber of Conservalive and Liberal po liticians. Over the years, howe ver, these fears have proved to be u nfo unded. Comme rcial television in Britain has not deve loped the habit of show ing progra mme s sponso red by manufactu rers. There has recently been some relaxat ion of this policy, but advertise rs have never had the influence over program ming that they have had in the USA. Most importantly for the structure of com merc ial television, lTV new s pro grammes are not made by individ ual television companies. In dep endent Television News (I TN) is owned jointly by all of them . For thi s and o ther rea son s, it has always been protected from com- The four channe ls These are the channels which all viewers in the co untry receive. Advertising N o Yes No Started 1982 Yes Early weekday mornings A ra ther relaxed style of news magazine punctuated with more formal news summaries Open University programmes A very informal breakfast sho w Mornings and earlyafternoons Late afternoons Evenings Popu lar discussion programmes. quizzes. soaps and a relaxed type of magazine programm e, usually with a male-female pair of presenters Children's programmes,which vary greatly in style and cont ent News (including regional news programmes) and the most popular soaps.dramas.comedies,films and various programmes of light entertainment and general interest Educational programmes, some aimed at schools and others with a m or e general educational purpose Gen era l docum entar y and features Documentar ies and programmes appealing to minority interests; drama and 'alternative' comed y; comparatively serious and 'in-d epth ' news programmes Open University (late at night) Weekends Much of weekend afternoons are devoted to sport. Saturday evenings include the most popular livevariety shows. 13,;;,1,14' Started in 1997 lt is a commercial channel (it g ets its money from advertising) which is rece ived by about two-thirds of British hou seholds. Its emphasis is on entertainme nt (for example , it screens a film every night at peak viewing time). However, it makes all other types of programme t oo . Of particular note is its unconventional presentation of the news,which is designed to appeal to younger adults. There is also a Welsh language channel for viewers in Wales. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. mercial influence. There is no sign ificam difference between the style and content of the new s on lTV and thai on the BBC. The same fears abou t the qua lity of television progr ammes that were expressed when lTV starred are now heard with regard to satellite and cable television.This time the fears may be more justified , as the comp anies that run satellite and cable television channels are in a sim ilar commercial and legal position to those which ow n the big ne\vspapers (and in some cases are actually the same companies). However, only abo ut a third of hou seholds receive satellite an d/or cable, and so far these channels have not significantly r edu ced the viewing figures for the main national channels. Televisi on : style Although the advent ofITV did no t affect television coverage of new s and current affairs, it did cause a change in the style and content of other programme s shown on television. The amount of money that a television compan y can charge an advertiser depends on the expected number of viewers at the time when the advertise ment is to be shown. Therefore, there was pressure on lTV from the start to make its ou tpu t popular. In its early years lTV captured nearly three- quarters of the BBC's audience. The BBC then resp ond ed by making its ow n prog rammes equa lly accessible to a mass audience. Ever since then , there has been little significant difference in what is sho wn on the BBC and commercial television. Both BB CI and lTV (and also the more recen t Channel 5) show a wide variety of pr ogramm es. They are in constant compe tition with each other to attract the largest audience (this is kno wn as the ratings war). But they do not each try to s how a m ore popular type of prog ram me than the other. They try instead to do the same type of prog ramme 'better '. Of particular importance in the rating s war is the p erf or mance of the channels' va riou s soap operas. The two most popu lar and long- running of these, which are shown at least twice a wee k, are not glamorous American productio ns s howing rich and powerful people (al tho ugh series such as D all as and D yna sty are somet imes shown). They are lTV's Coro nat io nSt ree t, which is set in a wor ki ng- class area near Manchester, and BBC1's Ea stEnd ers,which is set in a wor king- class area ofLo n do n. They, and oth er British -made soaps and p opu lar comedies, certainly do not paint an idealized picture of Hfe. Nor are they very sensational or dra matic. They depict (relatively) ordinary lives in relatively ordinary circumstances. So why are they popular? The answer seems to be that th eir v iewe rs can see themselves and other peo ple they k now in the characters and , even m or e so, in the things that happen to these char acters. The British prefer this kind of pse udo -realism in th eir soaps. In the early I 990S, the BBC spent a lot of money filming a new soap called Eldorodo, set in a small Spanish village which was home to a large number of expatriate British peo ple. A ltho ugh the BBC used its mo st Television: ,>ty k I ~9 Glu ed to th e gogg le box Aslong ago as 191) 1. it wav c: urnatcd that rwc ntj- million viewer watched the BBC\ cmc'rage of the coro nation of Queen Elizabeth II. By 197° .9+ % of B nush households had a television set (kno wn collo- qu ially as a 'goggle box '). mostly r ented rather than bought. Now. 99% of h ome hold s ow n or rent a television and the most pop ular pro - grammcs are watched by as many people as claim to read thc Sun and the DailyMirrorc ombined . Television broadcasting in Britain has expanded to fill C\"CT}' p an of every day of thc week. One of thc f our channel (lTV) never takes a break (it broadcasts for twenty-four ho urs) and the othe rs broadcast from around six in the morning until after m idnight. A survcy reported in early [99 + that +0% of British people watc hed more than three hour s of television cvery day: and [6% \vat chcd seven hours or more! Television new s is watched every day by more than half cfthc popu la- tion. Asa result , its prcscntcrs are among the best-kn own name s and faces in the wh ole country - one of them once boasted that he was mor e famous than royalty! Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. [...]... and Noel's House Party) and quiz shows are sometimes very popular (e g Countdown) It is unusual that on ly one comedy programme appears below (Red Dwarf) Cert ain cinema films can also gel high ratings (marked ** below) Science fiction remains a popular genre; Quantum Leap and Red Dwarf are bo th long -runn ing series Sports pr o grammes appear in the top ten when they feature a particular sporting... series (Horizon) The Annques Rccdshow comes fro m a diffe ren t locat ion in the country every wee k In it , local people bring along objects fro m their houses and ask experts how much they are worth Apart fro m the films, there is on ly one Ame rican pro gra m me in the list below (Quan tum leap) Character from 'Coronation Street' s The to p twenty telev ision pro grammes in t he first week of Feb . organ of a political party. Many are often obviously in fa vour of the policies of this or that party (and even more obviou sly against the policies of another party) large majorny of British people hold right-wing views. It is part ir because the press tends to be owned by Conse rvauvc part) ' sup- porters. In an)' case. a