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Broadcasting policy of a John Smith government
RobinCarmody
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What would have been the stance of a John Smith government on broadcasting if he had survived and become Prime Minister in 1997? (Not with the vast majority Tony Blair had, but probably with a perfectly workable one compared to what Labour managed in four out of the six previous post-war elections where they had formed a government.)
Would the ITV/ILR mergers have continued in the same way, and would Sky have been given such carte blanche? Might there have been an attempt, if not to halt multichannel altogether, at least to introduce rules restricting foreign ownership which might have affected Sky and some of the channels on it? Might such a government also have had a different attitude to the plutocratic takeover of football, which could also have affected Sky considerably?
I'm not suggesting for a moment that there would have been a replication of the Marine Offences Act, but a Smith government would have been less pop-culture-orientated than Blair's, and less driven by boomers determined specifically to revenge and refute that part of the party's history. While the Sun acknowledged in its editorial after Smith died that he would have been the next PM, I can't see him making a de facto pact with that paper's owner as Blair did. So it would have been interesting to see how a Smith government would have attempted to reconcile the party's historic stance in this field (which ironically had, pre-Thatcher, been shared more frequently by Tory voters than Labour ones - the same thing applies in reverse) with the broader technological explosion. There might have been tensions there weren't really with Blair.
Would the ITV/ILR mergers have continued in the same way, and would Sky have been given such carte blanche? Might there have been an attempt, if not to halt multichannel altogether, at least to introduce rules restricting foreign ownership which might have affected Sky and some of the channels on it? Might such a government also have had a different attitude to the plutocratic takeover of football, which could also have affected Sky considerably?
I'm not suggesting for a moment that there would have been a replication of the Marine Offences Act, but a Smith government would have been less pop-culture-orientated than Blair's, and less driven by boomers determined specifically to revenge and refute that part of the party's history. While the Sun acknowledged in its editorial after Smith died that he would have been the next PM, I can't see him making a de facto pact with that paper's owner as Blair did. So it would have been interesting to see how a Smith government would have attempted to reconcile the party's historic stance in this field (which ironically had, pre-Thatcher, been shared more frequently by Tory voters than Labour ones - the same thing applies in reverse) with the broader technological explosion. There might have been tensions there weren't really with Blair.
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He would have had a country to run.
The major decisions (including allowing ITV companies to merge/buy out a weaker region) had already been made. BBC, and Sky haven't really changed much.
Unusual first name
I know they had. I simply speculated as to whether it would have been practically possible to reverse them to some extent.
I think the regional studios would have been slimmed down, but OFCOM would have insisted on a minimum amount of regional programming. You'd probably end up with continuity being centralised and an ITV ident on national programmes, but the regional identities would have remained for local programmes and I'd imagine programmes like Border Sports Action still being around.
Indeed I think a Smith government would have been better for television than Blair as with a weak OFCOM and ITV becoming centralised, quality became worse.
To some extent, this is quite true. Labour definitely encouraged the BBC to diversify and broaden its scope, and its proactive stance in this field *was* wholly different from the malevolent terror vandalism of the Cameron government, whatever some people might say. No doubt a Tory government in the early 2000s would have kept the BBC wholly to its existing outlets.
But while there is a clear difference between Blair and Cameron on this front, there is also a clear difference between Blair's attitude to the wider broadcasting market and that of any previous Labour government. While there was still a residual support for public broadcasting which the current government obviously doesn't have, there was also an indifference to the wider idea and principle of a common culture which separated the Blair government from what John Smith would have tried to create (some would say that encouraging multiple BBC channels was actually part of this - I wouldn't, particularly, though the launch of 1Xtra actually helped to push the music it played out of the mainstream for a while, and create the much more Blair-friendly landfill era).
I understand why people say that it wouldn't have been practical to do things any differently, and that a common culture would have been irrecoverable anyway and might have slipped out of the government's control to such an extent that the entire governing platform would have lost its credibility, but I still find Glenn A's post at 14:24 believable and credible here.
To what? To the plutocracy that Ed Miliband shows no real desire to challenge, despite his positive words in other fields? No thanks.