The biggest problem for television is its viewers

Michael Hedges October 8, 2007

Those who toil in television broadcasting, the producers, actors, technicians, do a magnificent job. We can tell because people watch, still watch, after being told over and over that television is rubbish. Television isn’t more or less terrible than it’s been since the blue glow invaded the worlds’ living rooms. Television is just – always – there.

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British television is in the throes of an identity crisis. Sixty years on, it’s far too late to call it a mid-life crisis. Everybody wants more ‘better’ television so long as everybody can come to agreement on ‘better’ and nobody is forced to pay the bill.

The ‘Queengate/Crowngate’(see note below) row has claimed a few heads, a certain victory for the UK’s tabloid newspapers, themselves looking for a reason to live. The issue of oversight – and shortsightedness – of the broadcaster, in this case the BBC, is serious. But it isn’t fatal, as television’s history shows. Let us not confuse horizontal motion with progress.

People the world over like television because of what it does best. Television ‘cools,’ as Marshall McLuhan observed 50 years ago. It brings a bit of theater to the relaxed and private environment of the home. Television is something to have on.

Parallel to the episode of rearranging a few shots in a promo/trailer is the clearly egregious deception in game shows. Both the BBC and ITV are on the plank for taking viewers money, through telephone toll charges, in the viewers’ belief that their paid-for vote actually counts. When producers didn’t have – or didn’t like – the actual result adjustments were made, at least once making a production staff member the winner. OK; it’s fraud. It’s an outrage.

American television faced the same outrage fifty years ago. Granted, the medium was quite young in the late 1950’s and nobody was quite sure what television was supposed to be…other than on. That innocence ended as popular games shows were unmasked. What people thought they were seeing was, in fact, more than a little slight of hand.

Quiz and game shows were a mainstay of American television in the 1950’s, only a short step from popular radio programs of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Many featured celebrities and several created them. Groucho Marx hosted You Bet Your Life. The $64,000 Question became the highest rated show on television. Indeed, the phrase “the $64,000 question” endures today worldwide, cliché for ‘a great challenge.’

Reality TV – today’s genre de jour – owes its life and popularity to the television game shows of the 1950’s. Contestants were ‘chosen’ from the studio audiences, all live and in black and white. Real people, it seemed, had a real chance at fame and fortune.

“We tried too hard to dramatize, to make the game visual,” said early US TV pioneer Mark Goodson, quoted in David Sams and Bob Shook’s extraordinary 1987 book Wheel of Fortune. “We had yet to learn that what's interesting on television isn't appearance but content.”

In 1957 Herbert Stemple achieved fame and a $48,000 fortune answering questions correctly on the game show Twenty One. He was unseated by the more telegenic Charles Van Doren, who went on to win more than $125,000 and have his face on the cover of Time magazine. Stemple groused that Van Doren had been given the questions, if not the answers, in advance. Nobody paid attention.

Also in 1957 a contestant on a different game show sued the producers, claiming rigging, and settled out of court. A year later a stand-by contestant saw another contestant ‘studying a notebook containing all the answers.’ He took the ‘discovery’ to the producers, rather than court, and received ‘a settlement’. He also told his story to the New York Post (pre-Murdoch). The newspaper ran with it.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), then operating under the now rejected 1934 Communications Act, and the New York City District Attorney’s office also ran with it. Van Doren gave testimony to the US Senate in 1959 that he had been given answers in advance, under orders from Twenty One sponsor Charles Revson (Revlon), perhaps the godfather of product placement. He also revealed that producers had given him stage directions, such as when to pause or nod his head.

Games shows were cancelled. Sponsors ducked for cover. Television audiences dropped. Nobody went to jail.

Television broadcasters were given a fait accompli by the FCC: you clean it up or the US Congress will. Networks gave more power to ‘standards and practices’ offices – referred to then and now as the ‘censor.’ US broadcasters put more teeth into self-regulation by strengthening the National Association of Broadcasters NAB Code of Practice, adherence to which became an important criterion for FCC license renewals.

“It was a terrible thing to do to the American people,” said US President Dwight Eisenhower in a 1959 televised speech about the game show scandals. In 1950 a scant 10% of Americans had a television set. By 1960 it was 90%. Innocence was over and it was on TV.

Differences between the US game show scandals of the 1950’s and today’s scandal in the UK are many. The regulatory environments are very different; the UK media regulator OFCOM seems to want minute control, the FCC in the 1950’s was wary of the potential harm to nascent television. The medium is different, bigger, more sophisticated; even if the basic interests of television audiences are same. Certainly the fraud of non-disclosure regarding telephone toll charges is unique to the UK (and Europe) given that telephone voting in games shows with viewers contributing to the broadcasters revenue was not used in the US until fairly recently.

Everybody is innocent, relying on both definitions of the word. Producers and broadcasters are, arguably, doing their jobs: producing and showing television. It’s show business. And it’s a magnificent calling. Viewers know this and, if participation on YouTube is any judge, they sometimes want to play, too. Critics, many of whom still tilt against TV’s very existence, need to get out more, meet a few people, chill. Television will take care of itself because the viewers will decide.

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On October 9, 2007 Martin Ball, author, Crowngate, Weymouth, UK wrote:

Would it not benefit readers, if it was made clear what these terms refer to? "Crowngate" refers to the fact that a chapter of the history of England has been re-written, namely, that concerning King George III and is the subject of a book. "Queengate" refers to the "walking out" fiasco with regard to the BBC.