Some features of today's British life

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The popular newspapers are now commonly called “tabloids”, a word first used for pharmaceutical substances compressed into pills. The tabloid newspapers compress the news, and are printed on small sheets of paper.
They use enormous headlines for the leading items of each day, which are one day political, one day to do with crime, one day sport, one day some odd happening. They have their pages of political report and comment, short, often over-simplified but vigorously written and (nowadays) generally responsible. They thrive on sensational stories and excitement.

The two archetypal popular papers, the “Daily Mail”’ and “Daily Express” were both built up by individual tycoons in the early 20th century. Both had a feeling for the taste of a newly-literate public: if a man bites a dog, that’s news. The “Daily Express” was built up by a man born in Canada.
He became a great man in the land, a close friend and associate of Winston
Churchill, and a powerful minister in his War Cabinet. The circulation of the “Daily Express” at one time exceeded four million copies a day. Now the first Lord Beaverbrook is dead, and the daily sales are not much more than half of their highest figure. The history of the “Daily Mail”, with its more conventional conservatism, is not greatly different.

In popular journalism the “Daily Mirror” became a serious rival of the
“Express” and “Mail” in the 1940s. It was always tabloid, and always devoted more space to picture than to text. It was also a pioneer with strip cartoons. After the Second World War it regularly supported the
Labour Party. It soon outdid the “Daily Express” in size of headlines, short sentences and exploration of excitement. It also became the biggest- selling daily newspaper. For many years its sales were about four million; sometimes well above.

Until the 1960s the old “Daily Herald” was an important daily paper reflecting the views of the trade unions and the Labour Party. Then it went through several changes, until in the 1970s its successor, “The Sun”, was taken over by Mr Murdoch’s company. In its new tabloid form it became a right-wing rival to the “Daily Mirror”, with huge headlines and some nudity. In the 1980s its sales reached four million and exceeded the “Daily
Mirror”. Mr Murdoch’s News International already owned “The News of the
World”’, a Sunday paper which has continued to give special emphasis to scandals. But by 1990 its sales were only two-thirds of their former highest figure of eight million.

For a very long time the press has been free from any governmental interference. There has been no censorship, no subsidy. But for several decades it has seemed that some newspapers have abused their freedom. In competing with one another to get stories to satisfy a public taste for scandal, reporters and photographers have been tempted to harass individuals who have for one reason or another been involved, directly or indirectly, in events which could excite public curiosity. Prominent people of all kinds, as well as obscure people who come into the news as victims of crimes or accidents, have been pursued into their homes for photographs and interviews.

Local and Regional Papers.

Local morning papers have suffered from the universal penetration of the
London-based national press. Less than 20 survive in the whole England, and their combined circulation is much less than that of “The Sun” alone. Among local daily papers those published in the evenings are much more important.
Each of about 70 towns has one, selling only within a radius of 50 to 100 kilometres. The two London evening papers, the “News” and “Standard”, together sold two million copies in 1980, but they could not survive, and merged into one, now called “The London Evening Standard”.

Most local daily papers belong to one or other of the big press empires, which leave their local editors to decide editorial policy. Mostly they try to avoid any appearance of regular partisanship, giving equal weight to each major political party. They give heavy weight to local news and defend local interests and local industries.

The total circulation of all provincial daily newspapers, morning and evening together, is around eight million: about half as great as that of the national papers. In spite of this, some provincial papers are quite prosperous. They do not need their own foreign correspondents; they receive massive local advertising, particularly about things for sale.

The truly local papers are weekly. They are not taken very seriously, being mostly bought for the useful information contained in their advertisements. But for a foreign visitor wishing to learn something of the flavour of a local community, the weekly local paper can be useful. Some of these papers are now given away, not sold out but supported by the advertising.

The Weekly and Periodical Press.

Good English writing is often to be found in the weekly political and literary journals, all based in London, all with nationwide circulations in the tens of thousands. “The Economist”, founded in 1841, probably has no equal everywhere. It has a coloured cover and a few photographs inside, so that it looks like “Time”’, “Newsweek” or “Der Spiegel”, but its reports have more depth and breadth than any these. It covers world affairs, and even its American section is more informative about America than its
American equivalents. Although by no means “popular”, it is vigorous in its comments, and deserves the respect in which it is generally held.
“Spectator” is a weekly journal of opinion. It regularly contains well- written articles, often politically slanted. It devotes nearly half its space to literature and the arts.

“The Times” has three weekly supplements, all appeared and sold separately. The “Literary Supplement” is devoted almost entirely to book reviews, and covers all kinds of new literature. It makes good use of academic contributors, and has at last, unlike “The Economist”, abandoned its old tradition of anonymous reviews. “New Scientist”4, published by the company which owns the “Daily Mirror”, has good and serious articles about scientific research, often written by academics yet useful for the general reader.

One old British institution, the satirical weekly “Punch”’, survives, more abrasive than in an earlier generation yet finding it hard to keep the place it once had in a more secure social system. Its attraction, particularly for one intellectual youth, has been surpassed by a new rival,
“Private Eye”, founded in 1962 by people who, not long before, had run a pupils’ magazine in Shrewsbury School. Its scandalous material is admirably written on atrocious paper and its circulation rivals that of “The
Economist”.

Glossy weekly or monthly illustrated magazines cater either for women or for any of a thousand special interests. Almost all are based in London, with national circulations, and the women’s magazines sell millions of copies. These, along with commercial television, are the great educators of demand for the new and better goods offered by the modern consumer society.
In any big newsagent’s shop the long rows of brightly covered magazines seem to go on for ever; beyond the large variety of appeals to women and teenage girls come those concerned with yachting, tennis, model railways, gardening and cars. For every activity there is a magazine, supported mainly by its advertisers, and from time to time the police bring a pile of pornographic magazines to local magistrates, who have the difficult task of deciding whether they are sufficiently offensive to be banned.

These specialist magazines are not cheap. They live off an infinite variety of taste, curiosity and interest. Their production, week by week and month by month, represents a fabulous amount of effort and of felled trees. Television has not killed the desire to read.

Radio and Television.

Since the 1970s 98% of British households have had television sets able to receive four channels, two put out by the BBC, two by commercial companies. Commercial satellite and cable TV began to grow significantly in
1989-1990, and by 1991 the two main companies operating in Britain had joined together as British Sky Broadcasting. By 1991 about one household in ten had the equipment to receive this material.

Every household with TV must by law pay for a licence, which costs about the same for a year as a popular newspaper every day.

Unlike the press, mass broadcasting has been subject to some state control from its early days. One agreed purpose has been to ensure that news, comment and discussion should be balanced and impartial, free of influence by government or advertisers. From 1926 first radio, then TV as well, were entrusted to the BBC, which still has a board of governors appointed by the government. The BBC’s monopoly was ended in 1954, when an independent board was appointed by the Home Secretary to give licences to broadcast (“franchises”) to commercial TV companies financed by advertising, and called in general independent television (ITV). These franchises have been given only for a few years at a time, then renewed subject to various conditions.

In 1990 Parliament passed a long and complex new Broadcasting Act which made big changes in the arrangements for commercial TV and radio. The old
Independent Broadcasting Authority, which had given, franchises to the existing TV and radio companies, was abolished. In its place, for TV alone, a new Independent Television Commission was set up in 1991, with the task of awarding future franchises, early in the 1990s, either to the existing companies or to new rivals which were prepared to pay a higher price. The
Commission also took over responsibility for licensing cable programme services, including those satellite TV channels which are carried on cable networks. The new law did not change the status of the BBC, but it did have the purpose of increasing competition, both among broadcasters and among producers. It envisaged that a new commercial TV channel, TVS, would start in the early 1990s.

The general nature of the four TV channels functioning in 1991, seems likely to continue, with BBC1 and ITV producing a broadly similar mixture of programmes in competition with each other. ITV has a complex structure.
Its main news is run by one company, Independent Television News, its early morning TV— a.m. by another. There are about a dozen regional companies which broadcast in their regions for most each day, with up to ten minutes of advertisements in each hour, between programmes or as interruptions at intervals of twenty or thirty minutes. These regional companies produce some programmes of local interest and some which they sell to other regions, so that for much of each day the same material is put out all through the country. Some of BBCl’s programmes are similarly produced by its regional stations. BBC2 and the independent Channel 4 (which has its own company) are both used partly for special interest programmes and for such things as complete operas.

By international standards it could reasonably be claimed that the four regular channels together provide an above-average service, with the balance giving something to please most tastes and preferences. Some quiz- shows and “soap operas”’, or long-running sagas, attract large numbers of viewers and to some extent the BBC competes for success in this respect.
But minority preferences are not overlooked. In Wales there are Welsh- language programmes for the few who want them. There are foreign language lessons for the general pubic, as well as the special programmes for schools and the Open University2. BBC news has always kept a reputation for objectivity, and the independent news service is of similar quality.

Television is probably the most important single factor in the continuous contest for the public’s favour between the political parties. Parties and candidates cannot buy advertising time. At intervals each channel provides time for each of the three main political parties for party-political broadcasts, and during an election campaign a great deal of time is provided for parties’ election, always on an equal basis.

Minor parties get time, based partly on the number of their candidates.
In Wales and Scotland the nationalist parties get TV time on the same basis as the three others. Studios and transmitters must be provided free of charge. But often a party prefers to film a broadcast outside the studio at its own expense, for greater impact.

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