Session 7: THE CURRENT AFFAIRS DEBATE
Dermot Murnaghan (BBC News): Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to this the Current Affairs Debate. We have set ourselves the very modest task of defining or redefining current affairs. Who knows? That shouldn't take long then should it. We will be looking at trends in programming around the world and asking whether the whole sector needs a big shake-up to start winning back its audiences. And it with all the sessions we really want you to make it your own. Your contribution from however far back you may be sitting is eternally welcome because we have made a session really to pose a lot of questions. You are the ones with the answers and if they're any good who knows we may make a current affairs programme out of it. Let's start by taking a look at one of the most influential programmes of recent years.
(runs videotape)
 So there we are, witnessing the television phenomenon I suppose of the new millennium "Big Brother" and no one can deny that it has been an enormous success. Next year's Middle East show will be the 25th version in all. The average audience for Big Brother Africa was 25 million in Brazil the final episode of series 3 was watched by 44 million people. So hundreds of people perhaps approaching 1000 have been through that Big Brother House or or hut or whatever people are using. And hundreds of millions of people around the globe have watched that programme. "But" I hear you cry instantly "that's not current affairs", no but it helped pave the way for a variety of reality television shows, some of which it can be argued are treading dangerously close now to current affairs territory. Have a look at this.
(runs videotape)
So that Wife Swap format has already been exported to other countries shows like this have already been described as blurring the lines between factual programming and entertainment. But are they even more? Are they the new current affairs? Let's get interactive ourselves now an open this up to the floor for some early soundings. We have Edward Mulhall here from RTE in Ireland. I wonder Edward whether you could let us know what reality TV programming is like in Ireland. I want to know what kind of shows you are doing their are they different from the British experience? Have you come up with anything unique?
Edward Mulhall (RTE): I wouldn't say unique, derivative is probably the best way of putting it. And I think that is true about reality TV is that they are all becoming derivative. We had a thing called Celebrity Farm which was the Irish version of it, which was sort of Y list celebrities, I think.
Dermot Murnaghan: I'm surprised you didn't ask me Edward!
Edward Mulhall: One of the impact of it was, was that it did bump the main current affairs programme which comes after the 9 o'clock News on Thursday night as opposed to being at half nine it was at half 10. It did help the audience but it didn't lose audience and there is a certain precedent there.
 Dermot Murnaghan: OK an impact there in terms of audiences on the current affairs output. But it is there anybody out there who would like to tell me about technique the devices, the television devices we have been witnessing there on Big Brother and Wife Swap, is that seeping over into the way current affairs is treated on anyone's programmes? Okay let's move on and think about what we are precisely talking about. Isn't filming people's real lives just the bread-and-butter I suppose of many current affairs programmes. That's what current affairs is about I suppose it's supposed to be about connecting with audiences. Sorius Samora achieved worldwide acclaim for his film Cry Freetown about his native Sierra Leone and I'm sure a lot of people will remember that. Well he has got another project and his latest project is called Living With Hunger and in this he moved into an Ethiopian village to experience life on the very edge of starvation. We have a short clip here.
(runs videotape)
Well we are delighted to have that short preview of Living With Hunger it is still being edited that film and is due to air in January. We are even more delighted to have its originator Sorius Samura with us live via satellite from London. Sorius I would like to ask you would you say that current affairs has been doing reality TV for a very long time anyway?
 Sorious Samura (Insight Television): Well, I would say about two years ago we made a film called Exodus. This was a story about a remarkable journey by thousands of Africans who have been fleeing all sorts of situations in Africa and making their way to the West. Most of these people are were going through Mali in West Africa through the Sahara desert. These people were facing bandits and all sorts of dangers making their way to Morocco. Somehow these people, we see thousands of their bodies off the shores of the southern coastline of Europe. At the time we were working on Exodus Big Brother stormed across the screens of the so-called Developed World and somehow you all there knew what Big Brother was about this was referred to as reality television and there were these Africans who for me were real people who were trying, just as you have in Survivor, who were trying to cross to survive the beach but there were no cameras hanging there to show them going through all of their sufferings. But Big Brother was then referred to as reality you tell me which is reality? Somehow I can say that we learnt something from that, we realised that first of all entertainment television has stolen reality from the vision and we then thought that we can't give proper names to films such as Exodus or even this most recent film we are working on, Living With Hunger. So we had to find extra words to refer to films like this. We are now calling these films real reality television.
Dermot Murnaghan: Real reality television! You are having to steal the phrase back again?
Sorious Samura: Well we are thinking that because it has been taken from the vision we have to find a way to bring back reality that is why to a certain extent we have been creeping back to try and bring the phrase back where it belongs. This is why in living with hunger we decided that because broadcasters don't seem to have the confidence that people can watch serious television. That thousands and millions of people will be gripped by gripping television we decided, "OK, let's go and live in a village". In Living With Hunger as you said earlier I went to this village stayed with people who were living on the edge of famine, or eating what they were eating, starving like they were starving. For about five weeks I could not eat properly. Surrounded by people who have never eaten properly from the day there were born.
Dermot Murnaghan: Sorius just to get this clear. Would it be your contention that if the subject matter, and the subject-matter you deal with his people's very existence, if the subject matter is serious enough you have no need for these false techniques, for these timescales, this interactivity or whatever. If it is a gripping tale well told, people will watch?
 Sorious Samura: If it is well told, if it is given the proper publicity, the proper promotion that it deserves there is no doubt that people will see it. I think the interesting thing is that we should start trusting the audience, we should stop making up our minds for the viewer. If it is done properly, if we can put back reality into television believe me the audience will want to see stories about the developing world about the suffering of 40 million people who are starving in Africa if you tell the story properly. If you allow them to tell her own story. If you change. There is no doubt they want to cut across younger audiences, there are a younger audiences that you want to grip and older people that you want to watch the stories but if you attempt to use a bit of their own style because that is what you want a, you want viewers to follow. And we thought that since slowly we are losing out let's roll reality again or put it into the phrase. And then go and live like these people and if it is promoted properly viewers will definitely watched.
Dermot Murnaghan: Sorious stay with us and we will try and get some reaction to this new genre the real reality programmes that you have just raised there in a moment. We will come back to you in a moment or two. Just to put this into the mix. Whether we are talking about the reality of life on the edge or a situation that is contrived to assess people's reactions isn't it just part of the mix I suppose, at the variety that makes television interesting. Well some countries still have a very strong current affairs presence combining reportage, investigations and foreign coverage. Quite traditional I suppose you might say.
(runs videotape)
Well I loved those lethal Legionnaire's with this secateurs. Heaton Dyer is here from CBC one of the programmes we saw there CBC is disclosure. Heaton what do you think, are those more traditional current affairs programmes now beginning to get it right or are they showing signs of tiredness?
Heaton Dyer (CBC): I think first of all one of the ironies is that I think we've been talking about the death of current affairs for quite some years now and we are not over yet. But the reality is as you saw there CBC does have a very strong tradition in terms of investigative and international current affairs but unapologetically we are using devices. We are absolutely using devices that you'll see in Big Brother, and that you will see in Survivor in our current affairs programmes. And we are in a fight. It's interesting because this morning we were talking about the devices in daily news and when you don't have pictures what can you do? I actually think the nett consequence is that we are raising the audience expectations, people are making very discriminating choices in terms of how they spend their time and when you try to get them to pay attention to important current affairs stories and issues you have to employ devices to actually keep their attention. To grab their attention in the first place and to keep them there.
Dermot Murnaghan: What do you say to people like Sorius who says "well look if the subject matter isn't trivial if it is very very important if it is about life and death effectively then people will watch?"
Heaton Dyer: I think with all respect getting them in the front door is the first challenge and I agree with Sorius about promotion. Incredibly important. Everybody here involved in making current affairs programmes will know exactly what I'm talking about in terms of scheduling and in terms of getting the promotion to support your programme. But you do also have to have in that promotion a sexy sell. You have to have something that will capture their attention.
Dermot Murnaghan: You also have to have money don't you. You need resources and the backing it of a channel with deep pockets?
Heaton Dyer: And that's the biggest challenge of all. I think my joke is that within current affairs you always want to be there in the first season because it is downhill from there. You know you get the resources in the first year, after that it is a challenge to actually hold on to those resources. Because unless you, as with that Panorama Di interview, unless you score those really big hits it is incredibly difficult to justify the level of resource against a current affairs programme. And the biggest resource is time. With disclosure last season was 12 episodes which is a very short run but if you look at the amount of people hours that went into every significant segment in that programme it is an incredible resource. Disclosure thankfully has just won in Canada out top television award for best information show and I was joking to the executive producer "God, you are safe for another year". But it is literally living on the cusp.
Dermot Murnaghan: Do you think that especially with the public service broadcasters that the channel bosses regard current affairs simply as a necessary evil. If they can get a bigger audience well and good but "hey!" They've got to do it politically and they got to stick it in the schedule and that is the level of their commitment to it.
Heaton Dyer: I think the patience does come from the political commitment. In other words they will be more patient because we understand. I am now a channel boss, I have a split attitude but I think that genuinely in the CBC the channel bosses want good current affairs. But equally they do want audiences.
 Dermot Murnaghan: Okay I want to bring in the rest of the audience and I'm going to use a device now because you wouldn't speak to me before. So I am just going to go out and doorstep, a good old-fashioned technique. Anyone want to first of all reply to what Heaton has been saying. I would like to hear some broader experiences of current affairs in different countries.
Tim Lambon (Channel 4 News): I have actually been involved with Sorius, I worked on the original Cry Freetown movie. I shot the Exodus movie for him and I was very involved in the editorial content of that. I was approached about the hunger film and myself and Linsey Hilsum who is diplomatic correspondent for Channel 4 News advised that this was probably not a good idea. My problem with it is is that this kind of current affairs programming is starting to run into an ethical problem. It is not about a healthy black African male going back to Africa going to a village and living there. Those are not the people under threat. The people under threat are the elderly, as you saw in a group of people sitting around the village and the young. Better to have taken Sorius's children and let them starve for a month and see him watching them. That would have been reality. At the moment we have a programme which is going to have basically an unreal piece of reality.
Dermot Murnaghan: Okay it could have been done in your view differently but isn't the main thing that it was done at all?
Tim Lambon: I'm not sure if you're going to run into an ethical problem of what is true and what is not true there I think you are running into dodgy ground.
Dermot Murnaghan: And this is what we are getting from reality television is it, a blurring of the lines?
Tim Lambon: The Big Brother thing I think is a complete fabrication. These are people put together to see how they react to basically work on the precarious fly-on-the-wall idea of how people can get to live together and if they can't get to live together that is great and you have the audience voting them out. But to take that and say this is a serious current affairs look at an issue like starvation I think is a bit beyond the pale.
Dermot Murnaghan: Okay thanks very much indeed for that. Let's get some more views, I'd like to talk to some public service broadcasters any representatives around here about the point that Heaton was making, the commitment to current affairs. Do you feel that there is an appetite amongst your public for current affairs and that with a bit of tweaking, be a decisive influence from reality television you might also make it more interesting to an audience?
 Ulla Terkelson (TV2 Denmark): I want to make a comment on the starvation film as well, the interesting thing is that in most of our countries we have reality television programmes about fat people. I'm sure most people have that. We have one where people go to celebrity weight club training, there was even somebody who died because they were too fat and you follow them as they put on and off and so on. You have this extraordinary influence of women's magazines, themes on current affairs televisions which is creeping in and it gives audiences but it also means the need to have a redefinition of current affairs. But if we go back a bit and think about when we were children then you had serious programmes with serious people discussing the situation in the Middle-East. But that sort of current affairs coverage has crept into the news programmes or into the 24 hour news programmes that we all have, that's where you sit and talk to serious experts. And therefore that sort of programme will be eliminated, which I can understand.
Dermot Murnaghan: So I see these are moving across from news to current affairs and current affairs into reality programming. Anyone else? I think we going to have to go back to Sorius very soon. We are also going to talk to Paris.
(unidentified): I just wanted to ask you what sort of devices and tricks you take from Big Brother and other programmes like that and put into your current affairs programmes?
Heaton Dyer: Things from very simple dramatic devices like using time-lines the fact that we actually look at trying to put a framework where there is a tension. I think a little later we are going to talk about a programme, a special that we are launching, the next season of Disclosure with next week. I think some eyes will roll it is completely manufactured but it is being done for I believe an incredibly good reason. It is trying to make politics more accessible and to explain the political process. So it is simple devices and also just the imagery that you saw with disclosure of the opening. We are trying to be gritty we are trying to be street level, we are trying to like everyone we are trying to attract a younger audience.
Dermot Murnaghan: You are trying to be hip?
Heaton Dyer: well yes. We are trying to attract a younger audience to current affairs and it is bloody hard! The reality of disclosure is that it is a very mixed results despite a helluva lot of support for it.
Dermot Murnaghan: Just a response to that what you think of those devices?
(unidentified): I thought it was more tricky than that, I mean a time-line is not shocking to me, and you put a little bit of hip music on. I thought you did more, you invented more so I'll be interested see what the political story is you doing.
Dermot Murnaghan: But the point is Heaton does it actually work, are you seeing audiences and particularly in those younger demographics, are they being attracted to Disclosure?
Heaton Dyer: the honest answer is a right now know. We are democratically we are only marginally younger than we were with the 5th Estate which is a flagship, our sister programme. And in total audience numbers right now it is just not strong enough.
Dermot Murnaghan: But I suppose you would say that if you don't try you are not going to attract those younger audiences to current affairs?
Heaton Dyer: Exactly.
Dermot Murnaghan: We're going to go back to London. Sorius, are you still there? Yes! There are a lot of people taking issue with you. The specific point here from Channel 4 News, that really it wasn't real life you going back to that village as you did. The suggestion was that you should have sent someone, you should have sent your family, your children in there and watched what happened?
Sorius Samura: I think listening to what Tim and most of the other speakers said it is quite clear that as far as the relationship between the broadcasters and the audience is concerned, it is all about ratings. But the problems we are facing today, the problem has always been there, is that the coverage of third world issues has brought little viewership.
Dermot Murnaghan: well, let me ask you about ratings Sorius because of course you are a broadcaster that means that you need and want as wide an audience as possible. Do you think about that at all when you are making your films?
Sorious Samura: For me coming from the developing world I would always want as many people as possible to understand what is happening in our so-called "one world". Because these people are important, especially the taxpayers, these are the people who would make decisions. But also you would want the very powerful few to see exactly what is going on, what people are calling "one world". You do have to think about the viewers because they are really really important. They do influence decisions and policy-making and so when we look for a story at insight news that is what we think about as well that it is important that as many people as possible see the story but at the end of the day when you look at some of the stories that we challenge, these are stories that are deemed to serious by broadcasters for their viewers and that is why earlier I said it is important that they start trusting their audience to make a decision, up to make a judgment for themselves. You know, I believe that when the audience sees a good story they will know that it is a good story and they will watch it.
Dermot Murnaghan: Okay thank you very much for that Sorius. Let us now cross to Paris and see an if Sylvie Levey agrees with that, she has been making films in China, and gained unprecedented access there given an international audience a new insight into that huge and important country. Ultra Visage shows how young Chinese women are increasingly turning to cosmetic surgery.
(runs videotape)
Good morning to you Sylvie. I don't know it if you were able to hear that point made by Sorius Samora but do you think that your films can offer channels, can it bring in an audience to these international subjects?
Sylvie Levey: Yes exactly. Why? Because everything regarding China is like regarding something new and decide the World as a rendezvous or an appointment with China within four years now is the Olympic Games. And we don't know much about China so far. So everything which talks about the metamorphosis of society I'm sure interests the rest of the world.
Dermot Murnaghan: So where are your films being broadcast? Who is buying them?
Sylvie Levey: Well firstly in my country, France. And then it is translated into English in the rest of the world and I know that for instance Japanese TV bought it, Canadian, American, everywhere.
Dermot Murnaghan: Do you watch any reality television and does it have any influence on your work?
Sylvie Levey: Not really because as I said my situation and the situation of my colleagues, reporters or journalists based in China are more invited by TV from all over the world to cover what is going on in this new country. So we are not so much concerned by this even though I know that in France for instance the "26 minutes" report is less and less popular. Maybe people prefer definitive reality shows. So may I ask something about this? Maybe to me I think we journalists have to work on the way we cover things. We should be maybe closer to people and put more sensitivity into what we are doing. Objectivity is fine to me of course it it has always been my target but we need to be closer to people and also it is a situation for all the professional people listening to me. Maybe we should change the word serious current affairs. The average middle-class people from all over the world when they come home, they come home and they don't feel like listening to what you call "serious current affairs".
Dermot Murnaghan: Sylvie, sorry to interrupt but I saw Sorius nodding along there with what you're saying. We are just going to go back to him in a moment or two. But first let me push you on what you mean by being more sensitive, how does that work practically as a film-maker?
Sorious Samura: For me I try to be very close to people, the people I am interviewing and I put lots of myself to try and convince them to open their mind and heart to me. Even though we speak in another language, I speak in Mandarin which is not my language but they almost forget that I have a terrible accent. And they really becomes so close that I can very deep and if you try to be extremely cold, in the Anglo-Saxon way maybe it doesn't work in China. Sorry!
Dermot Murnaghan: I just want to bring Sorius in on that one because you raise a very important point there. Sorius what do you think about authoured current affairs, do you need a personality to bring an audience along or should it be more tending towards the fly-on-the-wall techniques?
Sorious Samura: Well I think the point that Sylvie made just now, she is spot-on. I come from Africa and we have always wondered about the coverage of Africa. We know that Africa get even more coverage than Latin America but frankly what is always lacking is the context, the detail. And now, one thing I always say is with this style we have decided to use the whole film about living with hunger is not about sorrier so Mora it is about giving these people are their own voice and letting them tell their own story because in the past the West, I mean Westerners were used to going into Africa and looking at the stories of Africa from up and down. So we thought if you got more close to the people and let them tell their own stories, of course every story is important but it is difficult to get a view a ship for these sort of stories that are coming from way way in Africa. So we thought that the only thing you can do to help out is to end up making the important interesting and then you'll get people to want to watch.
Dermot Murnaghan: As ever Sorius thank you very much indeed. A quick response to that.
Tim Lambon: Sorius, can you justify why you then had to put in the gimmick of yourself starving in this starvation film rather than being able to go in as I know you have done and we have done together and talking to the people from the ground up. Such as Sylvie seems to be doing in the Chinese films. You said it wasn't about Sorius Samora being in there but in fact that is the hook that you are trying to get people to watch this programme, it is Sorius Samora starving in Africa. In fact what you were trying to say was this is about the people starving from the ground up.
Sorious Samura: What Sorius Samora tried to do there was first of all to understand these people's experience and through that experience I will be able to tell their story a lot better. At the same time letting then represent themselves, telling their own story. But by experiencing what these people are going through by going through suffering and hunger I would be able to express their suffering better that was the key reason why I thought there was the best way this story could be told properly. I wanted to be part of these people and then experience they are suffering and then tell the story properly.
 Dermot Murnaghan: Hopefully you can continue that debate at a later date but we have a lot to get through today. At this point what I would like to do is try a little experiment because I want to consider what drives the current affairs agenda in different countries and the issues we have been raising the here about the different treatments. We have picked three names pretty much at random from the delicate list and they are, Ulla Turkelson from TV2 in Denmark who made a contribution earlier on, and Georgi Ballow from MTV in here in Hungary and we have got Hans Leross from NOS in Holland. It is quite a simple task but just to illustrate perhaps the different treatments and the different thinking it is going on in different in different countries. We tried to pick a story of international appeal, something that I suspect that everyone is covering wherever they're from with the upcoming Olympics. We want you to imagine you have been asked to produce a current affairs programme in your country, fairly dry subject - drugs in international sport. According to Sylvie I suppose the Anglo-Saxon way would be to say "here is a story about drugs and international sport, listen up now it is very important for you!" How long a show would your network want? Would it want it at all and how would you treat that subject, and I suppose this is the core of the debate. How would you treat that subject to appeal to your particular audience and how would you broaden that audience as much as possible? Would you even consider that topic a tall? I would suspect you would. I will be coming back to you three, I know it is putting on the spot but it is just to give us a bit of an insight into what is going on in your countriess. I'll come back you in a few minutes to hear your thoughts and will give us a little bit of an idea about the different approaches to ideas and presentations. But just before we do that can I just get your first thoughts because I really like putting your on-the-spot! Hans, what do you think about drugs in international sport, would it be a subject that you would cover?
Hans Laroes (NOS): Yes. But there is one point I would just like to make that n o s does not have its own current affairs programmes we do have our news bulletins and sports bulletins. So I think the interesting thing would be combining our efforts and making stories about them and we would be very interested because I think the rest of the world would obviously think that all the athletes had bought their drugs in Amsterdam coffee shops! So the Dutch angle is obviously there.
Dermot Murnaghan: Yes all the other ones might be coming over to Amsterdam to do the story. I can't get an early flavour from everyone because we have a satellite up in Paris and it is going to disappear very soon, so we are going to back there in a moment or two. But just to set that segment we want to get a flavour of the wide variety of global programming. We asked a couple of my colleagues, BBC foreign correspondents to give their impression of TV in their adopted homes.
(runs videotape)
So there we can see very different influences at work in different countries. Each country has its own specific problems, its specific approach but I suppose one universal theme here is that politics has an influence. And covering politics is one of the biggest problems for the current affairs programmes, making it interesting for viewers first and foremost is a challenge in itself but sometimes the problems can come from fairly unexpected quarters.
(runs videotape)
Well Jerome Caza the producer of 36 Hours and we are delighted to say that he is joining us now. Still smiling along to that. But it was pulled Jerome why? Surely politicians love to show themselves being portrayed as being in touch with their public?
Jerome Caza: I think that France is special, there is a weird situation here where politicians really want to show themselves to be as human as possible but at the same time they want to stay in their political, in the usual set they don't want to explore new ways. I think because, especially the way the show was denounced in the press it was represented as reality TV. And in France this equals Big Brother or Pop Stars and so I think the political class thought it was humiliating maybe. I can show you hear the way France Soir did their cover the the day after the announcement by TF1 and you can see here the announcement by the government spokesman John Francois Copet, and he was supposed to guess who was coming to dinner tonight! And this is a set of a Big Brother type show.
Dermot Murnaghan: So do you think you were misrepresented?
 JC: It was completely misrepresented and we were more into the idea of doing a documentary a little bit like the BBC does very often with an experiment putting France from the top, politicians, spending 36 hours with the France from below. It is quite ironic because the France from below is really the concept of Jean-Pierre Raffinet the Prime Minister. He is the one that invented this type of communication to be very close to the people but because of this media circus and political agenda and manipulation from different sides he had to ask to cancel the first show with the Jean-Francois Copet.
Dermot Murnaghan: Do you think then is this a case of reality television, up to this point we have been talking perhaps of it as beneficial in that it is teaching us new techniques in terms of selling it to audiences. Is this a case of reality television damaging current affairs?
Jerome Caza: I don't think so it depends how it is produced. The way we produced it was really between reality TV and documentary. I think that what reality TV has brought to the way of producing stories today is that it is a new type of narration. What we used in the pilot and what we hoped we could use in the future because we are still working on making on making this programme available in France is that you film the situation, the real life and at some point new stop the real life and you ask the different people involved to react to what had happened just before. This is really an inspiration for me from the reality TV way of telling stories. I think it is the only thing that they have in common because I have filmed real life for a long time.
Dermot Murnaghan: I wanted to ask you that Jerome. Would you say that these techniques predate reality television, it is those programmes that have been borrowing from current affairs.
Jerome Caza: probably. In documentaries and we have done interviews before reality TV existed but it is a way of putting together the content. Very often what we saw in current affairs is new see the situation and you have an interview, a very global interview that talks more about the global picture. Whereas in reality TV you really comment on just what happens, the small details and a think that this is what is important in terms of politics. Usually you hear politicians talking about global affairs, they have the general view but here we wanted to have this closeness between the French people that live a day by day life and those people that in fact create our environment and decide for us so they could realise what happens in day by day life. The piece, unfortunately I didn't see it, with Michael Portillo I think is fantastic but I'm not sure it would be possible in France and maybe one or two politicians would agree to spend one week sweeping the place like this.
Dermot Murnaghan: Just to stay with this then Jerome, the French angle it is fascinating. Christiane Pichon who I know is in the audience. I wonder whether you could tell us were you surprised at the reaction of the Prime Minister to 36 hours?
Christiane Pichon (TF1): (French speaker:
Dermot Murnaghan: So Jerome will you persevere with this type of show?
 Jerome Caza: Yes we are still working with the TF1, we had a meeting this morning we are working, but this time were trying to use the same techniques but to put them in a different perspective by recreating a new type of debate. So we are going to ask and propose of politicians to have this experience and we would film this experience again so they could share the life of some people, maybe some French people could share the life of the minister to. That is a way to have both sides experimenting their own that real lives. And after that we hope we can create a debate between the politicians so they can express from the experience, within the experience they can have this global talk and debate with ideas. Because that was one of the issues that politicians told us, "you know we meet people every day and politics is about general interest it's not individual interest" and I don't agree I think it is both. And the thing is in France there is a gap that is bigger and bigger after those years and now you have those people who think that the political class is disconnected from their own, life and from their own agenda. So hopefully we will have this debate and at the same time we will use those reports and documentaries to nourish, to have this talk between the politicians.
Dermot Murnaghan: A strong message which you're saying politicians should engage with and judging by some of those proposals you're making their I think you might have had a sneak preview of our final package. Jerome Caza I do thank you very much indeed for joining us from Paris. We are staying with politics now and crossing over to South Africa, clearly where the political equation in current affairs and news is very very important. And Jimmi Matthews who is head of news at SABC, thank you very much for joining us here today in Budapest, Jimmy, we do appreciate it. Just tell us broadly the kind of political pressure that broadcasters in South Africa come under from time to time.
Jimi Matthews (SABC): Well I don't think that the pressure's any different to that, that my counterparts and colleagues have to endure in other countries. I think that the notion politicians have, that the media should serve them in one or other ways is what the problems are. And I think if there is any pressure it is more in terms of trying to get us to follow their agenda, for us to set our own agenda.
Dermot Murnaghan: How difficult or easy is it for you to resist that pressure?
Jimmi Matthews: Well I think that, you know we have a huge advantage in South Africa in that we are in this period of transformation we have come from a period of full repression where the media was under severe pressure. So for the past few years now we have been enjoying a fairly liberal atmosphere as far as the media is concerned. Also, constitutionally we are protected. That constitution makes provision for freedom of the media and freedom of the press.
Dermot Murnaghan: Tell me what impact if any you feel that reality TV programming is having on the core current affairs and news programming you do?
Jimmi Matthews: Again I provide 30 news bulletins in 11 languages over-thirty channels and the SABC is a public broadcaster and the channel heads are all under huge pressure to deliver audience. So news and current affairs are not seen as audience drivers and if some of the channel directors had their way they would get rid of any informational television and replace it with the kind of entertainment or reality TV that you are referring to. For the past few months now it has been quite an interesting battle with some of the channel heads, we are about to enter into the 10th anniversary of South Africa's liberation. So I require a lot more slots than I have at present to do justice to this election and to make sure that we cover it in a fair and balanced way.
Dermot Murnaghan: What are the restraints on those channel bosses from booting you into the outer regions of the schedule so to speak? What makes them keep your programmes where they are?
Jimmi Matthews: they are under huge pressure to ensure that their channels are commercially viable and so they would prefer any news and current affairs to be out side of the prime time. I of course would want all my shows in prime time. And I suppose the tension between Channel directors and at news directors, again it is a universal problem. I would like to have 24 hours of news and they would like to give me two hours.
Dermot Murnaghan: Jimmi, would you really like that have 24 hours of news? Would you really like to put on a general entertainment channel 24 hours of news and current affairs?
Jimmi Matthews: not quite...
Dermot Murnaghan: 23 then!
Jimmi Matthews: I don't think that we have sufficient, given the nature of the country, we have 11 official languages. We are a nation of many cultures and I am responsible for providing news in all the official languages and there just isn't enough time to do that.
Dermot Murnaghan: Jimmi Matthews from Johannesburg we do thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning with that insight into what is going on in South Africa. Jimmi raised an awful lot of very important points there and that last point is worth picking up on. Are we as the practitioners, the producers, the presenters, the directors, the funders of current affairs programmes, are we perhaps guilty of a slight arrogance in that we expect the audience to enjoy it and watch it and engage with what we produce for them. When in actual fact, there is a lot of competition out there, and as Jimmi flippantly said he would like to do 24 hours of current affairs and I'm sure we would all like a lot more exposure for our current affairs programmes. I'm going to put this first of all that point and of course our little experiment I did go to our panel, starting with Georgi. Do you think there is too much expectation on the behalf of current affairs producers for their products especially when they are appearing on the mainstream channels?
Georgi Ballow: Not in Hungary. I find it very difficult to talk because I think there is very little knowledge about Hungary, we are part of the 75 million people who have joined Europe. And by the way I would like to raise the subject because I think that in most European countries about 50 per cent of public opinion rejects new members of the European Union and the media hardly deals with it. And I think it would be really interesting to talk about this. But coming back to your question. In Hungary the reality TV shows are enormous hits on two private channels. Public television doesn't do any reality TV shows. Public television is firmly, safely and healthily in the hands of politicians. It is I think a shining example of what not to do with public media, therefore it is interesting. It is controlled not by one party but by all parliamentary parties that is the only difference. Therefore the country is a little more complicated and a little more costly and more difficult to get rid of it. So I think going back to this reality show debate, I think most interesting thing in Hungary is whereas so-called serious people and intellectuals reject it and despise it, there is very little debate about actually why so many people watch it. It is not clear sex, not clear violence, not clear aggression so why is it that 35% - 40% of television households even in the evening watch it? What is in there that the so-called elite media just don't get and doesn't notice? Coming back to your questions about arrogance.
Dermot Murnaghan: Would you borrow some of these techniques, we put you this international sporting question, drugs in sport, would you use any of those techniques to hook that reality sated TV audience in?
Georgi Ballow: I doubt it it but I would have to think about it.
Dermot Murnaghan: Would there be a different approach on these different channels you described in Hungary to an issue like drugs in sport?
Georgi Ballow: Yes public television is spectacularly underfunded so it would have to do a mainly studio based show but it would be a good opener to quote, earth from the 1976 Olympics in Montreal when the head coach of the East German swimmers was asked "how come that all these ladies who were winning all these medals all had such deep voices?" And his answer was that "we didn't come for a singing competition!"
Dermot Murnaghan: Yes and how come they had so many razor blades in their bags. Okay Georgi thanks very much for that. Let's go to the other two members of the panel. Ulla, Georgi said that they would deal with drugs in sport as a panel discussion, studio-based, a little bit dull Georgi. Ulla would you have a different approach?
Ulla Turkelson: If we were to do that, we have a sports programme which has longer items, three 15 minute pieces and is very serious but has viewers as well so it is possible. I think we would probably do it in a very simple way, getting a sports personality, preferably a loved, well known one who has been caught taking drugs and has aDermot Murnaghanitted to it and so on. And have him or her explaining why and how, the sort of emotional and psychological pressure and going back a bit too when it happened. And I think you could film that a bit but I think you would go through a person and get that person to tell why he or she was tempted to take drugs.
Dermot Murnaghan: So personalise it? Just back to Hans briefly. The thought occurs that undercover techniques, and we haven't talked about a much today, have clearly got a large part to play in current affairs coverage.
Hans Leross: Yes that is possible, although we are very careful with it. What I think about the discussion this morning in relation to this theme is obviously it will be a story. Athletes or football players like Frank de Boer and Jap Staam from the Netherlands, they took nandrolone so that is a story, so you have an angle up we can go to them you can tell their stories. But what is important for me is that's your story, not creating a story, not creating a virtual reality because my objection with reality TV is that it suggests reality but there is no the real life in it. It is all staged, it is all thought about and we here are in the business of telling the story, not making the story more beautiful, not creating a story. We have to tell the story using another way of storytelling. Because what Sylvie said from France i really agree with, no offence to the Anglo-Saxon method of course! I do think there are other ways to tell stories. For example, a journalist with one camera is a way of putting some stories on their that you can't make a whiff of three camera crew. Using graphics is a way of telling stories without pictures. I don't think that current affairs or news programmes, it they can use techniques but they shouldn't use up their anchors or the journalists as actors in the story. They have to see what is happening, do a helluva job providing the information that they gather but it is important that people watching current affairs programmes and news programmes can trust what journalists have done. And I think that you're losing trust if you are creating a lot of virtual reality.
Dermot Murnaghan: I just want to pick up on that point of not using the anchors or presenters as a hook. David Mannion who was here made one of Britain's most popular current affairs programmes "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" the most popular anchor in British television, all the surveys tell us that. Made that one of Britain's most popular shows and Trevor McDonald was the hook to get people in. A don't know whether people have found that that is the experience in different countries. But we are talking about real life and here are the real figures. Here is the scale of the problem that we all face, this is UK research and I'm sure that it is echoed in other countries as well. These are the figures that certainly aren't encouraging for any of us.
28% of people asked about current affairs viewing said they do try to watch current affairs shows. That's try to watch.
48%, nearly half said that they watch if there is nothing else on.
24% said that they actively avoid current affairs.
84% in multi-channel households won't watch religious programming.
66% won't watch art's
And there you have it current affairs drops to 56%.
Very, very worrying figures indeed. Those are in multi-channel households and. Now in multi-channel households we find that there is a preponderance of youth, at those figures are are even worse if you do that in the key 18 - 35 age group. Hans just back to you, would that be replicated in your country?
Hans Leross: Not at the moment, so we are very lucky. Our news and current affairs programmes are very strong at the moment. There is not a lot of pressure on us. Some current affairs programmes perform okay, another one has a problem but on the whole we are not losing that much audience in the last years and news programmes are growing.
Dermot Murnaghan: Lucky you! Clearly there are challenges facing many current affairs producers, even in those countries where programming is strong as Hans has just been telling us that there is little room for complacency. The clock really is ticking. So let's go back, let's try and pull this amorphous subject together, it back to our original thought. His reality TV current affairs, I suppose to be more precise, what is current affairs? Should we worry less about labels and more about making good television shows as many people have been saying this morning. Should we take more risks? Let me show you something now, "Wide Angle" is in its second series on the American public service network PBS and it took the view that after 9/11 there was a growing appetite among that ever so tough US audience for serious foreign coverage. Let's just get a flavour.
(runs videotape)
Stephen Segaller is the executive producer of Wide-Angle and he joins us now very early in the morning from New York. Thank you very much indeed for getting up so early Stephen. What convinced you that the audience was ready for a more serious current affairs in the United States after 911?
Stephen Segaller: Well the irony is that the programme was conceived before 911 and we were looking at an increasingly obvious gap in American television, not just public television but all of television it just wasn't covering the World. And as you know it is difficult to get projects funded and started in public broadcasting, it took us a while to get it off the ground and the sad irony is that the project was given the green light about a month before 9/11. Right after 9/11 it became a no-brainer, of course we needed to understand the world better and that gave us a very sad but necessary launch pad for the programme.
Dermot Murnaghan: Did it prove to be the case though, did you find audience is growing in that post 9/11 period, I guess you did, but have they stuck with the programme?
Stephen Segaller: They have. The ratings for the programme and the audience for a programme in a vastly multi-channel environment are low but steady. The audience appears to be loyal. I was listening to your previous conversation about audience interest and I think we new poll people and ask them if they are interested in current affairs than they are quite likely to say "no not really". If what you do is tell compelling stories made by the world's best film-makers about really important issues and trends and activities and often conflicts so that you get an understanding of the human dynamics of what is going on there; in Indonesia, in India, in South Africa, in Japan. People really engage with these programmes are more we find most encouraging is that we now audience starts watching wide angle programmes they stay with it for a whole hour, they do not tune out.
Dermot Murnaghan: How straightforwardly do you tell those stories? What is your take on the idea that you need to sugar the pill more or less, almost trick en audience to make them watch?
Stephen Segaller: No I don't buy it, I just don't buy that. The only way we should appeal is by using the world's best film-makers to make these documentaries. Our programme format is an interesting and unusual one, we have a 45 minute documentary which does not include, it does not have a correspondent, we do not interview journalists or professors of politics, almost never do we interview government ministers, these are real people's stories. This is the real reality television. And then at the end of the hour we have a ten-minute interview by one of out to hosts who do what we call "connect the dots" that is we get somebody like Senator Hillary Clinton or Professor Amartya Sen the Nobel Prize winner and we say, "a okay that is our story from India, that is a story about global human trafficking, help us understand why this matters to Americans, what the public policy and foreign policy indications are and so forth" and we simply find that our e-mail demonstrates, not only are people interested and grateful that we are providing this service. Audience members also want to get involved, they say "I saw those children in India who can't go to school how can I help?" and that is a very heartening response and that tells us more than the kind of abstract question of do you want to watch current affairs.
Dermot Murnaghan: But Stephen you are of course on PBS, how do you think you would fare if wide-angle was moved to the dog eat dog world of the main networks?
Stephen Segaller: It wouldn't happen, the gap we feel is a gap that was created by the flight of commercial network television away from covering the World. That's what public service broadcasting is about we do things that we think our valuable and important to the audience not necessarily profitable. Wide-angle would not have been commissioned or launched by a commercial network, I have no question in my mind about that!
Dermot Murnaghan: Stephen Segaller saying it loud and proud. Thank you very much indeed for joining us from New York. A lot of assent in the audience here with those sentiments thank you. Now increasingly current affairs is as we have been discussing this morning about style as well as the content. Subject must not only interest the audience but be presented, packaged in an attractive and even an entertaining manner.
(runs videotape)
Well some real blurring of the lines there I think you'll agree. But we can't say that broadcasters aren't trying. Peter Orloff from NTV in Russia is with us this morning. What innovation is going on in terms of current affairs in Russia Peter?
Peter Orloff: Well we seriously try to attract the younger audience to current affairs and we constantly fail. What we track from daily figures are the very threatening results that the older audience watches current affairs, almost all the time they are interested but they are not a very attractive audience for our advertisers and we have to take that fact into account. So we tried to introduce some sort of for way, the fusion programme which occupies our regular news slot at 10pm Moscow time and we made it with young men and women presenters with some flavour of almost NTV approach, speaking about serious issues. Like the war in Iraq, the detention of our businessmen, Putin, Bush.
Dermot Murnaghan: How do they do it Peter that makes it different. These are heavy weight issues does it work?
Peter Orloff: Well I'm a traditional maybe conservative news director and we are very annoyed by what we see. I would prefer a conservative style of news and we do that also but it doesn't work. The NTV approach being short, brief, sometimes stressing funny details, just details instead of giving the depth of the subject. It bothers us but we still keep this programme on the air and try to see what is going on.
Dermot Murnaghan: So what you're saying is that effectively it alienates your existing audience and doesn't attract the new one? Now, Heaton Dyer you have come up with some new ideas haven't you at CBC?
Heaton Dyer: The programme I was talking about, earlier. In fact if I can make a point I think of one of the things that makes people uneasy is the stunt aspect, and we've heard a few examples that clearly are described as stunts. We have also heard about the multi-channel universe. We operate in an incredibly mature multi-channel market whether number-one network in Canada has and 11 share, we have 7.5 share. It is incredibly fragmented. So the stunt is there to capture attention, hopefully get other media interested in covering it so that we bring people to the TV. Next Tuesday what we are doing is launching "disclosure" with a political experiment. Our biggest frustration is trying to get, we heard yesterday about the democratic deficit, trying to get viewers interested in politics. In Canada it is a great difficulty as it is in many countries. And so what we have done is that we have taken three so-called average Canadians, there was a bigger solicitation around the country many candidates put forward and then we used three of the country's top spin doctors. These are the people that have made Canadian political leaders in the past, they are the best in the country. They selected the final three, it was originally four but on the first day of the experiment one dropped out because he was so pissed off with the programme. So they have taken these three and they have put them through a seven-day experiment. They are literally put through the wringer in terms of media training, in terms of doing interviews and canvassing in the street. They are completely overhauled physically it is not quite Extreme Makeover as we see in the States, there is an amazing transformation and it culminates on the 7th day with a political rally the we organise and they themselves had organised. An incredible turnout. And what happens on Tuesday is that we run the one-hour documentary, or programme and at the end the viewers. In fact the programme ends with each of them doing their own campaign ad, soliciting on line and on phone 1-800 number of votes and we will announce the following week who has actually won. It is intended to take the viewers inside the political process.
Dermot Murnaghan: But is it Heaton? This is the question here isn't it, is the intention here to make better citizens of the viewer? To illustrate the political process? Or, you're just having a bit of fun it is political Pop Idol isn't it?
Heaton Dyer: It absolutely borrows from the Pop Idol and the other programmes, at the other reality programmes. But it actually shows, what is extraordinary about this piece, is that it shows the viewers and I don't think viewers, I think people understand the world of spin but I don't think they understand how calculated and how manipulative it is. And ultimately we are running it next week which is the same week as our leadership convention, we will have an new Prime Minister even next week or in the next few weeks and it is intended as a t tool.
Dermot Murnaghan: This could get out of hand couldn't it? I can see these people becoming real politicians.
Heaton Dyer: Already, to the point about the stunt, other media are on to it and other media or wanting to, there is a reality, there are three people they all have a public profile and will probably go on to a greater public life in some shape or form a la what has happened with the various other reality shows.
Dermot Murnaghan: Peter what about some gimmicks like that, do you go along with Heaton and say that they are valuable and they do help develop good citizenship?
Peter Orloff: Definitely it is a nice approach and we have tried that also. Definitely before Mr Putin entered the Kremlin, during the Yeltsin years we had a satirical programme where we actually ran a campaign with an artist pretending to be a candidate. So we did that and it was very popular and the results were exactly like you described, we managed to show how it works and what it is, real politics. We are not sure that we could do that today because as a lot of people saying Russia politics is almost virtual nowadays in Russia. So we are not very happy with that but we cannot do a lot about it. We cannot fight it being a national network.
Dermot Murnaghan: Talking about the dangers in chasing audiences too hard and the dangers of not chasing audiences, of course at the eternal conundrum. Susan Farkas works for the United Nations now but until very recently was a senior producer at the NBC network in the United States and it is from there that she joins us now. Susan we have heard quite a lot from North America, you have noticed a big difference in US shows lately, tell us what is going on.
Susan Farkas: Well what's going on is a kind of desperation actually because there was a time when there were many many magazine shows on American television, there were 11 at one point on prime-time television and they were making money. Sorry current affairs shows. Then along came reality TV and stole our audience, certainly stole the young demographic and it was cheaper to produce. So now we have is a current affairs world where people are really trying to reinvent themselves and flailing I have to say. Following last week's ratings, doing celebrity shows, doing a very narrow slice of our programming, doing violence, other crime, we have over done some of these areas such as diets. We have left huge areas uncovered in current affairs programming....
Dermot Murnaghan: But Stephen Segaller would say that he's doing that.....
Susan Farkas: 60 minutes to their credit are still doing that but I'm talking about the dateline and 2020 and some of the others and 48 hours. And the irony of all this is that we now have t tools at our disposal that we can do much better current affairs programmes and we could ever do with the small camera, by giving people cameras to tell their own stories, video diaries, producers out shooting, following people really seeing how they live. Really being unobtrusive. To have narrowed our focus down to celebrities, diets, morning TV fare.
Dermot Murnaghan: And thats the influence of reality television?
Susan Farkas: I think so, I think it's the fact that no one knows where to go. The ratings pressure because of the fact that the audience is so split the ratings pressure is fiercer than it has ever been. And so there is no vision any more of what we could do, being serious. We are trying to operate in an entertainment environment and were not really sure how to go about it, we're not that good at it. Plus we have all come up with the idea that you do not manipulate the news so when we try these little forays into reality TV we don't do very well at them.
 Dermot Murnaghan: We hold up at 60 minutes and programmes like that from the United States as a current affairs programme that always gets a popular audience. What are the implications if programmes like that start to fail to deliver?
Susan Farkas: The ratings are down, everybody's ratings are down there are far fewer current affairs shows now. I think the indications are very serious, you have a situation now in the States where what is going on in Washington is more important than ever before, dramatic radical changes in the way the country is being run and current affairs has totally abdicated from doing any programming at all about that. We covered the war to a certain point but as soon as the audience dropped there were no more report on Iraq. There are a million interesting stories in Iraq right now none of which are getting covered in prime-time current affairs television with the exception of 60 minutes.
Dermot Murnaghan: So who does ask those questions? Where are those questions being asked in the United States if at all?
Susan Farkas: The range of television reporting in the United States right now is from the right to the righter, of course there are some questions being asked on the cable channels because they are doing the talk-shows.
Dermot Murnaghan: Any hope?
Susan Farkas: Well the hope is that the reality genre will die down a little bit. And we do see some signs of that.
Dermot Murnaghan: But you see reality TV programming as part of the problem not a little bit of this solution as we saw this morning in terms of presentation and technique?
Susan Farkas: I guess I see it as part of the problem and maybe that is conservative of me. It is not reality TV. It is all staged. It is people eating a bull's testicles on Fear Factor which is running on NBC very successfully, I might add but I'm hoping that there is going to again be a role for real current affairs stuff about important issues.
Dermot Murnaghan: That's what I wanted to hear, hope! Thanks very much Susan. That's where I want to start winding it up because we have seen this morning that current affairs is by no means standing still, it is trying to meet the challenges head-on but that in itself can be a very dangerous game as we have heard some examples of today. Just to leave you, remember those Big Brother clips that we started off with well we can learn from reality television but perhaps we shouldn't go too far down the road. Have a look at this.
(runs videotape)
END
Transcript by Tony Callaghan
Photo Credits: Piotr Azia, EBU; Balint Eder, Brill Productions; and Mark Milstein, North Foto
|
