I am utterly astonished that Peter Kosminsky,such a giant among television programme makers, thought at the time that the Broadcasting Act of 1990 was “innocuous”, or with its auctioning of ITV franchises that changed the landscape of broadcasting for the worse,as he now acknowledges (Privatising Channel 4 would be a disaster for risk-taking programmes, 5 January). It was a hi-vis hot political potato at the time, and I remember producing a network studio debate on the subject for BBC1 as the bill passed through parliament. There wasn’t one serious-minded ITV executive that didn’t apprehension precisely the consequences that Peter now spells out with such withering precision. The results of floating ITV companies on the stock market were predictable,and were indeed predicted back in 1989.
One striking memory of making that programme was how the ITV high-ups nearly pleaded with me to get a BBC heavyweight in the debate, rightly pointing out that the weakening of the public service obligations in ITV would have knock-on effects for the corporation. Senior management instead peevishly tried to get me to drop the programme, and tacitly on the basis that they didn’t want the boat rocked with the Thatcher government “at a difficult time”,and certainly didn’t want to be seen finding common cause with ITV in opposition to the free market ideology behind the legislation. To his credit Will Wyatt courageously agreed to speak for the BBC whether I couldn’t find someone more senior. He spoke with still eloquence and authority in the ensuing debate, chaired by Anna Ford.
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Source: theguardian.com