Journalism

Broadcast July 2006

BBC Worldwide have announced their annual profits – a whopping £25.8 million. That’s an increase of 62% on last year. So what’s responsible for this massive bonus? Basically lots of swearing, a couple of funny fat suits and two grotesque parodies of teenage girls, because it’s the DVD sales of Little Britain and the Catherine Tate Show that are largely responsible for this upsurge. That and the gullible catchphrase-hungry children who have downloaded clips and ring-tones of these shows for their mobile phones. Every time you hear a phone say “Am I bovvered?” or “I’m a lay-dee,” the director-general of the BBC laughs, rubs his hands and rolls around in a big bed full of money. It’s all in loose change from children’s piggy-banks, so it’s quite an uncomfortable experience, but he doesn’t mind. Mark Thompson loves free money more than anything else and who can blame him? It wasn’t even his idea to say “Yeah, but no but” and in all probability if someone had asked him beforehand if he wanted to make a show largely based around that phrase he would have said, “No…no buts. No,” but despite this he still gets the cash . Beautiful!
I’m guessing that if you said to Catherine Tate, “Are you bovvered that the BBC has made so much money off your idea?” that she would reply, “Do you really think that’s a clever thing to do? To use my catchphrase against me like that? Do you not realise that that must happen to me at least a hundred times a day?” But then after you’d apologised and asked the question again in a less pathetic fashion, she’d probably say, “Do I look bovvered?” And you’d both laugh. But Tate would laugh longer. Because let’s face it, the BBC isn’t the only one making money here. Matt Lucas and David Walliams, hardly short of a few bob surely can’t resent the Beeb for taking their pound of flesh. After all without the BBC their show would never have existed.
I am a less gracious and poorer person and I do resent it. The fact is none of these comedians actually require a broadcaster any more. They have enough money to finance their own future projects. The success of podcasts suggests that soon they will be able to put their self made TV shows directly on to the internet, maybe charging as little as a pound per episode download. They could then make their own DVDs and ring tones and keep 100% of the profits. Eventually they could even sell the series to a terrestrial TV station. Not only would they not have to share the profits that are justly theirs (Mark Thompson would never have thought of saying “How very dare you?”), they’d have complete artistic control over their work.
It might also work for less rich and successful artists. If ten thousand people were prepared to pay two pounds per episode I could produce the dramatisation of my weblog, which short-sighted executives have so far failed to green-light. It’s quite a big “if,” admittedly, but maybe the internet is a way for comedians and writers to bypass those obstinate broadcasters all together. Oh brave new world, that has no executives in it.