Walking the Bottom Line: Programming Cultures and Television Economics in Contemporary Britain

  • Graham Murdock
Chapter

Abstract

Before breathalysers introduced a degree of chemical calibration to the measurement of inebriation, people arrested on suspicion of being ‘over the limit’ would be taken to the local police station and asked to walk a white line painted on the floor. If they managed not to deviate or stumble, they were free to go. If they veered off in eccentric directions they were charged. Over the last decade an increasing number of programme makers working in British television have come to feel like suspected drunks, forced to walk an increasingly narrow line — a bottom line — drawn by administrators responsible for costs and revenues. As Lawrence Marks and Maurice Gran, two of the country’s most successful scriptwriters recently complained:

„The power the creative staff once had has been usurped by legions of lawyers, accountants, business-affairs executives... They apply to the production of television the same discipline they would apply to the production of biscuits” (Marks and Gran 1997, p. 23).

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Copyright information

© Westdeutscher Verlag GmbH, Opladen/Wiesbaden 1998

Authors and Affiliations

  • Graham Murdock
    • 1
    • 2
  1. 1.The Sociology of CultureLoughborough UniversityGreat Britain
  2. 2.University of BergenNorway

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