| James |
23-04-2007 09:27 PM |
Interview with Endemol\'s Peter Bazalgette
Interview with the man responsible for bringing Big Brother to Britain. I've highlighted the bits about Big Brother...
Quote:
Peter Bazalgette: Attack is the best form of defence
The driving force behind Endemol is used to deflecting criticism. This will help as he deals with not one but two Ofcom inquiries. Raymond Snoddy meets him
Published: 23 April 2007
Peter Bazalgette, the man who launched a large number of food, drink and DIY programmes and brought Big Brother to the UK, has developed a deft way of coping with the resulting criticism.
"I decided to get the attack in on me, myself, before others did," confesses Bazalgette, one of the most successful, and controversial broadcasters of his generation.
So he defused criticism by admitting that he "makes money out of watching water boil, grass grow and paint dry".
Those who add to the charge sheet that this former president of the Cambridge Union, who learnt his trade "at the knee of Esther Rantzen" on That's Life, has been more responsible than any other for dumbing down television are told disarmingly: "I'm a fishwife at heart. I'm like Les Dawson in a hairnet gossiping over the fence."
Now for Bazalgette and the company he works for, Endemol, the stakes have become higher. Endemol is embroiled in no fewer than two investigations by Ofcom, the communications regulator. The first is into the premium line scandal that has shaken the British television industry and could lead, within a matter of weeks, to broadcasters facing censure or fines.
The second Ofcom inquiry is into the tens of thousands of complaints into the Celebrity Big Brother "racism" row. A Channel 4 investigation into the matter, headed by Tony Hall, chair of the Channel 4 board, is also imminent.
Endemol is in the firing line over premium lines because one of its production companies, Cheetah, came up with a number of fake winners on the Five quiz show BrainTeaser at the same time as similar rows broke out on ITV, Channel 4 and even the BBC's Blue Peter.
On this issue, Bazalgette is suitably contrite. Over four years, he explains, the show has paid out about £2.5m in prizes to more than 3,500 winners. But on a small number of occasions when they couldn't get a win on air for "technical" reasons, a member of the production team has posed as the winner.
"It was a completely unacceptable practice and when we discovered it we revealed it to Five and made it public. So you see, we take compliance very seriously. Why would it happen in so many shows at the same time - cutting corners - when we're so careful so often? I don't know."
Damage, he accepts, has been done to public trust in broadcasters but only time will tell how serious the breach has been. "I think the public likes interacting with TV shows and I agree with Michael Grade (ITV executive chairman) that they like a bit of fun with shows and to take part in competitions but it has to be done properly," says Bazalgette, speaking at a public interview in London.
The television executive is not in the least bit apologetic about the overall impact of Big Brother, or the furore that engulfed Celebrity Big Brother earlier this year over alleged racist remarks by Jade Goody aimed at the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. The row threatened to turn into an international incident involving the Indian government, Gordon Brown and the Secretary of State for Culture Tessa Jowell. At one point the fairness of British society seemed to be on trial and at the height of the row Carphone Warehouse withdrew its sponsorship of the programme.
For Bazalgette the controversy flows from the format which, he believes has had the positive effect of allowing viewers to address issues such as homosexuality, cross-dressing and race.
"Since most TV is scripted and planned people can't believe, or understand, that the essence of Big Brother is that it's 12 characters in search of a story and you put them together in a house; of course it's manipulated to the extent that you choose the people and give them challenges but you don't know what the story is going to be."
He does not believe the attacks on Shilpa Shetty - who has become famous throughout the world as a result - were racially motivated. "I think Jade has a tendency to bully. I think she is quite short-tempered, but I don't think it was racist. She's an extraordinary character, having done very well in the past and having suffered obloquy from the tabloids. She may well do again in future."
Whatever Ofcom's verdicts on the premium phone line scandal and Celebrity Big Brother controversy, Bazalgette is already insulated in advance from any criticism or sanctions that come down the track. He has long since moved on from having any direct responsibility for the shows involved and is chief creative officer of Endemol worldwide, responsible for ensuring that there is a continuous stream of new programme ideas from the 30 countries in which the Netherlands-based company operates.
Despite his long career in television, there is no consistent view on Peter Bazalgette's achievement. The Independent has argued he may be "the most influential man in British television" because of his commercial fire power and impact on the development of both reality television and his pioneering role in lifestyle TV programmes such as Ready, Steady Cook and Ground Force.
But others point to his distinguished Victorian ancestor, the engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who constructed the sewage system that took the solids out of London. Critics never tire of suggesting gleefully that he has brought them all back in again. For Bazalgette it's all like water off a duck's back.
The Daily Mail named him as one of the "Ten Worst Britons" for Endemol's Five show The Farm, in which Rebecca Loos became intimate with a pig.
"That was a rather charming incident. A serious exploration of animal husbandry," says "Baz", as he is known in the industry, rather disingenuously.
The London Evening Standard television critic Victor Lewis-Smith says that Bazalgette has "done more to debase television over the past decade than anyone else".
A reminder of the comment brings barely a flicker of recognition. "Victor Lewis-Smith is a very aggressive critic who often descends to abuse so I am used to it" is all he says in response.
His own claims for his contribution to television are modest. Apart from earning a living - he is a multimillionaire - he says he enjoys putting on a show as much as a comedian would, entertaining people and giving them something to think about, even if it's only about going to B&Q or Homebase to buy decking. Destroying Britain's gardens is another item on the Bazalgette charge sheet.
"It's more than merely entertaining people. It's giving people things to spend their money on, practical ideas, and then beyond that telling people compelling stories, stories as compelling as the stories you see written in soap operas," he says.
But if Bazalgette didn't work in television would he actually watch any of the programmes he has been responsible for?
"I certainly would watch Big Brother. It intrigues me in every - the human interest respect and in terms of the way it harnesses multimedia technology to allow people some control over how they are entertained," he says.
But Baz would not have been watching the DIY programmes and there is no decking in his gardens.
There is also a lot more on the way from the chief creative officer of Endemol.
The company now has more than 1,000 formats in its library and the archive is growing all the time. There will also be a greater emphasis on drama and comedy in future.
New formats are being adapted for the latest interactive technology. The BBC has recently commissioned Signs of Life, a £500,000 online, interactive drama. In the US, Endemol is responding to the YouTube phenomenon by seeking two-minute dramas from the audience. The best will be transformed into seven-minute short films made in Hollywood with professional writers and actors.
Bazalgette believes that the traditional commercial television model has a lot more steam left in it than most people realise as long as the regulatory burden is reduced. "You need to allow advertisers to get closer to programmes," he says. "We need to allow more sponsorship and we need to relax the rules on product placement."
At the moment, however, there is considerable uncertainty over the future of Peter Bazalgette. Endemol is up for sale for a possible £2bn and the outcome is unclear.
If his television career were for any reason to end now what would he like to be remembered for? "I would want to be remembered for four or five shows that pushed the story forward and were reasonably original in terms of how we make TV shows," he says.
In the 1980s there were the groundbreaking food and drink programmes. Then in the following decade he developed "how to" shows such as Changing Rooms, which were made more interesting by the inclusion of a narrative. After that came the reality era as Endemol brought Big Brother to the UK.
"It has revolutionised our attitude to what is on TV and some of the social mores around it," says Bazalgette, defiant to the last.
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http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2472425.ece |
