DRAMA FORUM ø NOVEMBER 1997

Good morning. Looks like a full house. And at these prices. Anything to get out of the office.

If I may, I would like to dedicate these remarks to Sydney Newman, who died recently. For the younger people here, Sydney created Armchair Theatre in the 50Õs, and then was Head of Drama at the BBC in the 60Õs.

He was a great populist and an instinctive vulgarian - I mean that as a profound compliment. Robustly intelligent himself, he would feign Philistinism in order to puncture pretension in others. One day a director pestered him yet again about producing a script. "ItÕs so avant garde, so au courant, it is so reminiscent of Ionesco" - "Ian who?"

And when Roger Smith, Ken Trodd and I were having a screaming match with him after the News & Current Affairs people had prevailed in banning "Vote Vote Vote for Nigel Barton" on the grounds that it ridiculed a great British Institution, i.e. the Labour Party, Sydney calmed down for a moment and, as though to a child, he said, "Tony, let me give you a for instance. In this country you cannot shit on the Queen. But if you do, you gotta do it very carefully!"

His favourite phrase was "Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around it awareness."

So in his memory, thatÕs what IÕll try to do. IÕm just the warm-up act, but as I understand it, this conference is a pilot. They hope it will be renewed. It certainly has some of the big names attached, so it should have a chance. A Carlton, Yorkshire, BBC Worldwide co-production. Are they trying to tell us something?

Presumably BBC Worldwide have taken the foreign. No sales there, then! I cannot remember when so many different constituencies were face to face.

We have writers, directors, script editors and producers - those directly involved in creating drama. Their agents. Commissioning Editors and Drama Heads. Senior management in Broadcasting. The advertisers and buyers of time. People in Sales and Distribution and brokers of co-production. The regulators.

A recipe for a dust-up - I hope.

We did not choose to be thrown together. We did not choose the broadcasting structureswe work withinÑsome of us would have chosen very different ones. They have come about through the enterprise and lobbying of big business and the intervention of politicians ø politicians who know nothing about T.V. except that they want to control it, and who seem to agree with Noel Coward who said that T.V. was for appearing on, not watching.

These structures are the reality. ItÕs pointless living in the past or dreaming of might-have-beens. It might even get worse.

We have a Government sympathetic to the censoring role of the regulators; and given a choice between capital and labour, Labour always chooses capital - indeed T.V.Õs big business have desks in Whitehall and friends of Tony occupy key positions in our industry.

No doubt, there are many differences between all of us - different agendas, different motivations and different ambitions. I hope our conflicts and tensions will be aired, robustly. We will have wasted these two days if we gloss over what separates us.

Our success will be measured by how much better we understand each other; and how we can use that understanding to make better drama.

Therefore, I hope that the guiding idea of this conference will be: look for the overlap. Look for where interests can be made to coincide. We might be surprised and liberated to discover just how big this overlap is, how much common ground it covers. It might just be that much of the drama we desperately want to make, will be drama that executives are proud to facilitate, and audiences want to be in on, which will please the ad buyers and so on.

We might find enough overlap to convince the regulators that the drama we want to create will not lead to moral decline and the end of civilisation.

I know the changes of the last 10 years have left people scared and apprehensive. But the last thing we should be scared of is the new technology. I am constantly surprised at how resistant to change, how conservative so many of us are. The new technology is exciting, it opens up wonderful opportunities. LetÕs embrace the digital revolution in cameras, sound, editing and FX, improve it and bend it to our purpose. When I took the T.V. play out of the electronic

studio in the 60s, the BBC Film Department at Ealing was horrified and tried to stop us shooting on 16 - that was for News & Current Affairs, not Drama. But WE wanted to get out and see the world, through a camera on someoneÕs shoulder. The Documentarists are always quick to reinvent their form by using new gear. The posher the drama on T.V. the more it seems stuck in a time warp. The only thing to be afraid of in the new technology is it leaving us behind.

So much, of course, is the fear of the unknown. But why be afraid of the unknown? Why not be excited and expectant?

The proliferation of channels, spreading audiences and advertisers thin and reducing budgets? DonÕt worry.

The secondary market is getting more valuable by the second - not only here but all over the world - and good drama has a long shelf life. Look at the success of the Gold channel. Look at "The Sweeney^" on Channel 5. The question is: who benefits, the makers or the broadcasters? ThereÕll be blood on the floor over this.

New delivery systems? Interactive? More competition for the leisure dollar?

No-one knows whatÕs round the corner, itÕs all moving so fast. But whatever happens, it will be exciting. All I can see are opportunities - new ways of making available to others the stories that are playing in my head. No, itÕs not the technological changes of the last 10 years and the unknown ones of the next 10 that worry me.

ItÕs the management.

Everyone knew that with the Franchise Auction, the independent quota and the digital challenge, big, disruptive change was demanded. Unfortunately all this coincided with a political shift which created a culture of macho-management. Not to mention the money thrown at consultants who were sent to patronise us. So, after re-engineering, total quality management, flat management, downsizing and all the other fads sold by snake-oil salesmen to gullible management, what have we got? An industry more than ever living in the past.

We now, with very few exceptions, have an industry run by managers with the mentality of 19^th century mill owners. Where workers are costs, not assets, where slashing overhead is more important than nurturing talent. Where fear and loathing are poisoning creativity. As a leading British boss so charmingly put it "management by a light grip on the throat". Even if you ignore the argument against all this on grounds of human decency, it is suicidal bad practice from their point of view. IÕve got news for Hollick, Green & Robinson. This is an industry where the most valuable assets leave the building every evening - or hardly ever even visit the place. So when one of you said your job was "To squeeze the assets in order to enhance shareholder value" you sent a message to the creative community. I can assure you it was received. Henry Ford said, "How come when I want a pair of hands I get a human being as well". Well, thatÕs how it is. All my private soundings tell the same story. Every broadcaster of drama creates unhappy people - employees inside and suppliers outside. This is not a Marks & Gran rights complaint, nor is it about the disappointments of supply and demand, where sellers outnumber buyers. This is about the treatment of people at every level, and where, as a consequence, everyone is working below potential. The human waste of it breaks me up.

A fish, they say, rots from the head. So over the next two days I hope management will be invited to rethink. Allow me to throw a few neglected ideas into the debate. You are in the people business. Think of recreating your business as a magnet for creative talent - everything you depend on - audience share, library assets, foreign and secondary markets, building of brands, changed format value - the ultimate value of your total business itself - depends on the strength of this magnet. And remember, a magnet not only attracts, what it attracts also sticks.

This will involve a personality shift. Frankly, I donÕt know how many of you are up to it. You emerged or were created in the 80s and you already look hopelessly out-of-date. Stop hiding behind management systems and tinkering with structures. This is not a game of chess. We need less management and more leadership. If you donÕt have it yourself, hire people with a feel for people. Tommy Lasonda, the Los Angeles Dodgers coach, said "Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too tight, you kill it. Open your hand too much, you let it go". ThatÕs good management.

But IÕm asking for more. IÕm asking you to open your hand and let the dove go. Only if you allow creative talent to soar - will it want to come back. And it will if you believe in it anÕ you are a good place to launch from. ThatÕs leadership. Your job is to create corporate cultures where imaginations thrive. Because thatÕs your R & D. The rest is detail. What we do, collectively, sometimes has importance. But no-one here today is important, and neither is anyone else in this business - except the writers. So I recommend to everyone here a view of our business which has sustained me for over 40 years. Invert the pyramid. Put the Birts and the Hollick, the Greens and the Robinsons in their proper place, at the bottom, and the writers in theirs, at the top. Without the writers we would all be out of work. It would all close down - writers work on almost everything thatÕs made, well beyond drama. Even the news. Especially the News. I used to get into trouble at the Beeb for claiming that the main evening news was the best fiction on television.

You donÕt have to love writers - I donÕt. Well, I happen to love some of them, but thatÕs incidental. ItÕs their talent IÕm after. ThatÕs what I love. And any writers who donÕt take their talent seriously, want to stretch and develop it, they get a rough ride from me. I canÕt bear waste. Our duty is to raise each otherÕs game.

The whole industry is looking for creative leadership. Look around the top management and tell me who inspires you. There are grey apparatchiks, there are those who can read a balance sheet, there are industry big mouths and self-publicists.

But where is the vision? And they complain privately about the drama being dull and repetitive!

The most stifling development this decade has been a centripetal tendency to disenfranchise producers and concentrate decision making in too few hands. Power used to be devolved through producers to directors and others at the pit face. Now a peculiar logic applies. ItÕs the

football chairman fallacy, which, briefly stated, says: no matter that you have never played football, no matter that you know no more about it than the average bigot in the stand, now you are the chairman you are instantly transformed into an expert on the transfer market, on tactics on team selection and on training.

There are some in management who have actually made drama - one or two with distinction. They should realise that they have elected to leave the job to others - although their insights are always welcome. They are in the people business, not the programme business. As they say in football, pick your manager and either back the bugger or sack the bugger.

As for the rest of you. Stand aside. Get out of the way. DonÕt try to be Diaghelev. You are there to manage Hamleys, not to play with the train sets. Your ideas on writers, director and casting - especially casting - are usually clichés. Like Jack Warner. When old Jack Warner was still running Warner Bros., Ronald Reagan began his political career by running for Governor of California. On the morning of his announcement, a production man ran into Jack WarnerÕs office and said, "Jack, Jack - Reagan for Governor!" Jack Warner thought for moment and said, "No. No. Jimmy Stewart for Governor, Ronnie Reagan for best friend."

For any category of drama I want to produce, there are only two people I can talk to. It is unhealthy for such few sensibilities to be at work. And when they then start dictating the major elements, they compound the problem. The range of our drama is impoverishingly narrow, the convictions underpinning it are depressingly conformist and correct, and the results are too often lifeless and predictable. Drama changes slowly, the creative community takes time to respond to the demands of the buyers and it does so with only a little self-awareness. These few buyers have taken on a big responsibility. Because it is so dispiriting to be enthusiastically pro-active in such circumstances, what is even thought possible shrivels.

People who are secure in their power look for ways to give it away. Because they are also secure in their ability to choose those they entrust with that power.

I see thereÕs a session on talent - the hardy perennial at every conference - talent, especially writers. Well, I hope we widen the discussion. Because the industry is eating the seed corn. It wants to take, but put nothing back. 70% of the production work force are freelance and used as much by the in-house production arms of broadcasters as by the independents. Channel 4 is committing .5% of its revenue to new training initiatives. This is a start. Proper training

not low wage exploitation, not the modern equivalent of sending kids up chimneys - should be industry wide and financed by a levy on the end users, the broadcasters. The independent companies must play a full part in this process. I hear horror stories of exploitation by independent companies of kids wanting to break into the business. They deserve better. As a matter of urgency the Government should bang heads together and shame or force the Industry into this vital investment in the future. If the construction industry can get its act together, so can we.

ThereÕs a session on co-production, I see.

IÕve never been any good at co-productions - so all I can contribute are questions. There will be people here, cannier than me, who have the answers. IsnÕt it true that the only consistently successful co-production model is the low budget art film? And arenÕt these films really co-investment deals and pre-sales arrangements, with the films themselves firmly in the hands of an auteur director? Not co-productions at all? IÕm certainly in favour of co-investment - IÕll take any bodyÕs money - but there should only be on producer.

And if audience tastes change, making co-productions acceptable, will there be fewer drama specifically reflecting and exploring our culture - which in our case, is itself a mosaic of different cultures: Hollywood managed to conquer the world on its own, by exploring universal themes. It had an advantage more important than the size of its domestic market -it was so culturally heterogeneous, it was forced to learn the tricks of global domination at home. Could we begin to do that?

And itÕs odd, is it not, that just as financial pressure for co-productions emerges, so audience have become more ethnocentric. The Germans want a German cop, the French want a French cop, and the British want a British cop. Some of us remember the days when Starsky & Hutch, and Kojak, had an arresting presence all over the world, and when the whole country came to a standstill for Dallas. Now, even the best U.S. imports are only cult hits, and are largely confined to minority channels.

And why co-produce when you can wait a year and buy it in cheap?

If the co-producing business ever really took off, what kind of drama would we be making? How would it be different? And wouldnÕt we be better off saying what we have to say in our own way but finding ways to say it cheaper?

I suspect in the end itÕs a matter of horses for courses, it makes sense for some shows and not others. But those who think it will unlock untold riches and solve all their problems have never tried doing business with the French.

The presence of the advertising industry should provide some entertainment. The advertisers and their buyers are such a modest bunch. They like to claim that programmes are beyond their competence, that they have no wish to interfere. IÕm sure they donÕt interfere. But donÕt be fooled. A good rule in life is: look to see who is paying. Then a blurry picture comes clear. The ad buyers are the biggest power in T.V. and indirectly control the content of most of it. In their session watch them wriggle and deny and rationalise - it will be good entertainment. And then ask them, who do the broadcasters most want - indeed, need - to please? The broadcasterÕs relationship to the advertising business is like a ChristianÕs relationship to God. God maintains he has given you free will, but you are still highly motivated to please him. In the one case to save your soul, in the other to succeed in business.

15 years ago ITV had the monopoly - but the ads can go elsewhere now. Thus the power of the ads increases. It makes you long for PPV - the cleanest and most honest transaction between maker and viewer. So it will be interesting to hear what the ad people say about T.V. drama, what shows they would like, and what audiences. Take note - they are the real masters. LetÕs hope that in the hunt for affluent audiences who can buy all those new cars, those with nothing to spend will not be forgotten. I didnÕt come into T.V. to sell product. But letÕs look for the overlap. They will be worth listening to. TheyÕre smart. I particularly hope they will talk about I.T.V., about primetime and News at 10. About Channel 4, whether they are comfortable with the remit - or whether Channel 4 has to be schizophrenic, and constantly rob Peter to pay Paul. What do they think of Channel 4 privatisation? What will be the impact of able and satellite increasing their market share? Of digital? What will these ecological changes force on drama? Shall we producers make deals with ad agencies and sell broadcast licenses? Is barter going to be big? A session to look forward to.

And then there are the regulators. Regulation. What a neutral word. It implies some detached application of the agreed rules of the game. As sly as that decision over 40 years ago to call Commercial T. V. "Independent". In an age when everyone with a camera wants to be called a Director of Photography, and every ratcatcher a rodent operative, letÕs call the regulators what they are - censors.

There are many kinds of censorship in T.V., but their dirty hands are linked.

ThereÕs the censorship by the regulator - which is Government censorship. The creative community as a body does not fight this oppression. It is not systematically exposed or opposed. Should not PACT and the Writers and other Unions be collectively and permanently ready to scramble and have a squadron of fighters in the air when someone sounds the alarm? The regulators have taken too much from us. They have it all their own way. They should be fought each time they move, and beaten back.

ThereÕs censorship by the broadcaster - anticipating trouble, not wishing to attract opprobrium. Would Green, Hollick or Robinson - not to mention the Board of Governors of the BBC - like to join us, I wonder, and tell us of their daily fight for creative freedom and their untiring efforts to encourage those talents which might invigorate our culture with their unorthodoxy? Perhaps, after all, the ITV companies would like a quiet life or the regulator might remind them f all those licence application promises so cynically abandoned. The truth is that the regulators and the broadcasters are in bed with each other - but itÕs the creative community which gets screwed.

The compliance officers, by the way, are the British equivalent of the KGB officer, planted to ensure there is no deviation from the party line.

ThereÕs self-censorship - the creative community wishing to be good little children. The worst of all. ItÕs what all oppressive regimes strive for. Very tempting in times of job insecurity.

This is where we need to give each other courage.

ThereÕs also self-censorship which is tactical - itÕs only for the sophisticated and itÕs open to the abuse of rationalisation. It is possible to trade, to test limits and gradually to alter boundaries. Some senior T.V. management have courage. They have not allowed their careerism to entirely subdue their hopes for the medium. So advocacy combined with a little terrorism are sometimes worthwhile. It does take nerve. Channel 4 and some BBC people have a noble record and we are all grateful to them..

WhatÕs the answer? Perhaps in a more enlightened future our business will be treated like other kinds of publishing, subject only to the law of the land. Certainly with hundreds of channels, the internet and cross border satellite footprints, regulation will get more difficult. They had the same oppressive system with print, remember, in the early days of the press. In the meantime would programme categories help? The T.V. equivalent of 12, 15 and 18? The American experiment in this will be interesting. Would it offer more creative freedom or be used for more restriction? These are oppressive times. We have a Government seething with sanctimony. Moves to extend the threshold to 10.00 p.m. Moves to stop characters smoking. Doing or saying many of the things we all do or say in life. They wonÕt rest until T.V. drama is a sanitised Barbie doll world where real human life is unrecognisable. Think 1950Õs. Think Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Your kids will have to show Jack Straw their completed homework before they can watch Eastenders.

Taste and decency - two of the most chilling words in the English language. When you hear them, look to your freedoms - they are about to be fingered.

Can you imagine it? There you are, youÕre a student, say, with your whole life before you, lying awake having fantasies about realising all your ambitions. Suddenly it hits you "Yes! I want to be a T.V. regulator. Oh, what joy and satisfaction I shall have. With Mary Whitehouse and Virginia Bottomley as my inspirations, I will wield a sword for the prejudiced and the simplistic. I will protect the nation from these evil producers".

Being on the libertarian Left, I may be isolated. There are certainly too many people in this business who talk about their own freedom of expression but want to deprive others of theirs.

So that there shall be no misunderstanding, allow me to tell the regulators what the producerÕs job is and what it is not. IÕm going to personalise what is essentially collaborative only as a convenient shorthand.

My job is not to set an example. My job is not to be an agent of Government - whatever Government - propaganda. My job is not to contribute to your quaint ideas of morality. My job is not to support the anti-smoking, the anti-drugs, the anti-cholesterol campaigners. My job is not to follow the latest line in correctness, whether itÕs from the Left or the Right. My job is not to avoid giving offence: we live in such a culturally diffuse, heterogeneous society, that giving offence is the price of freedom. I am daily offended as a viewer, but I donÕt want the offenders suppressed.

IÕll tell you what my job is. My job is to tell the truth. Nothing more and nothing less. Not THE TRUTH - only God, should he or she exist, know THE TRUTH. But to tell my truth.

And my truth is partial, in both senses of the word. It is the only truth I know. Which is why the broadcasterÕs job is to encourage to be made and then shown the widest range of these

truths. Over time, as viewers, we will see the world lit up from many points of view and be able to form a rounded, three dimensional picture. But my job is simpler. It is to say to the audience, "This is the provisional sense we have made of this corner of experience. What we are showing you is genuinely how it felt to us at the time. What do you think?"

The regulators want to impoverish our culture by constraining us! These people have existed throughout history in many guises. But with the same function. They are the enemies of the imagination. Are we going to go on letting them get away with it?

Television drama has been in perpetual decline for the last 40 years, to my first hand knowledge. As Adam Smith said when told the country will be ruined, "ThereÕs an awful lot of ruin in a nation." So donÕt despair. We just have to be cannier.

IÕm even quite hopeful.

Well, Channel 4 has more money and promises to spend more of it on Drama. I hope it wonÕt be so narrowly focused on a few expensive mini-series. Channel 4 could, if it chose, contribute across all genres, at all price ranges. No doubt Gub will enlighten us.

The Network CentreÕs drama has delivered very successfully over the years. The schedule now feels in need of renewal, but that is a delicate task. The pressure for ratings success is intense, and ITV doesnÕt have a separate feeder channel. ItÕs a big decision, always, to scrap a show or to invest in a new one. But necessary - so there will be some fun there. I hope risks will be taken. ThatÕs easy for me to say. ItÕs not my money. A movie of the week on ITV could spearhead the repositioning of the channel in the perception of the audience.

It would need a real commitment. Same slot each week for half the year (say the Autumn and Winter Quarters). 9 p.m. till 11 (in the hope anyway that the News will be moved). Not U.S. Network disease of the week movies. Not inaccessible European art films getting a free ride on TV money. Not directors auditioning for Harvey Weinstein. Strong stories about a recognisable contemporary experience; about our own lives, and dreams and nightmares. At say £1.2 million a pop from the Network Centre (the supplier puffing up the deficit) - for £30 million ITV could have a flagship show which would change its image in a year, and release our writers from an exclusive confinement inside the corset of the drama series. It would he

liberating. I have a hunch that the audience is getting restless as we strain to deliver yet another formulaic 1 hour series. Would it attract both in numbers and kind to make it viable? Perhaps our masters, the ad buyers, will tell us. But if ITV donÕt do it, could Sky get in first with their version of the idea and seriously start to take audiences away? Much of ITV drama is very effective, but ITV generally needs a shot of adrenalin. If they do decide to shoot up with this idea, purely for reasons of personal nostalgia, could it be on a Wednesday? IÕd also like to see some low budget late night innovative drama. Not stuff with insulting budgets like REVELATIONS, but genuine nursery slopes for writers and directors, who can show the way for us all. Think of it as R & D. You might be surprised. You might get a hit.

Channel 5. IÕm surprised it has done so little. Drama is expensive, but some high concept, event pieces would have raised its profile and got attention. Is it the money? Or is the drama community not up to it? I hope that as it gets more prosperous and sure of itself, more drama will be made. Maybe theyÕll tell us.

We know that Sky is putting money into original programmes. They could become heavy hitters. A push into home produced dramatic fiction on satellite and cable would put a rocket up the main terrestrial broadcasters - a delicious prospect for the people who make the stuff.

Then thereÕs the Beeb. Oh dear, what can one say about the Beeb?

The changes of the last decade have been hardest on the Beeb. ItÕs sheer size was against it.

Financial challenges, rapid technical change, a hostile political environment - taken

together, they must have been daunting. Channel 4 was set up as a publisher; the Beeb had the 25% quota imposed. A huge cultural change. Yes, they were slow to respond to new circumstances. Yes, they too often behave like arrogant bullies - at one point I said it would be more fun to stick needles in your eyes than do business with them. As individuals people at the BBC are charming. Collectively they too often give the impression of treachery. They have made a disaster area out of their in-house London operation - yet good work continues to escape: itÕs the Italian effect. Italy can have a different Government every week, or no Government at all, yet somehow a few Ferraris and some good olive oil get made.

Incidentally, have senior management ever asked themselves why no-one wants to be Head of Drama at the Beeb? Do they think that could tell them something about how they run the place? Are they analysing the situation as an act of self-criticism? They could learn some lessons.

The arguments for the split between broadcast and production include greater focus and clarity. But the job is only half done. The BBC should recognise that with politically forced quotas for the regions and the independents, London is just another region. Metropolitan bias obscure this fact. Each of these regions should be thought of as stand alone production companies wholly owned by the BBC. With the right, but not the obligation, to compete for orders across all genres. They should have a first look deal, involving overhead and development fund, with B.B.C. Broadcast, and encouraged to thrive by making drama and supplying it to whoever wants to buy it. The Network Centre and the Broadcast arms of the contractors should also formalise a similar relationship with their production people: they have, de facto, gone much of the way already.

The Broadcasters would then have to prove themselves as buyers and presenters of drama; the production companies as makers and sellers. No excuses. The whole atmosphere would change, drama production would spark with new energy - and the perilous experiments embarked upon over the last few years, would be complete. The status quo had some merit. So does this time of radical restructuring. There are few absolute good in life. What has no merit is to half do a job and then be too intellectually lazy or not have the bottle to follow it through. One consequence would be that the London Drama job, properly incentivised, would suddenly have "A" list applicants.

When I first knew the Beeb I played the role of the disaffected, angry teenager and the Beeb played the role of the exasperated but indulgent parent. Now they behave like teenagers - by the look of some of them they are teenagers - and IÕm the parent. I try to be an understanding one.

There are signs of improvement. ItÕs dawning on them, at last, that theyÕre not the only game in town. My first negotiation with the BBC was nearly 40 years ago. It went like this.

Plummy, BBC female voice. "Mr. Gilchrist-Calder would like you to play the part of Driver Brown. We are able to offer you a sum of 11 guineas." "Thank you very much." I donÕt think my negotiating technique has improved much since. Neither has theirs. But thereÕs a glimmer of realisation now, that theyÕre not doing us a favour, itÕs not a privilege to work for them. That we will no longer be bullied or patronised. That talent, both in front of and behind the camera, makes their wheels go round. That they should start to show a little respect. Some people in there have got the have got the message. TheyÕd better convince the others before itÕs too late.

The pity of it is that all the wrenching changes in there have been made with such crude insensitiveness,

that a loyalty, built up in some of us over decades, has been strained, and in many cases destroyed. Loyalty and a sense of worthwhile common purpose are things so intangible, so impossible to quantify - but they are matters of life and death to a creative enterprise.

ItÕs time for the healing to start at the Beeb.

IÕm amazed at how some of us treat each other. Could I make a plea that at least we get the small things right? The little courtesies in life that signify the respect we should have for each other. CouldnÕt we all return our Ôphone calls the same day - or within 24 hours? Take calls without some assistant subjecting callers to a humiliating audition, having to state their business. What on earth are we there for, if not to be available to others? Reply to our correspondence promptly. Turn scripts round quickly and courteously. Make Decisions. The way people are treated in this business is scandalous. PACT and the Unions should consider getting together and issuing to Broadcast a shame list of frequent offenders.

Put theme in stocks.

As we strive to do well in the face of disappointment and frustration, "how can I persuade ther to do that show", and "how can we get it to be like the one playing in our heads" - itÕs worth reminding ourselves why what we do is so necessary.

There seems, does there not, to be a human need to make sense of our experiences; and the connective tissue between events takes the form of a narrative. We need to tell each other

stories - and some of us do it for a living.

Our children want to be told a story. The great myths and religions are grand narratives which encompass and account for life itself. Even psychoanalysis is an exercise in assisted autobiography, where a crippling narrative transmutes into one more true to oneself.

We live by stories, our own unique one, and the ones we share with others. They need to be told and re-told, for without them we are nothing.

The drama we put on the screen is also something else. It assuages our terrible loneliness. Through the empathy and imagination of our writers - and everyone involved in this collaborative act - we catch a glimpse of what it is like to be another. Not just "If you cut me, do I not bleed" - but deeper, in our souls. It is a relief to know that we are not alone and that wen in our isolated uniqueness we have feelings in common.

I said earlier that none of us is important, but that what we do sometimes is important. That it is done is a necessity.

In the middle ages it was the Church which put into peopleÕs heads an imaginary world, a world of myth, a world of meaning and purpose.

Now itÕs television. We must resist all attempts to impose doctrine and the straitjacket of great and the good knowing whatÕs best for us. Our only hope, in this pluralist world, is speak the truth to each other - because out of all the truths will come understanding.

I would like to thank Verity Lambert and Jonathan Powell for being such permissive produce and all of you for your courtesy this morning.

Tony Garnett

His/November 1997

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