tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/bbc-television-23791/articlesBBC television – The Conversation2020-02-20T10:56:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321142020-02-20T10:56:20Z2020-02-20T10:56:20ZBBC: the licence fee is a small price to pay for a service that unites the UK<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316206/original/file-20200219-11044-908bsv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C10%2C3396%2C2472&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">mikecphoto via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anyone who owns a television set in the UK is obliged, by law, <a href="https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one">to pay a licence fee</a> which has always enabled the BBC to exist as an independent entity. But a recent <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-10-tells-bbc-licence-fee-will-be-scrapped-hzwb9bzsx">Sunday Times article (paywalled)</a> has announced the UK government’s intention to abolish the BBC licence fee. </p>
<p>It is, I believe, a move that will jeopardise the BBC and the services it provides. The Corporation should be defended as a national public utility that provides unique and irreplaceable programming for different audiences. The subscription model proposed, we’re told, by Dominic Cummings (apparently <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-at-odds-with-dominic-cummings-over-bbc-licence-fee-206nkjrqj?shareToken=612dd259460bf5b513fa94d61cdb893a&fbclid=IwAR2JHhpQcTCGFfbtDsJZboE14gEFQEOpsJRaHz8-O7F5KxzNDoCFzVhL26s">at odds</a> with the views of the prime minister, Boris Johnson) would simply not enable the full array of services that the BBC provides. Not only that but the recently reappointed culture secretary <a href="https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/bbc/time-to-stand-up-for-the-bbc/5147290.article">John Whittingdale</a> has said a subscription model was “utterly impossible” at present.</p>
<p>As the New Statesman’s political editor Stephen Bush has <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/02/downing-street-preparing-all-out-war-bbc">argued</a>, this portends a long game of political interference in the run-up to the BBC’s Charter Renewal in 2027, with the aim to constrain and reduce the BBC’s remit.</p>
<p>Is the BBC actually worth defending? Well, it is an organisation that, in its DNA, cleaves to the consensual “centre ground” of the day – recently, it has mimicked the agenda of a printed press overwhelmingly aligned with the Conservative Party’s worldview, as a Loughborough University report <a href="https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2019/december/press-hostility-to-labour-reaches-new-levels/">has found</a>. But then plenty of influential people also <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/john-humphrys-radio-4-retires-bbc-bias-left-wing-liberal-today-programme-a9114711.html">accuse the BBC of left bias</a>.</p>
<p>Is it time to accept British society’s atomisation? In an article for this platform, academic Lyndsay Duthie <a href="https://theconversation.com/bbc-licence-fee-culture-minister-hints-at-a-future-in-competition-with-netflix-for-uk-public-broadcaster-125469">quotes The Sun’s report</a> that 3.5 million people have refused to pay the licence fee. Clearly, a growing, vocal minority may not use the BBC at all. Having said this, people’s attitudes often change when they are deprived of the BBC, as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/life-without-the-bbc">this study suggests</a>:</p>
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<p>Thirty-three out of the 48 households who originally said they would prefer to not pay at all and not receive the BBC, or who wanted to pay a lower licence fee, changed their minds and said they were now willing to pay the full licence fee for the BBC.</p>
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<p>What of the government’s own reasoning for replacing the licence fee? As Goldsmiths professor of media Des Freedman <a href="https://www.mediareform.org.uk/blog/democratise-the-bbc">has argued</a>, it is “absurd” to claim the BBC is obsolete due to unstable, debt-ridden streaming services such as Netflix, Disney and Comcast. Netflix doesn’t have CBBC. Disney doesn’t broadcast British national events. Not yet, anyway.</p>
<p>Better, surely, to maintain the BBC as a universally accessible utility. As the Byline Times journalist James Melville <a href="https://bylinetimes.com/2020/02/18/like-the-nhs-the-bbc-is-a-national-treasure-we-lose-it-at-our-peril/">has asserted</a>, the BBC is an informational and cultural counterpart to the NHS – it possesses an astonishingly rich archive, which it should do more to put on offer to people. In its necessary desire to appeal to young people, the Corporation neglects its past. Dad’s Army repeats regularly gain over a million viewers – such shows are part of our cultural fabric and linger in our lexicon.</p>
<h2>Lasting achievements</h2>
<p>It would do well to repeat more of the series that I am studying for my PhD – the one-off dramas that made up <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jan/20/enduring-legacy-of-bbcs-play-for-today">Play for Today</a>, which ran from 1970 to 1984. This was usually broadcast on BBC1 on Tuesdays after the Nine O’Clock News. Many episodes dramatised contentious or topical issues and it nurtured idiosyncratic voices from different nations, regions and classes in the UK, the likes of Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter, Peter McDougall, Mike Leigh, Rachel Billington and Colin Welland.</p>
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<p>Most people are aware of Jeremy Sandford and Ken Loach’s Cathy Come Home (1966), which contributed to a change in public consciousness that led to the creation of the <a href="https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/history">homelessness charity Shelter</a>. We should also remember the likes of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jan/20/enduring-legacy-of-bbcs-play-for-today">Peter Ransley</a>’s Minor Complications (1980) which dramatised medical negligence in the NHS and <a href="https://www.avma.org.uk/news/enduring-legacy-of-bbcs-play-for-today-led-to-formation-of-avma/">led to the creation</a> of Action against Medical Accidents charity, which has had some impact in making the NHS more open.</p>
<p>The government claims the BBC has to “modernise”. Well, listen to Ian Wright’s recent <a href="https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk/">appearance</a> on that formerly fusty “crown jewel” Desert Island Discs and try to tell me it hasn’t renewed itself or that this alone is not worthy of your £3.</p>
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<p>Tory MPs on Twitter have defended the BBC against Cummings’s sword of Damocles – taking the view that by privatising the BBC the UK risks losing an institution of incalculable value to preserving social order. </p>
<h2>A national service</h2>
<p>All of us – regardless of political hue – should recall the BBC’s role in defeating Nazi Germany in the second world war and its credible honest brokerage during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. As media academic Jean Seaton has <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/pinkoes-and-traitors-deeper-debate/">detailed</a>, it was instrumental in laying the infrastructural groundwork for reconciliation – along with key actors across the sectarian divide and in the Major and Blair governments. </p>
<p>The last thing we need is further entrenchment of the same commercially driven values that have undermined the local British press for so long, as the journalist Matthew Engel <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/12/rise-and-fall-local-newspapers">has argued</a>. Turning the BBC into an elitist redoubt – leaving a gaping hole in the public sphere – ignores the testimony of a past chairman of governors Sir Michael Swann in the Annan Report (1977), resulting from a Royal Commission, which argued for pluralistic public service broadcasting and led to the creation of Channel Four. </p>
<p>Swann claims the BBC’s broadcasting works as “social cement” for UK society – and it’s vital to defend the current model whereby minority interests, including local radio stations, BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Asian Network, contemporary urban music on BBC 1Xtra or classical music on Radio 3, are all supported by the greater number of Radio 2 and 4 listeners. Paying £3 a week means that anyone in Britain can listen to these stations – not just the audiences they implicitly target. And more such listening would aid our understanding of other people’s ways of life on the British Isles. </p>
<p>To paraphrase what was once said in the BBC’s most famous telefantasy drama, Doctor Who: “A cosmos without the BBC scarcely bears thinking about.” Without the BBC and its unique potential to give voice to all of its constituent regions, nations and classes, the UK will struggle to continue as it is one of the few institutions capable of holding together a fractious nation state.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom May does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The BBC is under threat as the government considers abolishing the licence fee. This would be a disaster.Tom May, Post-Graduate Researcher, Northumbria University, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254692019-10-21T12:50:48Z2019-10-21T12:50:48ZBBC licence fee: culture minister hints at a future in competition with Netflix for UK public broadcaster<p>Nicky Morgan, the culture secretary, has announced to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee that she is open to replacing the BBC license fee with a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/16/nicky-morgan-open-minded-about-bbc-licence-fee-future">Netflix-style subscription</a> charge. This is a significant change from previous ministers who have protected the license fee for many years and ruled out scrapping it. </p>
<p>Back in 2009 an <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1411467/TV-licence-should-be-scrapped-says-poll.html">opinion poll</a> in the Daily Telegraph reported that 58% of respondents said the licence fee should be scrapped. Even then it was becoming clear that, in a multi-channel world, demand for the pubic broadcaster was on the decline. Today, streaming has changed the landscape even further. </p>
<p>In an age of time-shifting and box set binge watching, does the BBC license fee still have a place in how we consume television today? Gordon Brown, as chancellor of the exchequer, introduced and funded free licence fees for the over-75s in 1999, but in 2015, the Cameron government <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/15/why-the-bbc-is-not-to-blame-for-the-tv-licence-fee-cuts-9956545/">reversed this decision</a> – making the BBC responsible for funding licence fees for 1.7m elderly people. In June 2019, the BBC announced it could <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/10/free-tv-licences-scrapped-3-7-million-pensioners-9896286/">no longer fund this</a>, saying government funding cuts meant it would otherwise have to close down channels, such as BBC Four or BBC Radio 5 Live.</p>
<p>The licence fee currently <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/160714/media-nations-2019-uk-report.pdf">generates £3.83 billion</a> for the BBC – about 75% of its total revenue. To move to a subscription model service would require mass engagement and fast. Netflix has just <a href="https://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2019-02-04%E2%80%8C%E2%80%8C/tv-licence-fee-set-rise-number-viewers-cancelling-increases-over-860000">just under 10m subscribers in the UK.</a> paying £72 per annum – so a back-of-the-envelope calculation would estimate its UK revenue at about £700m, which gives you an indication of quite how big a task this could be.</p>
<p>And what does the BBC licence fee buy you these days? If you look at BBC’s daytime schedule for example, a mix of repeats and Bargain Hunter-style programming you have to ask whether this offering represents value for money? The number of peak-time repeats on BBC1 <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/14/number-peak-time-repeats-bbcs-flagship-channel-has-risen-65/">rose by 65% in 2018</a> according to Ofcom, despite a pledge from the then chairman Michael Grade prime-time that viewing hours on BBC One and BBC Two could be “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4695229.stm">repeat-free zones</a>” within ten years. </p>
<p>Next to the sheer volume of blue-chip documentaries and dramas on offer from Netflix, is the BBC value for money these days?</p>
<h2>‘Treasure’ being buried</h2>
<p>The BBC has long been heralded as a “national treasure” and a bastion of excellence in the highest standards and programme making. But its value has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/20/bbc-vows-to-increase-diversity-of-senior-management-by-2020">called into question over recent years</a> after regular reporting of a lack of staffing diversity on and off-screen, as well as substantial gender pay gaps and ratings slumps.</p>
<p>The corporation says that the licence fee allows it to run a wide range of popular public service broadcasting for everyone – free of adverts, shareholders and political interests. But it was reported by The Sun newspaper in 2017 that over a four-year period nearly 3.5m Britons had stopped paying the licence fee, as they consider the BBC to be “<a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5176188/bbc-tv-licence-stopped-brits-paying/">out of date</a>” in a world of Netflix and Amazon Prime.</p>
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<p>According to the BBC’s 2019 Annual Report, the biggest drop has come in audiences aged between 16-34 who watch BBC television TV weekly which has fallen from 60% to 56%. The same age group is also watching for a shorter period of time, down from an average of nearly three hours a week to two hours and 32 minutes. Audiences aged 55 and over are BBC television’s most loyal consumers – with a staggering <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48840138">92% reach</a> in that age group.</p>
<p>The author of a report on the licence fee from the Institute of Economic Affairs, Philip Booth, believes that the BBC should <a href="https://iea.org.uk/media/replace-bbc-licence-fee-with-opt-in-subscriptions/">adopt an opt-in system</a>: “The BBC funding model needs to be pulled into the 21st century,” he wrote. “The UK has a long history of successful mutuals and co-operatives that are popular with their members.”</p>
<p>But adopting a subscription model like that used by Netflix would mean people having to opt in to watch programmes on BBC channels and listen to its radio stations. It’s debatable how the BBC’s ageing audience will react to this sort of model.</p>
<h2>Last year’s model</h2>
<p>The licence fee model was introduced in 1946 when the world of television was completely different and the BBC had little competition for people’s attention. Now it needs to compete and a remodelled BBC could perhaps better leverage its brand internationally for better commercial success – its back catalogue, for example, must be the envy of many of its competitors. It has been a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48840138">bumper year for iPlayer</a> with 3.6 billion programme requests, the most popular being Bodyguard. Killing Eve’s first series had 42.5m overall requests.</p>
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<p>But is the streaming model under pressure? Netflix an early mover in the high-quality streaming industry, with a formidable business worth in the region of US$125 billion, will <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50077673">soon be competing</a> with Disney+, HBO Max and Apple+ for domination of the television streaming market. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50077154">Netflix recently wrote to investors</a> to tell them that competition would be a good thing as the bigger the market the more it would be likely to tempt people away from “linear TV”, as Netflix’s describes it.</p>
<p>So the BBC has some big decisions to make. Can it continue to justify the license fee? If it moves to another business model – streaming being most likely in my opinion – the question will be whether it attract enough subscribers quickly enough to compete with the big players. These debates have long raged, but now that the culture minister has signalled that she is open to a change in the public broadcaster’s model, the landscape of British broadcasting may be about to change dramatically.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyndsay Duthie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nicky Morgan recently hinted at changes to the BBC’s funding model. But can the UK’s public broadcaster compete with the likes of Netflix?Lyndsay Duthie, Professor & Head of School for Film, Media & Performing Arts, University for the Creative ArtsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1203152019-09-27T14:49:32Z2019-09-27T14:49:32ZHow public TV broadcasting was born<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294530/original/file-20190927-185403-1fr390s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The first BBC television transmissions, September 1929.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Science Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was 90 years ago that a handful of amateur wireless enthusiasts, most of them living in London, were treated to their very first experience of television. Watching on mainly home-built sets, they viewed and listened to speeches by the scientist Sir Ambrose Fleming, a “turn” by comedian Sydney Howard, a song from Miss Lulu Stanley and a speech from television pioneer John Logie Baird. It was the first actual broadcast of television to a public watching in their own homes. The world would never be the same again.</p>
<p>Television, that most ubiquitous of all media, has a long and distinguished history. The pioneering work of scientists and inventors, including <a href="http://www.bairdtelevision.com/nipkow.html">Paul Nipkow in Germany</a>, <a href="http://www.bairdtelevision.com/jenkins.html">Charles F. Jenkins</a> in the United States, <a href="https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/8263341">Denes Von Mihaly</a> in Hungary, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/baird_logie.shtml">Baird</a> in the UK, ensured that in time, television would be in every home allowing the viewing audience to be informed, educated and entertained. </p>
<p>In the UK, it is often thought that television “proper” began with the launching of the BBC Television Service on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-37837336/a-coin-toss-a-converted-palace-and-400-lookers-in-how-the-bbc-launched-tv">November 2 1936</a> from the studios at Alexandra Palace in North London. </p>
<p>But this was not the first television service. On September 30 1929 an experimental television service from the Baird Television Company began broadcasting using the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/11_november/03/2lo.shtml">BBC’s London transmitter (2LO)</a>. The Radio Times entry for 11.00-11.30 on the day shows an “Experimental Television Transmission by the Baird Process” nestled between a wireless talk on “How I Planned my Kitchen” and a wireless programme of gramophone records. </p>
<p>This somewhat insignificant billing belies a momentous event – a culmination of years of experimentation, press interest, and political lobbying by some of British television history’s key players. </p>
<h2>Watching ‘by wireless’</h2>
<p>The first steps to “see by wireless” or “see by electricty” were being taken in Britain in 1923 by a Scot, John Logie Baird. He was one among a number of scientists, inventors and enthusiasts across the world who were, at that time, trying to build on the success of the telephone, the telegraph, the cinema and, of course, radio – the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) was created and started broadcasting in November 1922 under the watchful eye of John Reith, the first managing director (later director-general). </p>
<p>In these very early years, there was no concept of a television “service” or, indeed, what TV actually was or might become. It was the idea of seeing things – in real time – at a distance which drove these pioneers. In April 1925, Baird demonstrated his new idea at Selfridges in Oxford Street, London. Hundreds of people came to wonder at this latest miracle, although the images being produced by the apparatus were barely recognisable. </p>
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<span class="caption">The first public TV demonstration by the BBC at Selfridges Department Store in London, APril 1925.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Baird Television</span></span>
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<p>After further experimentation, Baird demonstrated his 30-line (low definition) mechanical television equipment to members of the Royal Institute at his laboratories in Soho, London on January 26 1926 – the first demonstration of “true” television in the world.</p>
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<p>Despite the positive responses, television was still laboratory-based and was not at the stage of being considered ready for public use. But Baird’s close associates were keen to publicise this new miracle of science and the press increasingly ran stories relating to seeing events at a distance. </p>
<p>At the same time in the United States, experiments in television were producing positive results. Images were transmitted over a great distance by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/12/technology/att-history.html">American Telephone and Telegraph company</a> – an event which prompted one British MP, Sir Harry Brittain, to refer to television as something which might become “<a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1927/apr/12/television-experiments#S5CV0205P0_19270412_HOC_256">a very tiresome invention</a>”.</p>
<h2>BBC and Baird</h2>
<p>Around this time also the BBC was becoming aware of the public and press interest in television. But its initial response to the new invention was lukewarm to say the least (hostile might be closer to the mark). The British Broadcasting Corporation (formerly the British Broadcasting Company before the change of status in January 1927) had good reason to be sceptical. </p>
<p>Based on demonstrations given to engineers from the BBC and the General Post Office (the government department responsible for broadcasting at the time) in 1927 and 1928, the quality of the image being produced was considered to be too low for the general viewer. It’s also worth remembering that the BBC had only been operating a radio service since 1922 and this was its priority in terms of reaching and audience and in terms of finance. </p>
<p>But the <a href="http://www.bairdtelevision.com/">Baird Television Company</a> needed to get its experimental programmes out from the laboratory if it was to sell television sets, and the only way of doing this was to cooperate with the BBC who had the requisite technical infrastructure in terms of transmitters and wavelengths.</p>
<p>Eventually, following pressure on the Postmaster-General from the Baird Company, who in turn put pressure on the BBC, the Corporation reluctantly allowed Baird to transmit his experimental programmes via the BBC’s 2LO transmitter in London, and the first of these went out on September 30 1929 to the handful of enthusiasts who had built their own sets and hooked them up to their wireless sets. </p>
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<p>Due to the scarcity of wavelengths, the picture was transmitted first, followed by the sound. So viewers would watch a silent picture on one wavelength and would then have to retune to another wavelength to listen to the sound which accompanied the vision. </p>
<p>Synchronised sound programmes were finally transmitted from March 1930 onwards and included the first television drama to be produced in the UK in July 1930, Luigi Pirandello’s The Man With a Flower in His Mouth. The television revolution had begun and the “tiresome invention” would go on to conquer the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Medhurst has received research funding from the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>The first public television broadcast took place on September 30, 1929. The world would never be the same again.Jamie Medhurst, Reader in Television and Media History, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/941892018-04-04T07:58:19Z2018-04-04T07:58:19ZHow I invented a new language for The City and The City<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212993/original/file-20180403-189798-dz19cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Georgian alphabet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_scripts#/media/File:Beautiful_Georgian_Letters.jpg">rocketfall via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The BBC’s latest drama series, an adaptation of China Miéville’s 2009 novel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Ds23M9-RE">The City and The City</a>, is a police procedural – but with a difference. The series is set in a fictitious divided city – Besźel and Ul Qoma – where the residents of each side are allowed no contact with each other. The main character, Inspector Tyador Borlu (played by David Morrissey), is a resident of Besźel – a slightly grubby, down-at-heel kind of place. During an investigation, he has to travel to the other city, Ul Qoma, and in order to heighten the difference for both the character and the audience, the Ul Qoman language of Illitan had to be completely different.</p>
<p>This is where I came in. As a linguist, I was called in to design a distinctive language for the series. This is not as uncommon as it sounds – there have been a number of languages created over the years, for various reasons. The American linguist <a href="http://arikaokrent.com/">Arika Okrent</a> lists 500 in her book <a href="http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com/">In the Land of Invented Languages</a> which goes well beyond the usual suspects of Esperanto, Elvish and Klingon.</p>
<p>Constructed languages, or conlangs, have been gaining popularity in recent years, with their own society, the <a href="https://conlang.org/">Language Creation Society</a>, and annual conference. The seventh annual conference was held in July 2017 in Calgary – and even a brief look at the schedule of talks will tell you that these people take language construction extremely seriously (“(Ab)using Construction Grammar (CxG) as a Conlanging Tool”) but also have a sense of humour (“Someone from That Planet Might Be in the Audience”).</p>
<p>Of course, <a href="https://folk.uib.no/hnohf/howmany.htm">J.R.R. Tolkien created languages</a> for Lord of the Rings – and there is a huge amount of detail on those languages for anyone with enough interest to pursue it. But in what is now widely regarded as the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/68309b3a-1f02-11e7-a454-ab04428977f9">golden age of television</a>, with multiple providers needing content for their channels, there is a broader scope for invention and fantasy – which is where language invention comes into its own.</p>
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<p>The most famous example of a language created specifically for film and television is Klingon, originally created by <a href="http://www.startrek.com/database_article/okrand">Marc Okrand</a> for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Klingon has since taken on a life of its own, with a <a href="https://www.kli.org/">Klingon Language Institute</a> and translations of <a href="https://www.kli.org/activities/kli-press/the-klingon-hamlet/">Hamlet</a> and <a href="https://www.kli.org/activities/kli-press/much-ado-about-nothing/">Much Ado About Nothing</a>. More recently, HBO’s television adaptation of the Game of Thrones books required the creation of the <a href="https://www.dothraki.org/">Dothraki</a> and <a href="http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/2014/5/8/high-valyrian-101-learn-and-pronounce-common-phrases">Valyrian</a> languages, for which David J. Peterson was responsible.</p>
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<h2>Talking points</h2>
<p>While Tolkien left some fairly detailed instructions regarding the structure and vocabulary of Elvish, most authors do not go into such detail. George R.R. Martin makes reference to the languages in his Game of Thrones novels, but Peterson created them. Likewise, while Miéville gives a number of hints about the sound and structure of Illitan, there was no grammar or dictionary to refer to. Having free rein to create a language – not purely as an academic construct, but one which will be used – is both a challenge and a joy.</p>
<p>The primary concern for what we might term “artistic” language creators is the ease of pronunciation for the actors. If we are being asked to produce a human language, then we have the luxury of our previous study of language and linguistics to guide us. If asked to create an alien language – as Okrand was – there might be limitless possibilities, but the actors still have to be able to physically say the lines; we are constrained by human physiology. This was not an issue in the adaptation of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview23">Story of your Life</a> by Ted Chiang (which was filmed using the title Arrival), as the aliens communicated telepathically – although the writing system had to be created by the design team.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212986/original/file-20180403-189821-1cg0y0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C53%2C1170%2C730&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212986/original/file-20180403-189821-1cg0y0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212986/original/file-20180403-189821-1cg0y0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212986/original/file-20180403-189821-1cg0y0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212986/original/file-20180403-189821-1cg0y0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212986/original/file-20180403-189821-1cg0y0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212986/original/file-20180403-189821-1cg0y0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bilingual: David Morrissey in The City and The City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Des Willie/BBC/Mammoth Screen</span></span>
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<h2>Script reading</h2>
<p>In his novel The City and The City, Miéville tells us that Illitan uses the Roman script, having lost its original, right-to-left script “overnight” in 1923 (we’re not told how or why). We know that Borlu finds the sound of Illitan “jarring” (although we know from Miéville’s description of the character that he speaks “good” Illitan). In Besźel, meanwhile, people speak Besz, but for the purposes of the TV adaptation this is rendered as English and the written language, despite its occasional Cyrillic intrusions and diacritics (accents, for example), is still understandable to an English-speaking audience.</p>
<p>In order for the audience to share in Borlu’s sense of alienation in Ul Qoma, the decision was taken to use an entirely different alphabet for Illitian for the television series – and we eventually settled on the Georgian alphabet as it bears no resemblance to English.</p>
<p>The grammar of Illitan is made up of a mixture of Slavonic languages (such as Slovene, with its extra verb conjugation referring to two people: “we two are”, “you two are”, “they two are” as well as “we are”, “you are”, “they are”) and a system of infixes (like a prefix, but it fits into the word rather than in front of it) to denote tense and aspect. The word order remained roughly the same as English in order to help the actors know where to put the emphasis in their lines.</p>
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<span class="caption">Maria Shraders as Quissima Dhatt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bbcpictures.co.uk/image/14970706?collection=14970888+14970706&back=L2ltYWdlL2NhbXBhaWduLzExMDAyODI3LzE2">Des Willie/BBC/Mammoth Screen</a></span>
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<p>One final problem when creating a language from a novel is one familiar to any adaptation – the expectations of the audience. With any adaptation, the audience is divided into those who know the original novel and those who do not. Those who do will always have their own ideas about how the characters look and sound – and this extends to fictional language. </p>
<p>My version of Illitan will not necessarily match up with that of a fan of The City and The City, but I hope it will add something for people who are new to Miéville’s work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94189/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Long does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Linguist Alison Long helped translate a best-selling novel into the latest BBC television drama.Alison Long, Programme Director, Modern Languages, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/843122017-09-27T11:29:13Z2017-09-27T11:29:13ZA time traveller’s guide to television acting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187551/original/file-20170926-10570-1l41wv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William Hartnell as the original Dr Who.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y3yj">BBC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>British television acting has changed a lot since the days of live drama. With the exception of soaps and some sitcoms – such as Ben Elton’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4793190/">Upstart Crow</a> – production has shifted from multi-camera studio to single camera location and the rehearsal process that was once so vital is now little more than a table-read at best. At worst, it’s a brief discussion with the director on the shoot. The other side of this coin is that training for TV – which used to be an afterthought at drama schools focused on stagecraft – is now a much larger part of a performer’s toolkit. So, what impact have these changes had on how actors work for TV? </p>
<p>That was the question I wanted to answer when I undertook <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781784992989/">my own research</a>. I interviewed more than 30 actors, directors and producers from six decades of television drama and looked at a selection of TV sci-fi programmes, including <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045436/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3">The Quatermass Experiment</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006q2x0">Doctor Who</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072572/">Survivors</a> – each of which was remade in the 2000s. These provided both a historical overview and a “then and now” comparison of changing acting styles.</p>
<p>As most early television was live, we don’t have many recorded examples of TV acting before the 1950s. The accusation often made about these performances is that they are “stagey” or “mannered”. But watching the opening episode of Quatermass shows that some actors were already learning to scale down their theatre performances to something more suited to the small screen. </p>
<h2>‘Studio realism’</h2>
<p>Yes, there are wide, and at times hilarious, variations in the level of projection used for voice and body (by modern standards, <a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/519559bd6f135">W. Thorp Devereux</a> is particularly wooden). But the lead actor, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Tate">Reginald Tate</a>, had already perfected a style that wouldn’t be entirely out of place today. Unlike some of his colleagues he keeps unnecessary gestures to a minimum and his voice is only as loud as it needs to be for the boom microphones. I’ve called this emerging style “studio realism”.</p>
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<p>Ten years later, the cast of Doctor Who were much more consistent when it came to gesture and vocal projection. Studio realism was beginning to bed in. The coming of videotape made little difference to the BBC’s production routine: the cast still practised lines and actions in a rehearsal room before moving into the studio. However, there is less sense of a theatre performance being given – despite the fact that the stage is where most actors still cut their teeth.</p>
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<h2>‘Location realism’</h2>
<p>In the mid 1970s, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUi_ZHiImRw">Survivors</a> saw the start of a sea change, away from the studio and on to location, albeit with outside broadcast cameras more often used to cover football matches. This is the start of modern “location realism”. Being out on site means the “frontal” acting required by three-walled studio sets can be abandoned and – no longer surrounded by the technological paraphernalia of Television Centre – many of the cast are pitching their lines at a more natural level.</p>
<p>Thirty years on, the relaunched Doctor Who and Survivors featured actors who had spent more time on screen than on stage and an arguably more spontaneous acting style has emerged. These day rehearsals have virtually disappeared and the production block is devoted primarily to filming. Scenes are usually recorded out of story order and the emphasis is now on repeated takes. Whereas multi-camera meant actors were playing scenes (and sometimes whole episodes) all the way through, the modern TV actor’s job is less a case of staying “in the moment” for a practised performance than an attempt to maintain “the illusion of the first time” (a phrase coined by US actor William Gillette to describe the actor’s art of making a scripted scene seem live and unrehearsed) while keeping continuity firmly in mind. All on increasingly tight shooting schedules.</p>
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<p>In addition, the screen training now provided at drama schools, where students are warned they will be “too big” for TV, has led to an under-projected physical and vocal style that can sometimes <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/472670/Jamaica-Inn-Disappointing-BBC-drama-with-mumbling-dialogue-and-absent-plot">frustrate audiences</a> and directors. BBC shows such as Jamaica Inn and <a href="https://theconversation.com/speak-up-why-some-tv-dialogue-is-so-hard-to-understand-75423">SS-GB</a> have both come under fire for inaudibility. </p>
<p>When The Quatermass Experiment was remounted live by the BBC in 2005, the cast and crew were attempting to recreate a production template that fell out of use decades before. Intensive and lengthy rehearsals were required and nerves ran so high on the night that the adrenaline-fuelled, accelerated production came in significantly under time.</p>
<p>While most of those involved enjoyed the challenge – particularly the generous preparation time – few wanted to see such a stressful model become the norm again. However, nearly everyone I spoke to said they would like more rehearsal. Actress <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0417062/">Louise Jameson</a> explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The absolute ideal is film, one camera – hours to light it, hours to rehearse it. When you’ve got that kind of luxury it’s fabulous, but it’s so rare.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My research showed that, while British TV acting hasn’t always followed a straight or predictable path, the scaled-down style of location realism has now almost entirely replaced studio realism. What direction it will take next, in an age of multi-platform and mobile viewing, remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Hewett is affiliated with Manchester University Press, who published his book, The Changing Spaces of Television Acting, in August 2017. </span></em></p>TV acting has evolved from the early performances of actors like William Hartnell. It’s a more subtle craft and quite different from stage acting.Richard Hewett, Lecturer in Media Theory, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/754232017-04-27T09:10:17Z2017-04-27T09:10:17ZSpeak up! Why some TV dialogue is so hard to understand<p>Within 24 hours of the first episode of wartime drama SS-GB being broadcast <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39038406">the BBC received 100 complaints</a>. Viewers took to Twitter to vent their frustrations with the sound. Many highlighted their annoyance that SS-GB was just the <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-02-23/why-does-yet-another-tv-drama-have-mumbling-dialogue--and-whats-the-solution">latest drama to be plagued with audibility problems</a>. The debate has stretched to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39489713">House of Lords</a>, with peers asking whether consultation with broadcasters is needed to address the issue. </p>
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<p>So is making television sound understandable as simple as asking actors to speak up? The short answer is: no. Clean recordings and well enunciated speech will always make dialogue easier to understand. However, the relationship between the audio from our television and what we understand as speech is much more complex. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2017/feb/20/flatscreen-tvs-actors-or-realism-whats-to-blame-for-ss-gbs-mumbling-problem">Many news sources</a> and <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2017-04-04/debates/F84C55A0-3D8B-41F7-A19C-CC216F8C7B0B/TelevisionBroadcastsAudibility">some of the Lords</a> blamed <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/20/ss-gb-bbc-re-examine-sound-yet-mumbling-complaints/">“modern flat televisions which place more emphasis on picture quality”</a> than sound quality. </p>
<p>There is some evidence to support this idea. A recent study
<a href="http://www.aes.org/e-lib/inst/browse.cfm?elib=18436">investigating how television sets effect speech intelligibility</a> showed the frequency responses (how loud different frequencies are, relative to each other) in different television sets differed by 10 to 20 decibels. This means the low pitched, rumbling background sounds might be made louder than intended, while the higher pitched voices stay the same volume. This issue is made worse by locating the speakers in the television sets so they point downwards or even backwards. </p>
<p>Speaker quality is likely a contributing factor but not all television programmes have suffered the same complaints as SS-GB. Assuming that viewers did not exclusively watch SS-GB with poor quality television speakers, this means there are other factors at play. </p>
<h2>Have I heard this before?</h2>
<p>Humans are quite good at understanding speech in challenging or noisy situations. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209016807">Research</a> indicates personal and psychological factors play a role in how well we are able to do this. Similarly, these factors may affect how we hear dialogue on television. </p>
<p>For example, you might find it easy to understand Bart and Homer’s banter in your 500th episode of The Simpsons while multitasking on Twitter and making a cuppa. But when the first episode of the newest crime drama comes on, you may find that you have to sit down and pay full attention to understand the speech. How well we understand speech is effected by whether we have heard a talker, a particular accent or what they are talking about before. </p>
<p>The effect of a familiar speaker on how well we understand speech is termed the “Familiar Talker Advantage”. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24131605">Studies have shown</a> that we are able to understand our spouse’s voice (a highly familiar voice) better than unfamiliar voices. Even voices we have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081685/">only recently heard</a> are easier to understand than those we are completely unfamiliar with.</p>
<p>How predictable the content of the speech is also effects how easily we understand it. <a href="http://asa.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1121/1.381436">It has been well established</a> that when we have language or content cues in the speech, we recognise speech twice as accurately, even in the most challenging of listening situations. If we hear Homer Simpson’s brazen American voice exclaiming “Who ate all the …”, our brains are likely to insert the missing word as “doughnut”, not “bell peppers”. And we probably wouldn’t even notice we were doing it. </p>
<p>Happy Valley, another drama which had similar complaints to SS-GB, <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bbc-bosses-blame-accents-yet-7381498">had accents pointed to as the issue</a>. On that occasion, the Lords criticised “indecipherable regional accents”. It has been shown, for American English, that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2744323/">some accents are generally harder to understand than others</a> regardless of your own accent. Though when hearing is greatly challenged by competing noise, speech in your own accent is easier to understand. </p>
<p>Familiarity with an actor’s voice, their accent and what they may be speaking about changes our perception of the clarity of dialogue. This does not solve the issue of audibility more generally though. </p>
<h2>I’m no expert, but I know what I like</h2>
<p>Part of what makes the problem of audible speech on television difficult to solve is that there is no consensus on what “good sound” sounds like. Even among the barrage of complaints about SS-GB, some found no issue with the dialogue. </p>
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<p>Similar patterns have been seen in previous research by the BBC. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/whitepaper272">An experimental football broadcast by the BBC</a> in 2013 allowed viewers to adjust the volume of the crowd compared with the commentary. While most users (77%) agreed that they liked the personalised broadcast, they differed in their preferences. Some balanced commentary and crowd noise while others preferred all crowd noise or all commentary.</p>
<p>The technology which allowed the user to alter the sound mix in the 2013 experiment is called <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2013/05/object-based-approach-to-broadcasting">object based broadcasting</a>. In the future, this may allow viewers to alter the levels of different segments of the broadcast based on their preference or their needs on their own televisions. Studies have shown that using the technology in this way can <a href="http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7270767/">improve speech intelligibility</a>. It has also been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/whitepaper324">proposed by the BBC</a> as a way forward for improving television sound for the hard of hearing. </p>
<p>The many factors effecting speech intelligibility mean that one particular sound mix will rarely make everyone happy. The provision of “personalisable” broadcast mixes, using object based broadcasting, may be the solution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The problems and how we might fix them.Lauren Ward, Doctoral researcher in Audio Engineering and General Sir John Monash Scholar, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.