A Night At The Opera
‘THANKS to the furore caused by the BBC’s decision to broadcast Jerry Springer – The Opera, the show pulled in a higher than average audience.
| ”And the address of protestor Martha Wrigley is…” |
The Guardian reports that 1.8 million viewers tuned in to watch what was unpromisingly billed as ”contemporary musical theatre”, many of them doubtless attracted by the show’s advertised 8,000 swear words.
And while we’re playing the numbers game, the paper says that, before broadcast, the corporation had received around 50,000 complaints.
That sounds like a lot – until you appreciate how easy it is to set up and send an email.
Indeed, the BBC says large numbers of these complaints were delivered via email and many of them employed the same language.
And now the BBC ”expect the tactic’s success to lead to similar orchestrated campaigns in the future”.
That would be success for whom exactly? The show’s producers, who scoring lots of free publicity for their vehicle?
Or for the BBC, which managed to get what a spokesman calls a ”wider audience” to see a stage musical not written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and starring Shane Ritchie?
So, now can we expect a campaign to get other BBC shows, like EastEnders and Changing Rooms, banned? Will that make more people watch them? Will it make them any better?
Of course, however, it cannot all be good, and the flip side is that BBC2 controller Roly Keating and director of television Jana Bennett have had their homes placed under constant guard.
Their addresses, along with those of 13 of their colleagues, were published on a website run by a group calling itself Christian Voice, a move that led to the TV executives fielding hundreds of nuisance calls, some threatening.
But, as is the way with such things, these events will now form the backbone of a new BBC drama, in which TV executives do battle with a far Right religious group.
The campaign to have it banned has already started…’
Posted: 10th, January 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
