Quality TV Revisited

When I was writing the other day about the perceived relative quality of British and American television, I hadn't seen a brochure titled “Quality First, The BBC’s year 2010-2011” published by the BBC Trust. On the first page the brochure says,

“The BBC Trust is the governing body of the BBC – made up of twelve trustees supported by a team of professional staff. It is our job to get the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers. We do this by supporting and challenging the Executive, those who deliver the BBC’s services, and by making sure all licence fee payers get good value for money.”

A short word about the licence fee is in order: By law, every household in the UK must pay an annual tax if they watch TV of £145.50 called the Licence Fee.

This brochure is mainly devoted to demonstrating the quality of BBC programing. It lists drama, comedy, sports, news, music and children’s programs that are meant to illustrate this quality. Then it goes on to show the results of various surveys done by the BBC itself on different measures of quality. Here’s a sample of the results:

1.       Distinctiveness and quality

a.       Per cent who gave the BBC a high score (8 or more out of 10) for high quality; Last year 36%, This year 42%.

b.      Average score out of 10 for high quality; Last year 6.4, This year 6.8%.

c.       Per cent who strongly agree BBC television programmes are original and different; Last year 37%, This year 36%.

2.       Approval

a.       Per cent who gave the BBC a high score (8 or more out of 10) for approval; Last year 38%, This year 42%.

3.       Restore trust in output*

a.       Per cent who gave the BBC a high score (8 or more out of 10) for “I trust the BBC”; Last year 31%, This year 37%.

b.      Average score out of 10 for I trust the BBC”; Last year 6.0, This year 6.4.

I don’t know about you, but less than 40% for trust and just over 40% for quality doesn’t strike me as particularly worthy of the bragging. If all the people on BBC Radio 4 who think British TV is so much better the its US counterpart are right, then American TV must be a lot worse than I thought.

*Restore trust? I wonder what trust was like before.