The BBC needs a kick up the arts

Despite what Lord Adonis claimed on Wednesday, the BBC is not on the
ropes. It still produces some of the best in current affairs and
politics coverage, sport, and new drama (although I have to admit I
did doze off occasionally while watching McMafia).

But there is one area the BBC needs to re-evaluate, and that is
its light-weight arts coverage. Mary Beard has just been announced as
the new presenter on the BBC’s ‘flagship arts programme’, Front Row,
which despite its name will be shown on Friday nights at 11pm — about
as far removed from primetime as it gets.

Art documentaries, plays, opera and ballet screenings — in other words
anything that requires concentration — are shunted into the wee small
hours. The BBC News Entertainment and Arts page is peppered with
headlines such as ‘8 of the worst celebrity waxworks’, and ‘Lena
Dunham has full hysterectomy at 31’. It’s high-brow stuff.

BBC Four, which according to its commissioners has ‘an unrivalled
reputation as the home of intelligence, wit and verve’, is also going
down the pan. Squeezed between re-runs of Top of the Pops are kitsch,
skin-deep documentaries with Suzy Klein and Lucy Worsley, who seem
unable to get through an hour without delving into the dressing-up
box. According to its licence, BBC Four is required to broadcast ‘at
least 100 hours of new arts and music programmes, 110 hours of new
factual programmes and to premiere twenty international films each
year’. Why so low?

Yes, they have the Proms, and Radio 3 and 4 maintain a varied and
engaging schedule, including many newly-commissioned works, and
partnerships with arts festivals across the UK. iPlayer too is
something of a treasure-trove: you can still catch ‘A Passion for
Churches’ (1974), which sees John Betjeman elucidate on the
architecture in the Diocese of Norwich. Or all five episodes of
‘Julian Bream Masterclass’ (1978), in which the renowned guitarist takes
you through everything from Bach to Albeniz. But who is going to
commission a classical guitar masterclass series in 2018? These sorts
of programmes are just not glossy enough for current programming
demands.

What is the BBC so scared of? The market signals are clear: galleries
are packed, theatre is booming, people are throwing their Kindles out
of the nearest window and re-stocking their bookshelves. In 2017, a
study by UK Music found a 12% rise in the number of people attending
live music events compared to the previous year. Given the uproar and
ensuing petition that greeted the announcement last year that Radio
4’s Saturday Review was to be discontinued, is it not quite clear that
the public has a growing appetite for challenging, nuanced
programming?

Despite the warnings, streaming competitors such as Netflix and
Amazon’s attempts at arts and documentaries are woeful. Sky Arts has
about as much original content as Dave. The BBC has the
infrastructure, the resources, and the precedent in place. For
instance, it has five orchestras and a choir, but what do we see of
them on-screen outside of the Proms? Next to nothing.

Britain has a world-beating arts and creative industry,
which was revealed last November to be growing at twice the rate of
the rest of the UK economy. Tourists flock to Britain for our
theatres, art collections, and orchestras. Why is the BBC not putting
this sector centre stage, packing out its schedules with the
incredibly dynamic goings-on up and down the country? The arts sector
in Britain is something to be enormously proud of.

Following the Front Row announcement, Mary Beard said, “I really think
it is important to bring good arts comment and discussion to
television”. “If I can play my part in that, I’m up for it.”  If the
Cult of Mary Beard really exists, let’s hope she’s able to channel her
veneration and imbue some much-needed clout to arts coverage on the
Beeb.