The Television Archive on BBC Four: From Preservation to Production

Reusing audiovisual archive material is a growing trend on television and has many purposes, ranging for commercial to more ‘purely’ social and cultural ones. Focusing on the uses of the television archive on BBC Four, the BBC’s ‘custodian of archive’ and digital channel for arts, culture and ideas, this article examines a selection of archive rich programmes shown on the channel, in order to explore the ways in which the television archive is becoming indispensable in programme making. The article is based on interviews with BBC Four programme makers. It posits that memory, nostalgia, aesthetic and moral judgement and, crucially, self-reflexivity are all at play in archive-based programme making. The article further proposes three distinct production approaches – interpretative, interventional and imaginative – all of which contribute differently to the television archive’s being seen as a ‘creative tool’

A Future for Public Service Television: Content and Platforms in a Digital World

Report on the inquiry, chaired by Lord Puttnam, that examined the future of public service television in the UK in the 21st century: The Inquiry, launched in November 2015, has focused on the purposes of television in an era characterised by technological transformations, shifts in audience consumption habits, and changes in cultural and political attitudes. The report reflects on the extent to which the UK’s most popular television channels have addressed these issues and whether they continue to represent the interests and tell the stories of all the citizens of the UK. Above all, the report seeks to highlight the conditions that may allow for the production and circulation of high quality, creative and relevant public service content in these increasingly complex circumstances

Attitude, Alchemy, and Archive – Arena’s Arts Television and its Fight for Survival

This article looks at the landmark BBC television series Arena, exploring the impact of its vast oeuvre that stretches nearly half a century. Focusing on Arena’s irreverent and playful approach to 'ordinary' culture, the article argues that the documentary series' staying power amidst dramatic decline of arts television as a genre owes not only to its thematic range and collaborative breath, but also its imaginative use of archive and ability to capture the zeitgeist and anachronisms of 21st century media

BBC Four as “A Place to Think”: Issues of Quality, Cultural Value and Television Archive in the Digital, Multiplatform Age

Public service broadcasting, central to British cultural life, is facing ongoing uncertainties brought about by digitisation, media convergence and broader political, social and economic shifts. By focusing on BBC Four, BBC’s digital channel for arts, culture and ideas, this thesis examines how these transformations affect the institution’s quality provision and cultural value. The central argument of the thesis is that the BBC’s approach to cultural value has discursively and structurally changed in response to wider economic and ideological shifts. The research takes a qualitative case study approach, which encompasses historical, discursive and textual analyses as well as interviews with the key BBC Four staff. It is divided into two sections. The first part of the research is based on the secondary literature and offers broad scholarly accounts about how the concept of culture has so far been approached, and addresses the lack of sustained academic debates about television’s cultural value. It further situates the analysis of BBC Four within historical institutional and policy debates over the purpose and role of public service broadcasting, its quality and cultural standards. As the object of study is a contemporary phenomenon, the second section is empirical, largely based on interviews, and pays attention to the channel’s organisation and texts. The quality of BBC Four’s provision, the thesis argues, is articulated through an “internal cultural geography”, a phrase coined to situate the channel relationally within multiple and complex institutional contexts, including the BBC’s shift to multichannel, digital platforms; the formation of the BBC television portfolio; the branding and marketing of its channel identity; and the channel’s prominent curatorial role within the BBC’s digitisation of the television archive. The thesis concludes that the cultural value of BBC Four is conveyed relationally, with the channel being defined as a place where cultural programmes can be found