Learning on ScreenFeature Films on British Television in the 1970s
ITV companies programmed seasons less often, though it was not uncommon for them to bill film slots under generic rubrics such as ‘Big Star Movie’ or ‘All-Action Western’. Granada practised seasons more than most companies, due to Halliwell’s influence, and some groups of films particularly lent themselves to themed slots, such as the classic Universal horror movies that Halliwell acquired in 1969. But perhaps the most adventurous film series of the 1970s were the occasional Experimental Film Seasons (sometimes billed as ‘Film Club’) programmed by the Welsh station HTV in the summer months, which often showcased foreign-language, documentary and independent films, sometimes of a highly controversial kind. Most other ITV companies showed foreign films, such as spaghetti Westerns and ‘continental’ thrillers, only in dubbed versions.
The Controversies
For the remainder of this paper I want to focus on two sets of controversies that arose in a single year, 1975, both concerning ITV and both illustrating the potential hazards that lay in wait for different kinds of scheduling decisions regarding films aimed at very different sorts of viewer. Both saw the network struggling to accommodate itself to different demands made by quite distinct audience groups.
The first of these was a harbinger of a trend that was to continue throughout the decade and on into the years beyond, and which resulted in a significant increase in the number of viewer complaints reaching the IBA. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the principal complaints regarding films concerned a problem suffered by ITV far more than the BBC: the cutting of films to fit arbitrary time slots (something the BBC claimed never to do). But from the mid-70s these were superseded by related but somewhat different types of complaint: that certain films had been cut too heavily because of adult content; that these films had not been cut enough to remove more adult content; or that they had been shown at all, cuts or no cuts, because of their subject matter. This situation was precipitated due to the nature of the material that was increasingly becoming available to television.
…many films now included material that would have been prohibitive only a few years before: in essence, sex, violence and bad language, and the breaking of social taboos.
Changes in censorship in the 1960s (notably the introduction of an age-graded ratings system in America) as well as the increasing targeting of films at an adult or young-adult audience meant that many films now included material that would have been prohibitive only a few years before: in essence, sex, violence and bad language, and the breaking of social taboos. In cinemas these were most often given ‘X’ or ‘AA’ certificates in the UK and ‘X’ or ‘R’ in the US. When viewers wrote in or called to ask, as they often did, why broadcasters couldn’t show or publicise these ratings when the films were televised, they were invariably met (by both the BBC and the IBA/ITV) with the same responses: that in many cases the ratings were outdated and would no longer be applied to the films by the censors themselves; that publicising such ratings as a warning would act as an attraction to younger viewers rather than a deterrent; and that in any case they were applied by a film-industry body that had nothing to do with the broadcasters.
The ITV system had its own classification system, developed in the late 1960s. Before a newly acquired film could be shown it had to be viewed by a representative of a programme company – usually the first one to show it, though in later years it was argued that the Big Five companies could do this more efficiently and responsibly than the smaller ‘regionals’. It would recommend or make any necessary cuts for content and issue a certificate based on the film’s suitability for broadcast in particular time slots: usually SAT (suitable any time), post-7.30 and post-9.00; in some cases films were recommended as suitable only after 10.30 and in any case the networked News at Ten made scheduling of films at 9.00pm difficult (the IBA did not like films straddling the news, though it often happened). Despite this, the more controversial films often attracted outrage that material which could only be seen in cinemas by adults making a conscious choice to do so was being transmitted into the home where there was no restriction on who was watching and where the unwary might stumble on scenes that they could find upsetting, offensive or corrupting.
