BBC and The Second Shift Aesthetics of Public Service Broadcasting

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A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick
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Your Window-on-the-World:
Interactive
Shift
Second
Television, the BBC and the
Aesthetics of Public Service Broadcasting
by
James Bennett
for
fulfilment
the
A thesis submitted in partial
of the requirements
degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Television Studies
University of Warwick, Department of Film and Television Studies

June 2007
4
Acknowledgements & Declaration
.................. .................................................. ..
Summary
..................................................................................................
7
List of Abbreviations
............................. .......................................................... ...
8
List of Illustrations
........................................................................................... ...
9
Introduction
..................................................................................................... ...
Section 1: From window-on-the-world to new media: The emergence of digita
television
.........................................................................................................
Chapter 1: From scarcity to plenty: Digital television's pre-history
..................
Scarcity: Television as window-on-the-world
...............................................
Availability: Active audiences and textual conundrums
................................
Flow
25
.
27
.
28
.
37
.
......................................................................................................... .
40
Segment
...................................................................................................
Viewing strip
............................................................................................
Supertext
..................................................................................................
The polysemic text
...................................................................................
Plenty: Aesthetics in a multichannel landscape
............................................
1989 - 1998: The evolution of multichannel television
.............................
Conclusion
...................................................................................................
43
.
45
.
46
.
48
.
51
.
56
.
61
.
Chapter 2: Plenty to excess: Television as new media

......................................
65
64
Appendix of images for Chapter 1
................................................................ .
.
70
What is digital television?
............................................................................ .
70
Digitality
.................................................................................................. .
Convergence
HDTV
............................................................................................
...................................................................................................... .
Interactive television: Television as new media?

..........................................
73
76
80
New media theory: Remediating television theory

93
........................................ .
(Inter)Active audiences: Communities and the public sphere

...................
Aesthetics and textuality
..........................................................................
Conclusion
..................................................................................................
...............................................................
Chapter 3: Public service broadcasting, the BBC and the period of excess.......
102
108
115
117
120
The formation of digital television

123
...............................................................
Reformulating public service broadcasting, principles for a digital age........ 133
Platform choices: Digiboxes and the landscapeof taste
146
...............................
Conclusion
159
..................................................................................................
Appendix of Images for Chapter 3
162
...............................................................
Section 2: From windows to portals: Interactive television and the BBC
163
.........
Chapter 4: `Your window-on-the-world' - Rationalising viewser mobility and the
interactive
television
emergence of
.................................................................
"Touch my button babe"! Spectacle, masculinity and the advent of UK

interactive television
...................................................................................
Interactive Television as window-on-the-world
...........................................
165
173
181
189
Gendered mobility: Just popping out to seethe neighbours
..........................
Conclusion
196
..................................................................................................

...............................................................
201
Chapter 5: Viewser mobility, spectacle and the BBC as public institution 206
Organising the navigable space of interactive television
..................................
Mobility and natural history: From Museum-goer to screen-viewser
208
...........
Balancing spectacle and education: Mobility and the aims of natural history
display......................................................................................
215
..........
'
Spectacle and public institution: From the museum to the BBC

222
...................
Conclusion
238
..................................................................................................
241
...............................................................
Chapter 6: Fragment The public service value of choice in interactive
248
applications .....................................................................................................
The public service landscape: Fragmenting footholds
253
..................................
260
Textual forms of interactive television: Fragment
........................................
Interactive news: universalism, civic value and education
267
choice?..........
...
Interactive sports applications: Fragmenting the nation
278
...............................
Conclusion
282
.............................
.....................................................................
285
...............................................................
Chapter 7: Interfacing the UK
289
Building
Digital
Britain
.................................
Remediating the nation: (Inter)active audiences, the public sphere and the
digital divide
297
...............................................................................................
305
Bringing the past to life: (Digital) immigrants and the (digital) nation
.........
Conclusion: Extending the national

322
.............................................................
331
...............................................................
Conclusion: Interactive television, the BBC and the period of excess
336
..............
Bibliography
346
...................................................................................................
Filmography
371
....................................................................................................
Tele-ography
371
...................................................... .............................................
Acknowledgements
& Declaration
I am grateful to the AHRC for having provided me with financial

for
final
I
incredibly
the
three
support over
am
years of my study.
grateful
the financial support, in terms of teaching opportunities and flexibility. the
department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick has
offered across the course of my study. I must also thank the Department of
Applied Social Sciences at London Metropolitan University for their support
final
the
over
year of the thesis.
Warwick's Film and Television Studies department has provided an
immensely supportive and intellectually stimulating environment to work in
throughout my doctoral and masters study. Whilst it is the sense of
department
fosters
is
that
the
that
community and sharing
of uppermost
department
like
The
in
I
thank
to
some members
particular.
value,
would
been
have
Tracey
Bale
Elaine
Lenton
central to maintaining
secretaries
and
department.
Gallafent,
Richard
I
Ed
thank
must
a welcoming and enjoyable
Dyer, Victor Perkins, Jose Arroyo and Ginette Vincendeau for their input,
thoughts and contributions to my `side-projects' throughout the period of
for
like
Brunsdon
Charlotte
I
to
thank
study. would also
especially
helping
`main
me in
continually reminding me of what my
project' was and
invaluable ways in shaping my thoughts on it, including supervising me at
the start of the PhD. As part of the department I've also been fortunate
being
to
enough
enjoy
a part of the Midlands Television Research Group
like
development
I'd
to
thank
their
to
and
all of
contributions
as a
my
television scholar, particularly Helen Wheatley whose thoughts on my
has
been
ideas
incredibly generous.
project and sharing of
always
The postgraduate community at Warwick has been no less central in
like
PhD
I'd
the
to single-out Dr Iris Kleinecke-Bates
my experience of
and
for
friendships.
Amy
insights
However
Holdsworth
their
thoughts,
and
and
the warmest thanks here must go to my long-suffering friends Dr Tom
Brown and Dr James Walters (who both beat me to it), without whom the
PhD experience would have been inconceivable.
I owe my parents immeasurably for providing me with the
intellectual curiosity necessary to start on a PhD and the support and love
to finish it. I also owe my brother and sister for lending me their time to
final
through
a
version of the thesis and their support across great
read
divides.
lovingly
lent
To
Mike
Andi
I
IT
the
and
also owe
geographical
Suite, support and space to work in during crucial moments of the writing
process.
I have been incredibly fortunate to have a supervisor as supportive

her
is
Rachel
Moseley.
It
through
only
and encouraging as
rigour, insightful
flexibility
with my continually changing enrolment status
comments and
that the thesis has been completed. I am immensely grateful for her
friendship.
supervision and
Above all else I owe my fiancee, Niki. It is impossible to have

imagined a more inspirational, supportive, patient and understanding
full
have
house
fun.
to
thesis
enjoyed a
of
partner with whom
Declaration
I declare that this work is all my own and has not been submitted for a
degree at any other institution.
Summary
The impetus for this project was to consider how the digitalisation
key
important
television
to
of
moment
re-evaluate
concepts
stood as an
focus
debates
To
is
this
television
and
studies.
end,
my
on public
within
service broadcasting and television studies' textual tradition. I examine how
linear models of the television text are challenged, usurped and at times
by
interactive television's emergent non-linear, personalisable
reinforced
forms. In so doing, I am concerned to analyse interactive television's
textual structures in relation to the BBC's position as a public service
broadcaster in the digital television age. Across these two concerns I aim to
historicise the moment of digitalisation, drawing on longer positionings of
television's technological and cultural form as a "window-on-the-world".
An introduction is followed by section 1 of the thesis that includes a
field,
focusing
literature
key
in
the
particularly on work on the
review of
`text' of television studies. The chapters in section 1 mix this review with an
historical argument that understand the current digital television era as one
boundaries
"excess",
television
the
of
placing
at
of new and old media
be
that
concerns
can
usefully understood through the presence of a
dialectic between television's position as window-on-the-world
and its
demonstrates
how
dialectic
Section
"portal".
1
is
this
emergent position as
by
discourses
the
called up
prominence of
of "choice" in new media
debates
importantly,
textualities
the
practices and
and, more
about public
broadcasting's
digital
in
the
service
role
age. As I go on to show in section
2, this dialectic evidences a tension between the ìmaginative journeys'
television's window offers and the way in which these are then
`rationalised'.
The second half of the thesis maps out emergent textual forms of
interactive television by analysing the way choice and mobility are
structured, providing a series of case studies in non-fiction television
4
demonstrates
key
discourses
Chapter
the
genres.
persistence of
subsumed
formation
in
the
the
metaphor
within
window-on-the-world
and "everydaying" of interactive television, elucidating key institutional and gendered
tensions in the way these discourses are mobilised in the digital age. In
turn, Chapter 5 connects the kinds of mobility promised by interactive
television's window to longer historical practices of public institutions
6
how
Chapter
television's
examines
regulating spectator movement.
has
been
by
interactive
television, placing it
explicitly
remediated
window
within the "database" ontologies of computing. Finally Chapter 7
demonstrates the way in which television's window increasingly comes to
function as a portal through which to access digital media spaces, such as
the Internet.
Across the chapters I am concerned to connect the textual and

discursive form of each case study to the academic debates and public
service concerns of the various applications' generic identity. Although I
digitalisation
both
in
interested
television's
the
to
challenges
am
poses
broadcasting
and traditional television studies approaches to
public service
has
been
important
to re-affirm the role of both
the text, a more
motivation
in the digital television landscape. Thus through close textual analysis that
connects aesthetics with production and regulation, the thesis aims to
demonstrate the relevance of television studies and the BBC, as a public
becomes
broadcaster,
"old
as an
media"
a "new" one.
service
List of Abbreviations
Barwise Report
BBC
Independent Review of the BBC's Digital Television

Services (Chair Patrick Barwise).
British Broadcasting Company, 1922-26; British
Broadcasting Corporation, 1927-present
BSB
British Satellite Broadcasting
BSkyB
CGI
CBBC
CNN
British Sky Broadcasting

Computer Generated Imagery
BBC's Children's television
Cable News Network
DCMS
Department of Culture, Media and Sport
DVR
EPG
Green Paper
Digital Video Recorder

Electronic Programme Guide
Green Paper- Review of the BBC's Royal Charter: A
Strong BBC, Independent of Government. London:
HMSO.
High Definition Television
HDTV
Hutton Report
ITC
Lambert Report
MGM
MTV
NTL
Ofcom
Peacock Report
Pilkington
Report
UHF
VCR
White Paper
Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances
Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M. G. (Chair

Lord Hutton), London: HMSO.
Independent Television Commission
Independent Review of BBC News 24. (Chair Richard
Lambert). London: HMSO.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Music television
Limited
National Transcommunications
Office of Communications (successor to the ITC)
Broadcasting in the 90s: Competition, Choice and

Quality: Report of the Committee on Financing the
BBC. (Chair Alan Peacock), London: HMSO.

Report of the Committee on Broadcasting. London:
HMSO.
Ultra High Frequency
Video Cassette Recorder
White Paper- A Public Service For All: The BBC in the
Digital Age. London: HMSO
List of illustrations
1.1
2.1-2.4
2.5-2.8
Advert for ITV digital terrestrial platform

Examples of the BBC's typology of interactive applications
Videographic `clutter' in interactive applications
3.1
4.1
4.2
Advert for Freeview digital terrestrial platform

Advert for OKTV interactive platform
SkySportsActive
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
SkyActive
Photo shoot from Arena magazine for interactive television
SkyNewsActive
SkyActive rebrand
SkyActive video menu
4.8
5.1
5.2
5.3-5.5
5.6-5.7
5.8-5.9
6.1
BBC Freeview promotion
Walking with Beasts' title sequence

Floor plans for the American Museum of Natural History
Walking with Beasts
Walking with Cavemen
The Life of Mammals
Different uses of the same interactive application's structure:
Wimbledon,
6.2
6.3-6.4
7.1-7.2
7.3-7.5
7.6
7.7
BBC News multiscreen
and SkyNewsActive
Text-driven, first iteration of the BBC's news application

BBC Athens Olympics application
Dunkirk's Èyetwitness Notes' application
Dunkirk's Èyewitness Stories' application
D-Day's main interface
Promo for BBC's Peoples' War website
Introduction
This thesis examines the development of interactive television in the
UK, focusing
on its use in non-fiction
programming
to examine a number
key
interrelated
is
in
First,
the
thesis
television
of
studies'.
concerns
concerned to interrogate the place of the BBC as a public service
broadcaster in the digital age, using interactive television as a locus to
discuss its changing industrial
strategies, policy remits and purpose.
In turn,
for
down"
interest
is
"pin
interactive
the
to
the
television
text
my second
purpose of such an analysis. Thus I am interested in the challenges and
forms
interactive
television's
opportunities
malleable, personalisable
pose
to both traditional television studies' approaches to the text and the BBC as
broadcaster.
These concerns are therefore intimately
a public service
related to the thesis' methodology, which combines textual analysis with an
discourses
limited
examination of regulatory
and a
study of the production
forms
have
interactive
these
television
context within which
emerged.
Finally, I aim to historicise
the development
of interactive
television.
That
is, whilst its advent may indeed pose challenges to notions of the television
text and public service broadcasting, interactive TV's cultural form is not
simply technologically
determined by the moment of digitalisation. Rather
longer
formations
best
it
to
as part of
of television itself.
understand
we are
Thus, across the course of the thesis I trace the development of interactive
television against longer histories of television as a "window-on-the-world".
As I go on to show across the course of the thesis, this oft-cited metaphor
discourses
from
live
it
television:
competing
about
subsumes within
It is beyond the scopeof this thesis to engagewith the use of interactive television in narrative
fiction, which has its own concernsin terms of genre, public service debatesand histories. A
fictions
body
its
takes
narrative
of
work
as
central concern, which this thesis will
growing
intersect with at various moments (c.f. Creeber, et al 2007; Evans, 2007; Gray, 2006; Strange,
2007).
immediacy to hybridity, from discourses of the national and public to

associations with the private and intimate. Most importantly this metaphor
diverse
histories
its
and
association with the television screen confers, as
such as Freidberg
(2006), Spigel (1992,2001a)
(2001)
have
Jacobs
and
interactive
How
imaginative
television
the
audience.
shown, an
mobility on
marshals this mobility and the associated window-on-the-world
discourses
different
the
the
thesis
throughout
case
remains a central concern of
studies.
The inter-connection
brief
best
is
through
these
a
related
of
concerns
detailing of the project's genesis. This came from watching the BBC's first
interactive
"application"2
Walking with Beasts (BBC/Discovery,
2001).
Walking with Beasts promised to `deliver some of the benefits [interactive

television's]
have
long
been
evangelists
promising'
(BBC News, 15/11/01).
Rhetoric such as this positioned the application as part of a wider discursive

digital
interactive
through
to
television,
movement
announce
specifically
TV, as part of a spectacular renewal of television's technological and
form.
However the application's structure, which provided multiple
cultural
from,
to
select
navigate and explore, posed
streams of audio-visual content
both
BBC's
to
the
status as a public service
a number of challenges
broadcaster and the notion of the text as an analytical category.
Walking with Beasts' application allowed for the creation of a
by
the
text,
created
choosing when to switch
personalised experience of
between streams of content labelled `mainstream', `facts', èvidence' and
`making of', as well as an additional audio-commentary.
Yet this experience
`Walking
The
Beasts'.
interactive
ostensibly,
of,
watching
with
one
was still
differing
from
therefore
offered
manifold
experiences,
not only
application
2 Throughout the thesis I use the term application to denote the interactive text and `programme'
broadcast
form
linear
television.
to
the
of
to refer
10
the broadcast programme (and, as such, raising concerns of a "digital

divide"), but also according to the individual's personal choices. This
developed
longer
digital,
it
interactive
television
that
suggested
would no
as
be possible to talk of the programme as the unit constituting the `common
(Brunsdon,
1998: 105). In turn, Walking
text
the
television
sense view' of
with Beasts was suggestive of the way television's digitalisation was acting
double-edged
for
business,
as a
sword
pre-existing regulatory,
production
hand,
dispersed
in
On
television.
this
the
and public service practices
one
text was indicative of the increasing fragmentation of the audience itself
across the proliferation
digital
in
the
of channels and viewing options
bandwidth
had
diced
Digitalisation's
increase
in
the
environment.
not only
landscape
into
to the chagrin of advertiser- and
audience
a multichannel
licence-fee-funded
broadcasters alike, but also fundamentally undermined
the "scarcity" rationale for public service broadcasting. On the other,

Walking with Beasts was symptomatic of the possibilities digitalisation
for
distinctive
broadcasters
in
the
engaging
audience
new and
offered
ways
(making them `viewsers' as I will come to below), including delivering
for
discursive
in
Finally,
the
ever-more
personalised
content
ways.
all
positioning of Walking with Beasts as a spectacle of new technology, the
familiar
in
the
the
terms
viewser
application's opening voiceover addressed
of television's window-on-the-world,
"fascinating
world"
via an imaginative
inviting them "to explore" a

journey
into the spaces television's
(Walking
2001).
Beasts,
with
window offers
That interactive television provides a useful locus for examining the
for
both
BBC's
television
the
studies
and
public service role in
problematics
borne
by
digital
is
two important
out
the
age
points. Firstly, the UK's
interactive television market is consistently positioned as a world-leader

DCNIS, 2006; BBC, 2004), and it is arguably through
(c. f.
the peculiar
11
relationship of commercial and public service rivals that interactive

television has become one of the defining features of the digital landscape.
As the take-up of digital television continues to grow (currently over 70% of
UK households own at least one digital television set) and the analogue
signal is set to be switched off in 2012 (Ofcom, 2006a), these new
digital
become
increasingly urgent areas
television
properties of
media
as a
of investigation. Importantly, the growth of the UK's interactive television
has
been
intimately related to the BBC. Whilst interactive television
market
commenced with Sky's3 coverage of a Premier League football game in
1999, Walking with Beasts was the first programme to offer its interactive
digital
three
television is carried in
application across all
platforms on which
the UK: satellite (BSkyB), cable (predominantly
Virgin/NTL) and digital
terrestrial (Freeview). At the time of commencing research on the thesis,

this was the only application that was widely available. However as Mark
Thompson
(BBC Director
General) noted in 2004, over the intervening
three years interactive television has developed to the point where it has
become de rigeuer in UK television
This is particularly
programming
(quoted
in Brown,
2004).
true of the BBC where, as Jana Bennett (BBC Director
of
Television) explained, ìnteractivity is now fully embedded into our

(Speech
television'
to
approach
making and commissioning
given to MIPTV
has
led
heavily
This
BBC
30/03/04).
invest
in
Milia
the
to
conference:
and
the emergent interactive television industry, spending 17.1million on
interactive services in launching over 150 applications in 2004-05 and
18million
in 2006 (BBC, 2006a).
This has not been the case with all of the UK's major television
broadcasters: Channel 4 pulled the plug on its red-button interactive
3I use the term "Sky" to denote my reference to the Corporation's position as a broadcaster
and
its
"BSkyB"
to
term
reference
status as a Corporation and platform operator.
the
12
have
ITV
in
2006',
exhibited an extremely cautious approach
services
whilst
be
direct
it
to the platform, using only where
generated
revenue can
through
voting applications.
In contrast, BSkyB have continued
to invest in
their interactive offerings. Although their corporate data doesn't list the
investment in interactive television separately (because of its association
have
BSkyB
in
to
and
content
acquisition),
with costs
claim
production
generated ,9lmillion
in revenue from its SkyActive portal in 2006, excluding
further
from
(BSkyB,
,
37million
its
SkyBet
2006). Across the
a
service
industry the use of interactive television services has increased year-on-year
since 2001, with Sky claiming that over one million people visit their
"interactive entertainment portals" (SkyActive, SkyGamestar and SkyVegas)
(New
31/08/06:
Media
Age,
each week
1), and the BBC reporting
an
increase from 9.6million `hits' in 2005 to 13.9million in 2006 for all its
interactive
applications
(BBC 2005a, 2006a). This is suggestive of not only
the increasingly commonplace status of interactive television, but also the

importance of the relationship between the BBC and BSkyB in shaping this
landscape. As Greg Dyke (former Director General of the BBC) famously
described it, the two `800pound gorillas' of BSkyB and the BBC increasingly
dominate and define the UK's digital television landscape. In turn this
dominance, particularly in the field of interactive television (where
interviews with practitioners revealed a heavy culture of `borrow', `steal' and
`compete' between the two corporations), explains the thesis' focus on
from
BBC'.
Sky
the
and
applications
My second interest in analysing the BBC through a study of
interactive television lies in the way this proliferation
button"
"red
of
in
that
term
to
the
a
relates
way
which they are accessed via
applications,
' This despite pledging a commitment to greater integration of interactive production practices in
its 2001 programming policy statement.
5 Interviews conducted with Patrick Dalzell, BBC Senior Executive Producer of Interactive Sport,
(22/03/04) and Tom Williams, BBC Creative Director of Interactive Television (1/09/04).
13
pressing the red button on the television remote control, places television at
forms.
Whilst
ìnteractivity'
intersection
the
the
on
media
of old and new
do
for
button
limited,
is
the
allow
applications
offer
red
extremely
different
degrees.
As the BBC's
to
navigation and personalisation of content
[sic]
do
literature
iTV
`you
to
applications
allow
explanatory
suggests,
other
things with your television - join in with programmes, see extra news
stories and sports coverage ... even play games, go shopping,
(www.
bbc.
and use email'
co. uk/digital/tv/tv
2/08/06).
The (inter)activity
bets
place
interactive. shtml, site visited
here
on offer
requires us to re-conceptualise
but
is,
text
the
television
not only what
also its audience. That is, in
discussing interactive television there is a need to distinguish between the
interactive
the
traditional
television
those
audience
and
who
use
position of
between
here
The
is
the
term
applications.
choice
user and viewer
for
former
its
the
connotations of activity and engagement and
problematic:
the latter for the passivity it connotes. By "pressing the red button" the
from
become
does
their
television audience
removed
not automatically
traditional
"viewer"
position,
different
is
at
which
times already both active
different,
does
interactive
Yet
television
and possibly
suggest a
and passive.
Dan
inTo
Harries'
I
to
this
this
solution
end,
prefer
position.
new, subject
between-ness in coining the term "viewser":
the experience of media in a manner that effectively
integrates the activities of both viewing and using
...
by
is
what they
not only measured
entertainment value
do
by
but
hear,
they
and the ways
also
what
see and
in which their activities have a direct impact
...
(Harries, 2002: 172).
As a result, I use the term viewser to refer to the audience where it is

"using" an interactive television application and the term "audience" to
denote viewers of the traditional, linear television text.
14
The distinction between the terms user, viewer, audience and

viewser is in turn related to digital television's technological and cultural
form. As Charlie Gere's study of digital culture suggests, to speak of a
technology as digital is `to call up, metonymically,
[a] whole panoply' of
connotations. Chief amongst these is the idea of interactivity and its

association with computing
(2002: 11). How we understand
interactive
television therefore, is intimately bound up with the ontological distinction

between liveness and "real-time" engendered in the two technologies of
television and the computer, between broadcasting and algorithm. As
Philip Auslander has argued, television has become the dominant referent
liveness,
of
replacing
live
even
performance
itself (1999: 23). Thus, whilst
television may no longer be live in an ontological sense, ideologically it

functions as the live medium par excellance6. This liveness contrasts with
the real-time ontology of digital technology's data structures and
for
the `calling up' of information ònalgorithmic processes, which allow
demand' (Manovich,
2001: 223).
In turn real-time data structures of computing have been pivotal in

the emergence
of the "portal"
as a programming
for
strategy
aggregating
forms.
As
David
Burnett
in
Marshall
Rob
and
media
new
content and users
[sic]
information
`customize
to
the
user's
relationship
with
explain, portals
an organized
homepage
structure
[they] are organized

...
access points that
allow the user to move outward' through a selection of choices on offer

hypermedia
(2003:
91). Portals, as Karen Buzzard
hyperlinks
through
or
details, have become the dominant business model of the Internet acting as
à one-stop gateway to the web', which attempt to keep the user on the site
(2003:
198).
However,
long
possible
as
as
as theorists such as Buzzard,
6 As Stanley Cavell reminds us, on television there is `no sensuous distinction

live and the repeat or replay' (1952: 80).
between the
15
Boddy (2002) and Caldwell
(2002,2003)
have noted, these strategies are
simply the remediation of old media, television practice onto the web. My
use of the term portal therefore draws on this new media terminology, but
fundamental
draw
dichotomy
between
does
as with such work,
a
not
new
and old media. Nevertheless the notion of portal remains important for the
way in which it contrasts to the broad vistas associated with television's
window-on-the-world,
freedom
the
swapping
of exploration and
journeying for a rationalised mobility and set of choices that contain the
viewser within the individual text's confines. It is my contention then that
interactive television does not simply remediate these web and new media
portal practices, but does so in a way that is entwined with its position as a
window-on-the-world.
Of course, the association of the window with
television's liveness and the portal with digital technology's real-time

distinction:
by
important
calling up the portal and window in
remains an
different ways, the interactive applications under discussion in the thesis
put television's
liveness, its ontological
and ideological
baggage constantly
into play. How, as Caldwell puts it, each of the applications masters the
fundamental
is
the
time
that
concern of television programming is
metric of
how
both
importance
the text and public
to
we understand
of crucial
(2003).
interactive
implications
television
of
service
As a result, across the thesis I argue that a tension, or dialectic,
between
the positions of television as a window-on-the-world
emerges
and
helpful
distinction
This
is
insofar as it
television as a portal.
particularly
in
initial
to
concern
my
analysing the public service value of
returns me
interactive television. In its position as portal, "choice" becomes a key
for
both
level
the
and
public
consumer
service
value,
operating
at
criterion
(2001)
individual
Bob
As
Franklin's
the
text.
overview of
of regulation and
British television policy demonstrates, from Thatcherism's de-regulation of
16
the industry in the early 1980s to the current moment, television policy has
fundamental
focused
generally
organisational principal.
on the market as a
In so doing, policy has tended to re-cast television's audience as consumers
rather than citizens, placing a primacy on choice in the process - both that
by
the market and that which the BBC should, and should not,
supplied
provide. This vision of the digital landscape has been strongly promoted by
not only the BBC's commercial rivals, but also by Barry Cox the Chairman
of the Digital Television Stakeholders Group and government-appointed
"digital tsar" of the UK's switchover programme. Cox proposes that the
digitalisation
is a chance to recast the television landscape in
moment of
the image of a high street retail store:
homes
[would]
become
our
an electronic retail outlet,
the equivalent of a video version of WH Smith.... we
have
for
the
to
would
ability
choose - and pay
- what
from
that wide range (2004: 28).
we wanted
This discourse of choice has then been intimately related to the
from
different
TV:
interactive
to
possibilities of
choose
commentary tracks
and extra material, as in Walking with Beasts, through to the selection of
(BSkyB,
football
in
SkySportsActive's
1999
coverage
camera angles
-)
through to choosing who to vote for in Big Brother (Endemol/C4,2000
and what products
to buy on Sky's interactive
entertainment
-)
portals.
Fundamentally, red button interactive applications have simply offered

broadcaster
"interaction"
the
or content-provider.
with
choice rather than
As such, the difference between window and portal indicates the shift in
flow
broadcasting,
from
"viewser-flows"
to
the
the
programmed
of
concern
fundamental
dichotomy
between
This
is
TV.
interactive
not a
old and
of
bad,
determinism,
choice and
consumerism and public
new, good and
history
Friedberg's
Rather,
as
exhaustive
of the virtual window in
service.
Western culture has demonstrated, the window is both àn opening, an
17
frame,
hold
ìts
in
for
light
as
edges
as
well
aperture
a
viehand ventilation'
from
(2006:
Thus
1).
television's window, and the journeys
the views
place'
framed
been
have
it,
and rationalised in important
always
on offer through
ways. Furthermore, the metaphor of the window is constantly recalled and
discourses
by
interactive
television's
re-circulated
and aesthetics, even as it
remediates the portals of new media.
This dialectic between window and portal, between television's
position as old and new media, is one I argue can be best understood by
paying close attention to the texts of interactive television themselves.
Whilst there has been a burgeoning of scholarship on the area in the
United States (c. f. essays in Spigel and Olsson 2004; Caldwell, 2003; Boddy,
2004b, 2004c; Dawson,
2007), in the UK interactive
television
has been
have
been
limited
introductory
Studies
Lury's
to
under-theorised.
relatively
forms
localised
(2004),
Harrison
Wessels'
of
study of
and
overview
interactive television (2004)', Hanley and Viney's call for regulation of EPGs
(2003) and Holmes' excellent,
but incidental,
study of interactivity
in The
Salon (E4,2003-2004) and voting in reality TV music programmes (2004a,

2004b). In contrast to the lack of interest in the new forms of programming
has
been
digital
intense
BBC
itself
in
the
the
the
subject
of
age,
emergent
The
important
and comprehensive of
most
academic and political scrutiny.
these is Georgina Born's anthropological
BBC
the
and its
study of
Uncertain
Visions:
Birt,
the
government,
relationship with regulation and
her
insights
illuminating,
Whilst
BBC.
Reinvention
the
Dyke and the
are
of
her close scrutiny of the organisational structure of the BBC has a widely
divergent interest from my own and interactive television is, at the most, a
peripheral concern.
' Harrison and Wessels' work usefully picks up on the BBC's local interactive services and their
interaction.
levels
high
I
in
delivering
in
to
their
of
community
return
work
my review of
use
literature and Chapter 7, for now I merely wish to note my divergent interest in applications that
have a national, rather than local, availability.
18
Born's work, like other discussions of the BBC during this and
f.
(c.
Collins, 2002,2006; losifidis, 2005; Steemers, 1998,
subsequent periods
2004), has little interest in the texts and aesthetics of digital television. Such
has
its place within television studies and might
critical work certainly
logically be applied to a discussion of the BBC's interactive television
failing
However,
to address the
provision.
such an approach might also risk
texts with any degree of specificity or rigour. In such approaches the text
becomes denigrated as a site of meaning because it is either so
aesthetically uninteresting as to warrant close scrutiny, whereby television
becomes àn instance or site [rather] than a text' (Brunsdon, 1998: 99), or so
amorphous and personalised that we should simply `throw up our hands
and say: "but it's all so ephermeral/pastichey/without
reference/intertextual
that there's nothing to analyse"' (123). Undoubtedly these regulatory

debates and discourses are pertinent to understanding the role of the BBC,
but understanding
and closely scrutinising
the amorphous
texts of
interactive television is a pivotal task of television studies if we are to

broadcasting
in the
the
place and purpose of public service
understand
digital age.
To this end, I prefer John Caldwell's approach to understanding the
`second shift aesthetics' of digital media (2003). Caldwell's approach
boundaries
for
framework
the
structures and
analysing not only
provides a
how
but
looser
interactive
thinking
television
texts
the
about
also
of
of
f.
(c.
2002,2006)8.
Caldwell,
Caldwell's
industrial
these connect to
practices
for
forms,
than
the
obliterating
need
rather
work posits that new media
programming
for
have
`the
made
need
content programming
strategies,
digital
era even more compelling'
the
in
(2003: 135):
8 As Caldwell's wider work notes, ìt is impossible to talk usefully about new media in terms that
formal,
is
There
artistic,
phenomenological
or
psychological.
a greater
are primarily or solely
degree of interdependenceon much broader forms of industrial and institutional practice' (2002:
56).
19
Second shift practices attempt to bring new forms of

Instead
the
to
economies
media
of
unstable
rationality
...
linear textual compositing model inherent in supertext/flow
theory, TV/dot-com synergies now must learn to master
textual dispersals and user navigations that can and will
[sic]
inevitably migrate across brand boundaries
program
...
flows to tactics of audience/user flows (136).
Caldwell goes on to demonstrate how an approach grounded in both

textual analysis and industrial background can address these issues, pinning
down a text for analysis and investigating how the text addresses and
"herd",
to
the viewser's navigation of the application,
order, or
attempts
programme or site. Whilst Caldwell's work is interested in the commercial
structuring of user-flows, my work concerns the second shift aesthetic
broadcaster.
BBC
the
as a public service
practices of
I achieve this by taking an historical approach to television and its
study. As such, the chapters in Section 1 extend, revise and review the
history of television, its study, its aesthetics, regulation and place in
digitalisation.
light
life
Section
1
in
in
to
the
a
engages
of
move
everyday
dual task of providing a review of literature and an historical argument that
traces a movement from television's window-on-the-world
position to the
development of interactive television's remediation of the window as a

These
two
portal, offering personalised choice and rationalised mobility.
by
interwoven
an examination of the changing purpose,
concerns are
broadcaster.
As
BBC
the
service
such, my
as a public
rationale and remit of
interest in both reviewing literature and developing an historical argument
is to demonstrate that television increasingly comes to lie at the borders of
history,
An
technology.
theory,
production
and
old and new media
from
to
the
therefore
medium must
engage with work
approach sensitive
both television studies and its related disciplines, as well as from new
media studies.
20
Chapter 1 maps its review of television studies' approaches to the

text and understanding of television as a cultural form onto John Ellis'
history
defined
in terms
television's
as a series of epochs,
periodisation of
looks
"plenty".
Chapter
In
2
"availability"
turn
to the new
and
of scarcity,
history,
digital
I
"excess",
television's
term
to
period of
which
examine
television as a new media, "post-broadcast"9 form. I go on to remediate key
theories from new media studies to develop and adopt an approach that is
digitalisation
to
the
that
television's
sensitive
continuities and ruptures
creates. Finally, Chapter 3 investigates the immediate
regulatory
and
technological environment of the period of excess, detailing how the BBC's

broadcasting
have
been
public service
principles, aims and objectives
digital
the
the
reformulated at
start of
age. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of Freeview's pivotal role in the development of digital
television.
The concerns set out across section 1 are picked up by section 2,
interactive
the
thesis
television that
offers
a
series
of
case
studies
on
where
form,
historical
textual
the
public service value and re-circulation of
analyse
discourses. Whilst Chapter 4 demonstrates the persistence of the windowon-the-world
formation
in
the
of interactive television, the
metaphor
how
interactive
the
experience
of
remaining chapters are concerned with
television is organised, rationalised and structured by second shift
dialectic
between
These
the
chapters explicate a
programming strategies.
broad
to
television
as a window, opening on
vistas and
understanding of
journeys (for those who cannot travel), and the remediation of this through
the more personalised journeys of the portal, which respond to viewser
boundaries
individual
the
the
text.
of
within
choices
9I discuss the use of this term further in Chapter 2.
21
It is worth making a brief point about the use of the terms portal
and window-on-the-world
here in relation to television's digitalisation and
the use of metaphor in television studies. As theorists such as Jostein

Grisprud
(1997), Matt Hills (2007), Sue Thornham
and Tony Purvis (2005)
have noted, the use of metaphor in understanding and placing television as

an object of study is a widespread practice. However as they caution,
metaphors are rarely wholly accurate and need to be treated with a large
degree of suspicion, attesting as much to their aptness as to the fact that
television `has never quite been a stable object of study, and therefore
destabilisation'
by digitalisation (Hills, 2007: 43).
cannot undergo wholesale
To this end, I have attempted to place my use of the metaphors of portal
and window-on-the-world
in relation to industrial practices, aesthetic and
historical discourses of television. The portal of digital television's

interactive screen does not simply replace the window, rather it
repurposes, remediates and constantly recalls and re-circulates television's
window-on-the-world
positioning.
Section 2 opens with Chapter 4's analysis of archival research from

magazines, newspapers
and promotional
advertising,
to argue that not only
has the formation of interactive television been discursively shaped,

validated and promoted within the window-on-the-world
metaphor that
life,
but
initial
inception
into
television's
accompanied
everyday
also that
the mobilisation of this metaphor has important implications for issues of
broadcasting.
focuses
5
Chapter
BBC's
the
service
on
public
gender and
first ever interactive application to be available on all digital television
history
documentary
CGI
Walking with Beasts. This
the
natural
platforms,
chapter outlines a textuality of "organised viewsing", positioning this new
form of television
within
longer
lineage of public institutions'
a
concern to
22
didactic
in
to
the
aims of natural
relation
organise the spectator's mobility
history display.
Chapter 6 examines the tension between the rhetoric of choice that

has accompanied the emergence of television's window as a portal and the
public service remits of universalism, civic value and education. In so
doing, I propose that such interactive
applications
promote
choice as a
both
for
how
is
that
problematic
public service
public service value
fulfilled
how
television studies conceives and
and
obligations are
4
look
5
Thus,
Chapters
text.
to
the
television
and
whilst
understands
longer histories in television's form, Chapter 6 draws on new media
scholarship to understand the interactive, non-linear television text as
"fragmented", linked to the webportal structures of Internet sites. Finally,
Chapter 7 looks at how interactive television has functioned as a portal to
drive older audiences, figured as "digital immigrants",
into the online world
interest
in
the traditional public service
an
simultaneously
retaining
whilst
for
history
bringing
The
the
together.
applications
nation
remit of
demonstrative
here
discussion
"everyday-ing"
the
of
are
programmes under
4,
Chapter
in
I
interactive
television set out
evincing a close relationship
of
history
As
the
programming.
such, they
of
concerns
and
aesthetics
with
(Wilson,
2003)
in
`bringing
the
the
to
alive'
order
past
aims of
seek
achieve
digital
future.
into
the
to
to use the past as a platform
stride
Across the case studies I am concerned to interrogate individual
demands
in
the
their
the
to
specific
genre
and
of
relation
applications
institutional context of the BBC at the time of their production and airing.
Thus, the second shift aesthetic textualities I propose remain specific to
both the genre under discussion and the institutional context of the BBC's
broadcasting
Ultimately,
is
this
obligations.
a study
public service
digital
television
the
texts
of
and
with
concerned
-hat they can tell us
23
It
key
to
television
seeks
studies.
examine what the
about
concerns within
`texts' of interactive television are, and in turn, how these fulfil the BBC's
digital
landscape.
in
broadcasting
Finally, the
the
remits
public service
thesis asks how both of these concerns fit within longer histories of
television's cultural form.
24
Section 1: From window-on-the-world

to
digital
The
emergence of
new media:
television
Like the frame of the architectural window and the frame
frame
the
the
of
painting,
of the moving-image screen
marks a separation - an ontological "cut" - between the
material surface of the wall and view contained within its
Theorisations
aperture ...
of televisual space and the
television "viewer" require many of the same distinctions
between the mobile/immobile,
The
mediated/real ...
frame becomes the threshold
liminal site of
the
tensions between the immobility of a
spectator/viewer/user
and the mobility of images seen
through the mediated "windows" of film, television and
(Friedberg,
2006: 5-6).
computer screens
Friedberg's assertion that the window has been a key metaphor for
understanding the screens of moving image technologies aptly suggests
that the `frame becomes the threshold - the liminal site - of tensions ... '.
How we understand the digitalisation of television's window-on-the-world
in relation to interactive television is a site of such tensions, whereby the
broad vistas of television's window increasingly becomes a portal of
here
dual
The
chapters
work with a
rationalised and personalised mobility.
historiography
literature
interweave
of
a review of
with a
purpose to
television that traces this movement from window-on-the-world
to the
development of interactive television's portals. Thus, across Chapter 11

examine these window-on-the-world
discourses in relation to television
definitions
text
traditional
the
television
of
and
studies' understandings of
detail
how
broadcasting.
Chapters
2
3
and
new media
public service
help
interactive
the
television text and the new
us
understand
theories can
landscape
broadcasting
where choice, which as we shall see
public service
by
is
interactive television's portals, is a
2
thesis
the
supplied
in section
of
primary concern.
25
26
Chapter 1: From scarcity to plenty: Digital

television's pre-history
Chapter 1 places the current digital switchover programme in the
UK within a longer history of television's form. The chapter has two
literature
Firstly,
to
concerns.
of the relevant television
act as a review of
studies' scholarship that informs the thesis' approach and understanding of
digital television. Secondly, the chapter sets out to historicise the
digitalisation of television against longer regulatory and discursive
developments. As such, I `map' distinct concerns of television studies'
history
into epochs
John
Ellis'
television
scholarship onto
periodisation of
of scarcity, availability and plenty.
The first section commences with an examination of television's
history,
drawing
discourses
inherent within the
early
out competing
prevalent positioning of television as a window-on-the-world.
Starting with
this period of scarcity is pivotal to firstly the "social shaping" of digital

television as a new media technology I take across the thesis, whereby
window-on-the-world
discourses are re-circulated at the moment of
digitalisation. However, it is also vital to an understanding of the

emergence
broadcasting
of public service
as a regulatory
response to the
broadcasting
`promote
the
airwaves as a scarce
and protect'
need to
been
by
fundamentally
has
This
is
that
undermined
a rationale
resource.
the development of a vast, excessive multichannel environment through
by
it
is
In
digitalisation
turn,
television.
paying attention to the
of
the
history
discourses
its
television
and understandings of
across
continuities of
for
importance
the
of a continuing role
public
that we can appreciate
digital
landscape,
BBC
in
broadcasting
the
the
and
countering any
service
27
technologically
determined approach that ties their worth to scarcity of
bandwidth.
The chapter's remaining sections then continue this dialectic

between detailing the historical development of the television landscape
and paying close attention to the relevant television studies' concerns that
have characterised the epochs of availability and plenty. As such, my
discussion of the period of availability concentrates on a number of
different accounts of the television text that emerged during the late 1970s
and 1980s as the number of television channels steadily increased. The
final section then examines the emergence of a concern with aesthetics
during
television
the period of plenty. This section also
within
studies
details the regulatory decisions and policy discourses that characterised the
development
of a multichannel
environment
in the UK as they have
broadcasting
digital
in
the
the
shaped
place of public service
current
landscape. Thus in discussing the period of plenty, I demonstrate the
importance of discourses of consumerism to the shaping of the digital
landscape. I argue that these have been pivotal in the BBC's
reconfiguration
of some of its public service value in terms of choice,
following
I
the
trace
across
which then
chapter and individual case studies
in the thesis' second section.
Scarcity: Television as window-on-the-world

The wavebands available in any country must be regarded as
form
of public property; and the right to use them
a valuable
for any purpose should be given after full and careful
(Sykes
[quoted
Committee,
1923
in
Scannell,
consideration
2000: 46]).
Ellis' depiction of television's first period of history focuses on

life:
into
does
implying
both
it
inception
everyday
scarcity,
as
television's
28
the limited availability of television to audiences apparent in its early years

bandwidth
the
and
spectrum on which the television signal
availability of
could be carried. This conception is the most fundamental of starting points
for my review, as the characterisation of the airwaves as a scarce resource
resulted in their regulation ìn the public interest' and the advent of public
broadcasting
has
in
This
UK.
the
technological
service
rationale
also
therefore been the starting point for pre-eminent attacks on public service
broadcasting,
arguing that the excess of space on which to transmit
television signals created by digital technology negates any need for close
both
discussion
As
immediate
the
of the period of scarcity
regulation.
below and the argument across the thesis suggests, such understandings
are technologically
deterministic and obscure the cultural rationale and
both
broadcasting
public service
and television's place within
position of
the home and wider society.
As a starting point for thinking about digital television's cultural and
form
longer
history,
it
is
apt to turn to the widely
as
part
of
a
ontological
circulated
metaphor
of television
as a window-on-the-world.
Bolter and
Grusin's influential Remediation posits successive developments in visual

They
immediacy.
illusion
intimately
to
argue that
of
an
related
media as
forms
à
immediacy
through
to
unified visual
create
either seek
media
`window-on-the-world
than
such
a
space' or rather
"windowed"
...
[representation is]
itself - with windows that open on to other representations or
for
(1999:
34).
As
it
is
such
a particularly apt metaphor
other media'
discussing television's historical form, which has at various times (often
simultaneously)
both made conscious displays of its own mediation - John
(discussed
below)
forms
televisuality
the
Caldwell's notion of
and
of
interactive television the thesis examines - and suppressed its mediating
liveness.
ideology
This
and
aesthetic
an
of
windowpresence, promoting
29
on-the-world
logic therefore links the current moment of digitalisation to
the moment when old technology, analogue television, was new. In

particular, as case studies in section 2 of the thesis articulate, interactive
television - as with many developments in television's digital form increasingly shifts our understanding of television from window to portal:
discourses
the
whilst
of window-on-the-world
remain prominent, the
journeys on offer become more personalised, rationalised and, in important

ways, restricted.
As Anne Friedberg has so exhaustively demonstrated, the metaphor
histories
it
its
importance
the
to
of
of vision conceals within
window and
forms
discourses
(2006).
Thus
competing and complex
and aesthetic
beyond simple immediacy, this metaphor arguably subsumes within it key
discourses and fantasies about television that have remained prevalent
history.
its
As Jason Jacobs' excellent
across
history of early British
television drama production suggests, three key discourses were

during
in
Britain,
the
television
pre-war period
constructed around
discourses
live
immediacy
of intimacy and
was coupled with
whereby
hybridity (2000: 28). Jacobs demonstrates how these discourses formed a
complex understanding of television whereby the simultaneity of
transmission and reception create a relationship of authenticity, reinforced
by the privileging of the close-up and direct address as devices of intimacy.
These tactics were complimented by television's value being placed on its
forms,
hybrid
such as opera,
of other media
relay ability: to act as a
by
live
the
to
access
events,
allowing
viewer
national
and
newspapers
In
turn, television's window-on-thetelevision's
window.
through
them
kind
ìmaginary
live
the
immediacy
promised
viewer
a
of
world
transportation'
between the home and the spaces television opened out on
The
has
linked
111).
1992:
television
association
of
with mobility
to (Seigel,
30
television to other nascent technologies across its history and to ones that
preceded it. As Jacobs argues,
Early television itself was also
from
the "transport"
mobility the invitation to journey from
broadcasters to distant events
promoted in terms of
home,
images
to
the
to
of
the living room with the
locations'
(2000:
25).
and
This discourse of mobility has been a key trope in television's window-onthe-world function, facilitating television's negotiation of competing
positions
of private and public, active and passive viewing.
I return to
these discourses throughout the thesis' examination of interactive

television, focusing on the relationship between the perceived and virtual
by
television's window-on-the-world
mobility offered
and issues of gender
broadcasting.
and public service
Whilst discourses of liveness, intimacy, mobility and hybridity have
form,
been
integral
I want to also
television's
to
constantly
understood as
how
this window-on-the-world
set out
has
also included
position
discourses and desires for the medium to be interactive. William Uricchio

been
fusion
film
has
long
`thought
that
television
of as a
of
and
suggests
radio which
might
profitably
...
be repositioned
within
a trajectory of
distant
two
to
technologies which sought
connect
points in real time ...
(2002:
by
222).
This
is
the
telegraph'
the
telephone
evidenced
and
such as
broadcast
television
television,
not as a
which positioned
very origins of
for,
interest
in,
but
to
the
technology
and
need
as a response
brief
Gripsrud's
Jostein
technologies.
survey of the
communications
developing
`television'
technologies suggests that
to
term
application of the
from
lines
developed
have
its
two
along
separate
current
television may
broadcast form: a grass roots experience, where people broadcast to each
(Gripsrud,
The
1998:
17-21).
the
of
cinema
reasons
other; or an extension
broadcast
far
from
being
development
technology,
for its
as a
31
technologically
pre-determined, surround the playing out of a number
different interests and discourses, such as interactivity, commercialism and

(1992,2001a,
Spigel
2001b) and William Boddy's
As
Lynn
masculinity.
(2004a) work attests, developments in television's technological form have
frequently
been
through an association
often
associated with masculinity,
button
is
in
this
the
with spectacle, and
re-circulated
promotion of red
interactive television in the UK.
Brian Winston demonstrates that the advancement of television as a
broadcast technology was concurrent with the suppression of this
interactive possibility, chiefly due to a failure to find a military rationale for
its development (1998). In addition, the already established economic
broadcast
model of
radio was quickly transposed to television. Discourses
here,
import
as it was arguably through an
of gender are of particular
form
female
that
television's
technologically
to
passive
a
audience
address
developed. Of course, as I go on to discuss, the audience of television have
been
female
interactive.
However as
always
particularly
viewerships Boddy shows, television's adoption of the economics of broadcast radio in
the US effectively worked to keep out the àmateur male hobbyist' of early
hobbyists
These
`boy
in
imagined
tinkering'.
the
attic
as
radio, popularly
had previously `fished' for signals in the ether, seeking out two-way
demonstrates
how,
history
Boddy's
communication with other amateurs.
discourses
interactivity
and mobility were recruited, the
of
whilst certain
imagined consumer was squarely targeted as the domestic female audience
(2004a).
domestic
in charge of the
purse strings
Whilst the discourses of commerce thus shaped the American radio
it
landscapes,
the
to
the
concern
was
protect
and
promote
television
and
led
development
that
to
the
of
public
resource
service
scarce
a
as
airwaves
form
in the UK. However, the
broadcasting as television's pre-eminent
32
discourses of consumerism remain important here for the way in which

they are returned to in the current digital landscape where commercialism
has an increasing influence in the UK (discussed in relation to discourses of
development
digital
Boddy's
in
Chapter
3).
As
the
choice
account of
of
and
interactive TV services in the US illustrates, promotion has often attempted
to imagine interactivity as transforming television `from scorned and
degraded to good cultural object' by reinventing the `pacifying, even
feminising (in)activity of consuming television with fantasies of (masculine)
(2004a:
demonstrate
4,
70).
As
in
Chapter
I
agency and power'
whilst we
discourses
see such
re-circulated in a UK context, the everyday-ing of
interactive television is intimately related to both discourses of gender and
the institutional backdrop of the UK's digital landscape.
The imagining of television as an interactive medium was explicitly
linked to the window-on-the-world
by
the pioneering 1950s
metaphor
(CBS,
for
&
&
1953-57).
Winky
Dink
You
Dinky
Dink
You
children,
cartoon
is widely credited as the first interactive television programme and has
become a touchstone in histories of interactive television because of its
(c.
f.
for
CBS
5
US
network
years on a major
widespread success, running
Boddy, 2004a, Lury, 2005, Spigel, 1992). For my purposes here, Winky
Dink's significance is the way in which its "call to action" asked audiences
to use `Magic crayons [to] make magic pictures on a magic window' (theme
further
by
This
the
to
television's
reinforced
window was
song).
reference
way the programme allowed children to complete story narratives or
drawing
by
TV
in
detail
the
tools
the
screen
with
purchased
over
animation
kit.
kit
This
Di'1k
/ukl'
lt
contained nib-off crayons, an erasing
a special
"magic
important
àll
the
window",
cloth and
a piece of tinted plastic that,
by
hands,
the
to
the
television
child's
stuck
rubbed
when sufficiently
draw
125),
2005:
(Lury,
the
to
the
to
allowing
child
over
screen
screen'
33
perhaps sketch a bridge over a cliff edge to allow Winky Dink to escape a
(an
This
television's
tiger.
screen
a
permeable
chasing
made
window
aperture as Freidberg posits), allowing audiences to make imaginative
journeys into the diegesis of Winky Dink.
However as Jeffrey Sconce demonstrates, the journeys on offer
through television's imaginative interactivity were not always so
history
Sconce's
of television as a "haunted media" suggests
unproblematic.
that whilst discourses of television as a window-on-the-world
imagined
audiences as able `to travel the globe in search of new, exciting and exotic
liveness'
its
ìdeology
of
similarly asked audiences
vistas',
to regard the TV as a portal into a dynamic, exciting
and perpetual present on the other side of the screen
In these new discussions of television's uncanny
...
"powers", the medium's distinctive "electronic
became
"electronic
instead
nowhere"
an
elsewhere"
(Sconce, 2000: 12-30).
Sconce's positioning of the television as portal into èlectronic nowheres'

therefore demonstrates the persistence of a tension between television's
position as a window-on-the-world
often connotes a more contiguous
latter
the
this
and
metaphor, whereby
and problematic
journey.
I want to close my discussion of these prevailing discourses by

liveness
both
in
Ellis'
the
the
to
of
prominence
work and
returning
discourses of television's window-on-the-world
have
As
I
metaphor.
liveness
its
television's
and
association with mobility
suggested above,
positioned
it as negotiating
the binaries of public and private spaces. In this
discourses
link
in
in
discussion
I
the
these
to,
turn,
with
way
want
closing
been
figured
has
in
terms
the
of
national and conceptions
television
which
has
broadcasting.
As
Karen
Lury
à
effectively
critiqued,
of public service
Fictions
in
Visible
Ellis'
that
terms
might
suggest
of
of
crude reading
like
less
less
is
cinema,
only
television
smaller,
complex
and
aesthetics,
34
interesting' (Lury, 1995: 115). Whilst Lury is discussing Ellis' earlier work,
his conception of television's form as "witness" and "working through" in
his 2000 Seeing Things demonstrates little change in his attitude to
television, effectively relegating television's role to the window-on-thehave
logic
interesting
insofar
I
to
problematise:
sought
only
world
as the
Thus
it10.
is
Ellis
through
suggests that the viewing
relayed
material which
condition
began
with photography,
of witness
particularly
its appearance in
limited
function'
Ì
Initially
to
this
told
was
an
you so
so that
newspapers.
`scene of the crime' photos enabled readers to be `their own Sherlock
Holmes' (Ellis, 2000: 17-19).
However, the connection between Ellis' conception of television as

his
demonstrates
how
theorisation
through
of working
witness and
discourses
liveness
have
been
in
the
of
constituting
powerful and pervasive
the medium. In Ellis' conception of witness, liveness is twinned with
between
but
its
the
relationship
authenticity, not only
representations,
institution, text and viewer as well: television's Ì told you so' function
its
institutions.
in
In
the
trust
with
audience's relationship
engendering a
domestic
developed
liveness
to
the
turn, the visual codes of
address
were
setting in which they were received, imbuing the medium with a sense of
intimacy linked to its closeness with everyday life. In this logic, Ellis'
idealisation
is
to
the
through
of television as
connected
process of working
body:
by
issues
to
the
national
representing
promoting social cohesion
for
finally
its
issues
important
television works through
audience until
Ellis'
Whilst
it.
there
are
problems
conception of working
with
exhausting
fragmented
it
to
the
audience of the
through, particularly as relates
lo Ellis concessionto intent watching of television amountsto no more than a sentence,which he

intent
by
is
designed
be
that
to
to
such
suggesting
watching
paid to short
then seeks overturn
instant
is
It
be
true
that
television
overview:
an
perfectly
providing
at
can
segmentsaimed
its
but
intent
do
it
in
that
styles
of
visualisation
and
way,
narration
not
assume
more
a
watched
(Ellis,
2000:
100).
be
will necessarily so used'
35
links
in
the
it
to,
he
concept
landscape
relation
posits
multichannel
liveness, its bringing of far distant places
intimate
domestic
that
issues
address
into
an
with
speaks
context,
the
and
being
Despite
Ellis'
to a communal viewing experience.
concept
more
here
for
is
in
it
it
the
than
this
useful
way
which
nuanced
explanation,
demonstrates television's continued connection to daily life, which has
been consistently articulated with the national and public service
broadcasting (c. f. Scannell, 1989,1996,2000;
Scannell
and
and Cardiff,
1991).
As Scannell and Cardiff point out, television's penetration and cotemperance with the everyday life of citizens resulted in public life being
knowable
by
made
virtue of an unobtrusive temporal sequence of events
that gave structure and substance to everyday life (1991). In some sense,
therefore, the technology or cultural form was broadcasting and, as
Raymond Williams argues, `content developed "parasitically"
state
...
(1992
[1975]:
25). In particular,
occasions, public sporting events etc'
this
festivities
that
meant a regular procession of public rituals, celebrations and
backbone
defined
in
BBC
the
turn,
of content, which
provided
with a
national stability and continuity. Thus to return to the opening quote at the
beginning of this section, a concern with nation that implicitly linked
television's form to window-on-the-world
liveness was inherent in the
broadcasting's
developed
in
role and purpose
manner
which public service
for
benefit
the
of the nation's citizens.
as a regulation of a scarce resource
This centrality of the national has increasingly come under threat as
be
into
the
to
era
of
availability
and
continue
television moved
will
developments
in
by
However,
in
the
current
era
of
excess.
pressurised
discourses
into
that
the
went
establishing television as a
various
tracing
hope
have
during
I
it
this
to
of
scarcity,
that
period
shown
was
medium
36
its
to
determined
to
position
merely a
reduce
as
technologically
not so
In turn, the case studies in the thesis' second section
demonstrate how these discourses of liveness, intimacy, mobility, hybridity,

life,
interactivity
coalesce around a negotiation of
public and private
and
the role of public service broadcasting in the digital age.
Availability:
Active audiences and textual conundrums
Ellis characterises availability as being defined by post-Fordist

development
in
turn,
the
models of production and,
of new global
distribution systems that in the form of satellite, cable and the VCR
[a]
development
`harbingers
brought
that
were
of
new
of consumerism, one
increasing choice' (2000: 63-64). The era of scarcity of resource and of
penetration was replaced, therefore, by greater broadcast and nonbroadcast coverage of populations
between
interrelationships
them
and
for
their transmission. But this was not simply a
as well as greater resources
matter of technological improvements in the resources available for
transmission, both regulatory discourses and aesthetic practices impacted
by
from
impacted
in
the
and were
upon
changes
move
scarcity to
landscape
became
In
increasingly
television's
availability.
particular,
leading
discourses
to
characterised as a marketplace,
a predominance of
of
discourses
In
turn,
these
and understandings of
choice and consumerism.
the audience have been used as both an attack on and defence of the BBC,
be
I
throughout
the
the
thesis
remainder
of
suggest
must
which as
broadcasting's
traditional conception of the
negotiated with public service
audience as citizen.
I set out these discourses of choice and consumerism in my
discussion of plenty below, as for my purposes here, the period of
increasing
an
academic concern with television's
availability marked
37
form,
I want
television's
textuality. In discussing these textual accounts of
have
discourses
identified
in the
I
the
to continue to trace some of
preceding section, particularly those concerning the perceived activity or
discussion
doing,
In
my
not only pre-figures
so
passivity of the audience.
form,
but
interactive
television's
textual
to
my concern
also
examine
feminist
debates.
There
is
importance
to
these
the
of
scholarship
recognises
here
do
feminist
justice
to
to
the
not space
a comprehensive review of
(female)
that
the
the
challenged
scholarship
prevailing assumptions about
audience's passivity, and indeed patriarchal society itself. However, its
importance must nevertheless be acknowledged for it has been pivotal in
being
discourses
(which
in
the
constituting, as well as
part of
search of
include feminism, cultural studies and marketing as strange bed-fellows),
an active audience.
Lynn Spigel's recent survey of the field is again illustrative, and it is
here.
her
length
She
worth quoting
at
suggests that
for
in
British
set
an
agenda
early
work
cultural
studies
...
television scholars in the years to come. Rather than
thinking about audiences as faceless mobs with
behaviours,
scientifically predictable responses and
ideal of
television studies has used a more anthropological
late
in
Beginning
1970s,
the
as
cultures
audiences
...
from
feminist critics from film/literary
British
studies and
focused
"everyday"
the
on
particularly
cultural studies
(especially
television
soap operas), and many
aspects of
be
in
internal
interested
the
to
continue
and
were
hegemonic
impose.
In
its
that
operations
contradictions
have
feminist
critics
explored the way television
particular,
(or
the
reinforces patriarchy while also providing women
female consumers TV addresses) with pleasurable ways to
fantasize against the grain of patriarchy (Spigel, 2004: 9).
Spigel's astute overview demonstrates the importance of feminist

both
in
the
television
audience as
always active,
constituting
scholarship
has
been
Such
important
therefore
in
constrained.
scholarship
ways,
and
foundational
in the way we understand ìnteractive television'. The rest of
discussion
form,
focuses
television's
textual
the play
a
of
on
this section
38
between activity and passivity in these various models bearing out the debt
television studies owes to feminist scholarship.
To return to Charlotte Brunsdon's observation regarding the
defining
the television text to television studies'
centrality of the project of
work, she suggests that:
Most innovatory work in television studies has been
focused on the definition of the television text and this
debate could be seen as one of the constituting frameworks
field.
The common-sense view points to the
the
of
individual programme as a unit, and this view has firm
(Brunsdon,
in
is
the
television
grounding
produced
way
1998: 105).
However as Brunsdon goes on to note, the experience of television tends

to transcend these boundaries with television's messiness becoming a
have
for.
that
textual
television
to
studies of
attempted
account
challenge
As such, the radical element of such textual models `... is the way in which
[they] transgress common-sense boundaries like "programme" or
"documentary"
and "fiction"
to bring to the analysts' attention the common
(Brunsdon,
defining
features
broadcast
television
as a medium'
of
and
1998: 106). In Nick Browne's words, this involves understanding the
television text as à unique sort of discursive figure very different from the
discrete unity of film. Its phenomenology
is one of flow, banality,
distraction, and transience; its semiotics complex, fragmentary and

heterogeneous' (Browne, 1984: 176). The better of these, termed `first shift
by
in
industrial
Caldwell,
practice and, as such,
are
grounded
aesthetics'
historically
in
to
and culturally specific moments of
relation
are constituted
television's
form (2003).
By examining all of these textual accounts in detail, my overall

for
Firstly,
is
the
twofold.
as
a
platform
engaging
challenges
with
argument
form
discussed
interactive
in
the
texts
the
of
malleable
the
non-linear,
of
39
thesis, the review of these different models of the television text suggests
degree,
is
to
well-equipped
that television studies
a
already,
to deal with
digital
by
television. However, my second
texts
the
the challenges posed
of
concern here is to point to the problematics that each of these models
both
in
in
themselves
and
relation to the task of
encounters,
and of
for
accounting
a non-linear text. As such, while these models provide a
useful platform
for engaging with interactive
television's
textuality,
is
that
suggest
necessary to relate these models more carefully to the work
on new media texts; a task I undertake in Chapter 3. Overall therefore, the
forms
these
textual
examination of
works as a rejoinder to the arguments
(2004)
(1998)
for
Brunsdon
Holmes
the retention of the text as a
of
and
locus for television studies' scholarship in a digital television landscape.
Flow
Writing in 1975, Raymond Williams suggested that television's
textual form was not one of the individual programme/text - as in cinema's
filmic form - but rather amounted to an aggregation of a variety of texts,
by
the channel/broadcaster
planned
by
traversed
the viewer. Williams
and
flow,
defining
is
`phenomenon,
the
that
this
of planned
perhaps
argued
...
broadcasting,
simultaneously as a technology and as a
characteristic of
flow
[1975]:
historical
form'
(1992
The
is
86).
specificity
of
cultural
important to note, as many of the problems with its possible application in
from
broadcast
digital
Williams'
this.
analysis was of a
a
environment stem
television landscape of availability, which examined a US context that was
big
flow
by
is
In
this
the
networks.
a product of
sense,
populated solely
interrelationships
complex
between industry and audience where the
definition of the text itself is the site of negotiation and exchange. As Feuer
historically
industry
is
specific
result
of
this
practice whereby,
a
argues,
40
flow, as a seamless
"`flow charts" are constructed by network execs
...
scanning of the world, is valorised at the expense of an equally great
fragmentation' (1983: 16). Thus, as television studies has developed an
increasing concern with aesthetics and individual programmes, one of the
flow
has
been
diverts
in
it
the
of
way
which
most common criticisms
(c.
f.
from
Corner, 1999; Caldwell, 1995,2003;
individual
text
the
attention
Jacobs, 2001; Feuer, 1983; Gripsrud,
1998).
The historical specificity of flow is therefore one of the major

for
digital
into
its
in
to
take
account
problematics
usefulness
analysing
television, where not only is the landscape a multichannel one, but where
interactive
applications
can present multiple
for
streams
viewsers to
flow
As
Uricchio
the
to
challenge
commenced with
navigate.
recognises,
the development of a multichannel environment and the remote control
(Uricchio,
it
2004: 170-1). However, the
to
navigate
with which
developments of these digital environments has led to a reinvigoration of
the term flow to describe and analyse the movement of users across the
Indeed,
in
such an
environments.
new
media
options on offer
flow
in
Altman's
Rick
is
use of the term to
apparent
understanding of
describe television's place within the household flow of activity that
development
(1986).
The
the
of the term user-flows
medium
surrounded
therefore has inverted some of the connotations of passivity that attached
have
flow.
Gripsrud
Griffiths
Alison
As
Williams'
argued,
and
to
analysis of
these connotations of flow posit television as something that `washes over
(Griffiths,
us'
1996) or a tide to be swept along with (Gripsrud,
1997: 28-
led
flow
have
increasingly
different
to the
These
29).
uses of
problematisation
it,
Corner
As
John
Williams'
term.
an excess
perceives
of
flow,
from
been
has
its
baggage
the
theory
of
placed
onto
of theoretical
its
to
reformulation
passivity,
of
suggestion
as active user-flows through to

41
its use to analyse an undeclared internal organisation of television at an

ideological
level. Corner thus cogently
and persuasively
argues that such
serial mis- or overuse of the term requires us to abandon the concept as

64-69).
landscape
(Corner,
digital
into
1999:
television
we move
a
This is tempting;
however,
it is equally tempting
to hold on to the
for
metaphor
a variety of reasons. As William Uricchio goes on to argue,
flow
loaded
is
òbviously
term' used to `support very different
whilst
a
doing
in
it has helped to `chart shifts in the identity of
arguments',
so
television' and `to map various undulations in the terrain of television
(Uricchio,
2004: 164-5). 1 want to draw on Uricchio's argument
studies'
here for the continued, but proscribed and delineated, use of the term flow
for three reasons. Firstly, as I have set out in the introduction, my concern
is to map the second shift aesthetics of the BBC's use of interactive
television to fulfil public service broadcasting remits. As John Caldwell
argues, such an approach entails examining the shift from `program [sic]
flows to tactics of audience/user flows' (2003: 136). As a result, I use the
term viewser-flow,
as a way of articulating
the constrained
movement
of
users through the non-linear, malleable environments of interactive

television.
Whilst this focus is primarily
concerned
with the navigation
of
interactive television applications, I similarly discuss the relationship

between TV and web as one of managing
drawing
particularly
Brooker's
Will
on
such viewser-flows
work on "overflow"
in Chapter 7,
(2001).
Secondly, this notion of viewser-flows helpfully connotes a sense of the

interactive
is
to
television: able to
the
that
of
offer
viewser
on
mobility
interactive
As
the
and
streams
of
on
offer
applications.
choices
move across
forms
discussion
interactive
in
television
it
the
the
of
under
such, connects
thesis to the window-on-the-world
discourses I have outlined above and
has
5.
Dawson
Finally,
Max
Chapters
in
4
and
as
recently
return to
42
flow
in
term
the
the
recognised,
analysing television's textuality is
of
use
most productively thought of in relation to John Ellis' theory of `segment',
to which I turn now (2007).
Segment
Similarly to Williams' analysis, Ellis' theory of segment posits that
television has `little to do with the single text', instead occurring at a level
smaller than the individual programme (1992[19821: 118). Ellis sees
television's textual form as consisting of
small sequential unities of images and sounds whose
duration
be
to
maximum
seems
about 5 minutes. These
segments are organised into groups, which are either
like
broadcast
items and
simply cumulative,
news
have
kind
advertisements, or
some
of repetitive or
like
the groups of segments that
sequential connection,
(Ellis,
1992[1982]: 112).
the
make up
serial or series
Ellis' conception of television's cultural/textual

denigration
of the image and its importance
form relies on the
to television
as an apparatus:
The
in
inferior
television
to,
to,
always positioning
relation
and
cinema.
foundational
is
to Ellis' understanding of television
conception of segment
as a mere window-on-the-world
(witness) and viewers' engagement with
the medium through the attention of the "glance". Similarly to the criticisms
detailed of Williams' above, Ellis' segment has contributed to a widespread
deficient understanding of the television text; for example, he suggests that
fiction
between
difference
`fact
is
there
and
reception of
no essential
programming'
(113).
However, this is not to suggest that the idea of television existing in

inherently
Indeed
Ellis'
itself,
in
is,
problematic.
articulation of
segments
how segments interrelate might be particularly apt for describing the
forms
interactive
in
television
non-linear
of
which
experience of navigating
fragments
of television text, the
the audience often encounters short
43
following
from
logically
selection of one stream of content not necessarily
the one watched immediately preceding it: `The aspect of the break, of end
beginning,
tends to outweigh the aspect of continuity and
and
(148).
familiarity
is
It
through
the
consequence'
only
audience's
with
television's sign system that segments are combined and made meaningful.
Ellis' work therefore anticipates the control that viewsers have over the
interactive text, which as Dawson has suggested, might profitably be
thought of in relation to Jane Feuer's work on the `dialectic of segmentation
flow'.
As
Dawson
surmises:
and
`Williams should more accurately say
Feuer writes,
...
that television possesses segmentation without closure,
for this is what he really means by flow' (15-6)
...
[whilst for Ellis' concept of segment] the `breaks'

between segments do not outweigh the continuity
but
them,
across
exist in a perpetual state of tension
flow
(2007).
the
television
text's
quality of
with
As Dawson goes on to note, Feuer's conception is useful for the way in

be
"as
is
`to
it
television
that
watched
much of
not meant
which
recognises
be
but
individually
that
totality",
can
a
rather consist of segments
cumulatively
consumed'
(ibid). This is particularly
or
true of the way in which
interactive
the
to
tend
meta-structures
of
exist
within
wider
segments
discuss
forms
hypertext
in the case studies. As I'll go on
I
that
television's
to discuss, these structures provide a unifying, if individuated, experience
interactive
television texts that allow us
the
of
many
segmented nature
of
to retain the notion of the text as an analytic category. However, what
flow
here
be
is
the
term
the
mobilisation of
as a
made apparent
needs to
it
`viewser-flows'
to
the
of the
refers
second shift category, whereby
flow
dialectic
between
This
therefore
interactive viewser.
segmentation and
first-shift
in
links
television
theories
the
of
studies'
work
aesthetic
profitably
the
to
the
second
shift
aesthetics
of
period of
availability
of
the period
following
(again
demonstrating
discuss
in
I
the
the
chapter
excess, which
44
from
form
television's
continuities of
old to
movement
and theory across
new media). Thus, in Chapters 5 and 61 use the term segment to discuss
the small units of programming that interactive television's streams are
broken into and their relationship to their meta-structuring textualities,
which I term organised viewsing and `fragment' respectively.
Viewing strip
The term organised viewsing remediates Newcomb and Hirsch's
1983 discussion of television as a "viewing strip". Their conception of the
between
to
that
the role
viewing strip attempts
provide a model
mediates
broadcast
of
provision and individual choice. As such, it proposes a
television text that is constituted by activity at both ends of the productiontext-audience continuum. In this sense Newcomb and Hirsch see television
in terms of a "cultural forum" whereby individual programme meanings,
forms,
aesthetics and understandings are complicated and
messages,
history
(the
itself',
`by
the
the
of
medium
episode, the serial,
compounded
the series, the genre, the schedule) (Newcomb and Hirsch, 1983: 49).
Furthermore, such texts are complicated by the viewer themselves `bringing
values and attitudes, a universe of personal experiences and ... concerns,
to the texts', allowing the viewer to `select, examine, acknowledge and
(52-53).
his
her
[sic]
Thus,
the viewing strip
texts
own'
or
of
make
individual
in
`grasp
the
to
each
negotiates
way
which
represents an attempt
[suggesting]
different
individuals
"flow"
the
their way through
on offer
might produce
different
very
texts or viewing
(Brunsdon,
strips'
1998: 107).
Although Newcomb and Hirsch's model is explicitly concerned with

function
interpretations
ideological
the
multiple
and
of the
thinking about
has
formal
it
text,
nevertheless proved a useful
multifarious television
form.
lies
Indeed,
its
for
television's
textual
strength
understanding
model
45
in its recognition of the television text as a site of `dense, rich and complex'
by
by
interplay
the
text
that
the
meanings
of
selection
are constructed
broadcaster
by
(and
historical)
the
the
text
viewer,
and
cultural
provision
milieu within which they are produced/received
(Newcomb and Hirsch,
1983: 53). Their recognition of audience activity implicitly acknowledges

the debt television studies' approaches to the text owe to feminist
but
for
interactive
is
important
the
television
study
of
scholarship,
also
my
text here for the mode of engagement that such a model presupposes. As
Brunsdon
argues, ìmplicit within
this notion - although
not a prerequisite
[as
is
the
remote
control,
allowing
channel
change
and
channel-surfing
...
(Brunsdon,
has
1998:
107).
As
Uricchio
well as] audience agency'
noted
first
from
the
the
shifts
previously,
remote control marked
paradigms of
flows
to those of user/viewser-flows.
programming
As such my discussion
draws
Chapter
5
in
of organised viewsing
on Newcomb and Hirsch's
understanding of the centrality of the remote control to the audience's
different
channels, or in this case
navigating, selecting and combining of
streams, of content on offer. As with their concerns to think about the
institutional and ideological implications of such a text, in theorising
organised viewsing
in relation to natural history programming
I am
longer
histories
to
this
textuality
to
of
wider concerns and
concerned
relate
history
institutions
the
to
spectator's navigation of natural
regulate
public
display.
Supertext
Nick Browne's excellent interpolating of the television text with
domestic temporality has been surprisingly absent from discussions of the
digital
form
television
to
of
receive academic attention: the
prominent
most
form
Ski-+.
TiVo
"Supertext"
the
textual
DVR, such as
and
relates
of
46
television to the schedule and, in turn, the rhythms of everyday life that
both reflect and determine `the form of a particular television programme
(1987:
27).
The
its
the
time-shifting
to
and conditions
audience'
relation
by
devices
DVR
the
and personalisation of
schedule allowed
would seem
to fundamentally undercut Browne's model. As such, neither Boddy's
(2004a, 2004b) nor Uricchio's (2004) account of such devices addresses the
idea of the television supertext. Instead, in Uricchio's case, preferring to
like
flow.
However,
I
to suggest that supertext
concentrate on
would
continues
to provide
useful insights into the textualities
digital
television.
of
Similarly to Newcomb and Hirsch's work, Nick Browne's supertext

discussion
that
any
of a television text must occur in relation to
recognises
he
discussion
As
that
the
economic and social processes.
a result,
suggests
discrete
individual
textual units is problematic as `the
of
programmes or
limits of the text "proper" and its formal unity - apt to be broken at any
dial
(176).
by
he
is
Instead,
turn
the
suspect'
moment
an ad or a
of
proposes a television
supertext that `consists of the particular
program
[sic]
introductory
interstitial
the
and
materials' situated within the milieu
and all
has
èverything
"megatext",
that
the
appeared on
of
which contains
television' (176-177). Because Browne's impure idea of the text condenses
the political economy of television, it may prove apt in assessing the way
in which viewser-flows are structured by interactive texts. That is, it can
help us identify the individual's personalisation of the non-linear text as
structured
by a wider mega/supertext
operating
with economic
imperatives
bears
As
herd
the closest correlation
to
their navigation.
such, supertext
I
that
the
model
the
adopt
across
case studies of the
shift
second
with
describe
the
term
to
Indeed,
the structure of
application
my use of
thesis.
be
thought of as akin to its super or metatext.
interactive television might
for
limitation
Browne's
of
work
However, the
my purposes is its complete
47
bondage to the temporality of broadcast television. Thus, whilst I suggest

in Chapter 4 that television's place within the everyday rhythms of the
household might remain important in addressing particular viewsers of
interactive texts, overall most interactive texts form part of a wider
desynchronisation of everyday life. Thus, in order to avoid calling up such
discussion
in
connotations
my
of interactive television, I prefer the terms
denote
to
these complex texts'
and
second
shift
application
aesthetics
super-structure.
The polysemic text

Throughout the 1980s, particularly in cultural studies, there was an
apparently endless struggle to position the audience as active. John Fiske
has been the most obvious target for criticism of those accounts that sought
to position the audience as incessantly active and resistive, his work often
debate
degree
`the
the
to which popular media reproduce
polarizing
over
dominant ideology
degree
to which the media provide
the
versus
...
(Spigel,
'
2004:
10).
"tools"
their
the
to
own
culture
people with
make
...
...
Meaghan Morris' condemnation of Fiske's `circular populist polemic' aptly
his
by
ìncessently
the
active audience'
summarises
problems with
arguing
that his work has been central to a banality within cultural studies that
for
`both
`the
a text[ual reading]
a source of authority
substitutes
people' as
(1990:
despite
figure
23).
However,
its
my
and a
of
own critical activity'
agreement with many of these arguments regarding
Fiske's position,
I want
for
his
here
just
ideas
briefly
the sake of a
to
not
engage with
literature,
but
because
also
of the possibilities
comprehensive review of
interactive
by
involved
in
text
the
the
and
multi-layered,
processes
created
engaging
with such texts.
48
Fiske argues that television is pervaded by the semiotic excess of the

text, which he relates both to the possibility of resistive readings and, more
interestingly
for my purposes, the increased prominence
and the process of "zapping"
of videographics
via the remote control. Fiske goes on to
suggest that the process of zapping àllows the viewer to construct a
viewing experience of fragments, a postmodern collage of images whose

pleasures lie in their discontinuity, their juxtapositions, and their
(Fiske,
1987: 105). Fiske recalls Palmer's study of the
contradictions'
he
in
terms a `systematic
viewing processes of children who engage
what
distinguished
from
bored
zapping, which
switching',
channel searching or
further extends the possible understandings and applications of
discussed
(105).
The
I
that
segmentation
above
usefulness of segmentation
here is its relation with the viewing
segment are generally understood
flow
and
process of zapping: whilst
to connote passivity, here segmentation
does
be
interactive
invoked
in
to
the
way
which not only
can
recognise
television itself often operate in short sequences, but that these are created
by
by
industrial
imperatives.
they
are
active viewsing processes as
as much
Whilst the second shift aesthetic approach I adopt throughout the thesis
inherent
Fiske's
the
pleasures of the postmodern
of
celebration
avoids
image, interactive
television
does create an increasingly
videographically
image.
In
idea
the
televisual
particular,
of a
and semiotically excessive
by
formats
fragment
is
the
windowed
conjured up
viewing experience of
6.
discussed
These
Chapter
in
interactive
create
applications
of the
dimensions
between
image,
textual
juxtapositions and relations
aural and
(for
interactive
both
internally
example,
news contains
segmented
that are
loops of news headlines, which retain broadcast television's segmented
form: domestic, international, sports news etc) and serve to further
fragment the overall viewing text.
49
However, despite the ostensible plurality of readings and

from
derived
be
interactive
texts, their
such
experiences that might
interactivity remains structured in a way that remains amenable to textual
level
Such
texts operate on a
of structured polysemy that enables
analysis.
be
legitimately
discussion
into/from
Because
the
text.
read
a
of what can
interactive and multi-channel television involves a greater relationship of
the remote control to the programme text and its form, this polysemy must
be understood in conjunction with the processes of viewing and textual
Thus,
construction.
as with Stuart Hall's seminal encoding/decoding
be
it
is
important
`polysemy
to
that
argument,
recognise
must not ...
(1980: 134).
confused with pluralism'
Providing a thorough overview of the usefulness of such concepts of

flow
broadcast
in
the
television,
segment,
and supertext
context of
Brunsdon asserts that `these attempts to think about continuousness might
be usefully supplemented
by the deployment
of the notion of "mode of
formal
level,
in
to
the
allows
specify,
at
a
way
address", which
us
which
the television text is always constructed as continuously there for someone'
(1998: 118). She points to Tony Bennett's and Janet Woollacott's
reading of
the James Bond intertext, which suggests not that the text itself is wholly
inconceivable but rather is constituted through a series of recognitions,
(Brunsdon,
that
are a political as well as critical matter
conscious or not,
1998: 123). Brunsdon's
for
the retention
argument
of the text as an
in
itself,
is
the
television
therefore
grounded
practices
of
analytical category
its repetition and regularity and, in particular, the need to consider the
forms,
its
television,
textual
programmes and
adopt
mode of address which
towards the audience and viewser.
by
details
is
Lisa
Parks
the
Essentially- this
challenge posed
what
as
from
broadcast
form,
to
television
a
a post-broadcast
the transition of
50
fundamental
(2004).
Several
2
detail
Chapter
in
I
in
which return
more
landscape
in
the
television
around the turn of the millennium
shifts
have
frameworks'
the
the
ability to provide a
above
upset
effectiveness of
free-standing
and comprehensive model of television's textual
workable,
form. The introduction of the remote control, the VCR, cable and
have
digital
to
the
television,
all, prior
advent of
subscription services
for
by
the
the
text
television scholars.
study of
posed significant problems
Interactivity is simply another such challenge, posing not a radical break
but rather an extension of the above chronology of attempts to develop, or
by
to
the
the evolving
rework, existing models
meet
challenges posed
television landscape. Retaining the text for television studies' discussion of
the apparatus as more than a site, or instance, of this or that
cultural/social/ideological
function or effect has both proved and remained
field
impetus
important
in
the
television's
an
complicating
window-onthe-world. Thus the textual formations discussed across the course of the
thesis attempt to configure interactive television in relation to its aesthetics,
production and reading practices as well as the import of the ideological,
functioning
cultural and social
of television.
Plenty: Aesthetics in a multichannel landscape

"What is television? " This question has preoccupied
practitioners and students alike since the medium struggled
into existence. The question becomes more rather than less
insistent as the medium evolves (Ellis, 2000: 400).
For Ellis, the period in which he was writing Seeing Things was one
both of an abundancy of television, but also of uncertainty as to how to
final
lead.
it
In
I
this
that
and
where
might
section,
period
want
understand
developments
industrial
to
the
and regulatory
to pay particular attention
future
As
Ellis
the
television
to
of
categorise
as
uncertain.
a
that caused
51
landscape,
down
focus
UK
begin
I
to
the
television
to
on
result, necessarily
tracing the start of digital television's period of excess in 1998 back to the
launch
the
television,
of Rupert Murdoch's Sky
with
start of multichannel
satellite television service in 1989. In examining this period my aim is to
began
discourses
indicated
I
that
the
of choice and consumerism
pick out
in the period of availability and have structured the subsequent periods of
both plenty and excess. In turn, these have challenged the scarcity
broadcasting
institutions, such as the BBC, which
rationale of public service
I set out at the start of this chapter.
However
before examining
this period directly, it is important
to
in
the
that
the
television
earlier commencement of multichannel
recognise
US had, by the mid to late 1980s, been associated with an increased
interest, from both industry and academy, in matters of television style.
John Caldwell's authoritative account of this period in Televisuality is worth
here
for
has
it
two
particular contributions
made to
acknowledging
television scholarship. Firstly, Caldwell's work demonstrated the overall
importance
forms
if
to
of television
not all,
of stylistics
various,
production.
If not always synonymous with quality, he argued, these at least

demonstrated the need to take television's own aesthetics seriously, and on
its own terms. Related to this, the second importance of Caldwell's work
"televisuality",
this
the
style,
within which the concept of
of
explication
was
the "videographic"
is of particular relevance to my concerns. It is worth
length
Caldwell
on the understanding of televisuality as a
at some
quoting
historical
borne
changes within
out, and part of,
stylistic moment
formations.
Discussing
technological,
production
and
audience
television's
Caldwell
in
1980s,
the
television
argues that television shifted
the change of
from approaching broadcasting
52
form
rhetoric
and
of
word-based
a
primarily
as
...
framework,
based
transmission
to a visually
mythology,
...
based
on an extreme self-consciousness of
and aesthetic
became
This
just
is
television
to
say
simply
more
style.
not
by
had
1990
in
television
many ways
revisual ... rather,
theorised its aesthetic and presentational task ... style itself
became the subject, the signified (1995: 4-5).
Caldwell argues that this style was so self-conscious that it was an activity look
be
than
thus
a particular
which could
a performance of style - rather
discuss
Televisuality,
to
the
television
extended
aesthetic of
as a medium.
therefore, comprised an overarching approach to television as a medium
comprising of six inter-related areas: `televisuality as a stylising performance
different
looks';
`televisuality
that
exhibitionism
many
utilised
- an
represented a structural inversion'; `televisuality was an industrial project';
`televisuality
was a programming
phenomenon';
`televisuality
was a
function of audience'; `televisuality was a product of economic crisis' (ibid:

5-10).
Thus televisuality was not simply about an abhorred commercial
landscape
but
in
the
television
that
aesthetic
about a significant change
both
commercial and independent producers; networks and public
affected
broadcasters;
and, audiences and academics alike.
service
Aesthetically, televisuality is marked out by two formal styles: the
in
is
turn
contrasted to the cinematic style of television
videographic, which
that had hitherto commanded the absolute rhetoric of "quality" in academic
discourse.
As
such, the videographic was not necessarily about
and critical
but
distinctive
television,
traditionally conceived quality
about a
style across
from
from
body
CNN
Max
diverse
MTV
to
television
and
output,
of
a
Headroom
(Lorimar
Productions/ABC,
1987-88) to The Simpsons (Fox, 1989
discusses the videographic as a style existing both

).
Caldwell
Thus
but
to
the
particularly
when
contrasted
anonymously,
also
pervasively,
by
he
Nevertheless,
cinematic
style.
solicited
rightly
and
given
attention
53
deal
is
of television
a stylistic marker of a great
asserts the videographic
distinctly
look:
its
televisual,
own,
output concerned with generating
Videographic televisuality since the 1980s has been
hyperactivity
by
and an obsession with
marked
acute
film
helped
MTV
If
the
to
stampede
encourage
effects.
demonstrated
CNN
in
then
the
primetime,
origination
pervasive possibilities of videographic presentation.
Starting in 1980 - and without any apparent or overt
CNN
created and celebrated a
aesthetic agenda consciousness of the televisual apparatus; an
feeds,
for
image-text
multiple electronic
appreciation
(12-13).
combinations
Although Caldwell recognises that the videographic did not affect all
television genres (particularly not traditionally conservative ones, such as
the family sit-com), it was nevertheless pervasive. This was particularly true
have
that
tended to evince this style in their interactive
of genres
incarnation; such as sports, cable news, music television, magazine shows,
home
like.
the
shopping networks and
most reality programming,
However, Caldwell importantly notes that the videographic, although
day-to-day
in
the
traditionally
the
conceived
of
as
or
what
was
present
"mundane" of television - was in fact about soliciting active viewer
for
he
As
through
exhibitionism.
such,
argues that the
attention
a penchant
fact
desire
in
ironic as
is
"activate"
to
the audience
academic
in fact the television viewer in practice has never been
by
the industry.
theorised
as such
passive - nor event
Broadcasters from the start did not see the viewer as a
buyer
discriminating
but
and
as an active
couch potato,
(250).
consumer
Thus Telet'isitalitj' marked not simply a call to return to the text and an
but
its
also a reconsideration of
aesthetic worth and style,
examination of
how it implies an active and engaged viewer. As will be apparent in my
discussion of interactive television in section 2, videographic stylistics are
54
now often cybernetically interactive, acting as hyperlinks that viewsers use

to navigate individual applications.
Televisuality was part of a sustained move away from reductive
understandings of television's window-on-the-world
depicted
Ellis'
television
notion
with
of witness,
position, which as
as interesting
and
important only insofar as its relay function. Where previous scholarly

discussions of television aesthetics had been restricted to quality, notably
heritage dramas (c. f. Caughie, 2000), Caldwell's discussion opened up a
for
texts
plethora of
aesthetic investigation
into meaning. For my concerns
here, the notions and practices of televisuality and the videographic are of
for
foreshadow
in
import
the
they
the stylistics of
way
which
particular
interactive
television.
Interviews
with various producers
of interactive
television I have conducted across the course of my project have evoked a

forms
being
denial
vehement
of such
simply "hypertext" or Internet
for
Whilst
I
to
television.
to
the influence of
practices writ on
want
account
forms
development
interactive
the
television texts,
on
of
convergent media
it is important to understand that such denials are bound up in perceiving
interactive television aesthetics as the extension of televisual style. That is,
even as Bolter and Grusin's influential Remediation correctly posits that
television is defined by its willingness `to entertain a wider range of visual
and cultural styles and to remediate other media more vigorously and
frankly than [its antecedents]', interactive television aesthetics are
nevertheless as much extensions of televisual style as remediations of new
both
backdrop
(1999:
is
It
188).
this
of
academic and
against
media
industrial concern with aesthetics and style that the following brief
developments
landscape
during
in
important
the
television
the
overview of
be
I
that
of excess, should
read.
era of plenty, which argue pre-figures
55
1989 - 1998: The evolution
of multichannel
television
During the era of scarcity in the UK, despite the introduction
of
broadcasting,
had
influenced
the
that
commercial
public service rationale
the development of television as a broadcast medium and cultural form
had not been significantly undermined. Rather the introduction of ITV
duopoly
BBC
`cosy'
in
to
the
the
to
served
simply shift
safe oligopoly of
a
the 1950s with the introduction of commercial broadcasting in Britain.
However, as Franklin's history attests, the purpose of public service
broadcasting has always been in question since the Reithian tripartite edict
(Franklin,
2001:
14-16).
ìnform,
of
educate and entertain' was established
Nevertheless it has been the development of a truly multichannel
first
latterly
digital
through
through
environment,
analogue satellite and
platforms, which significantly undermined understandings and regulation of
television under the rhetoric of scarcity. This was not simply a matter of
technological development: the advent of satellite, as with cable in the USA
before it, was congruent with the election of long-term conservative leaders
liberalisation.
Thatcher
Reagan
to
market
respectively - committed
and
The conceptualisation of the television landscape as a marketplace during
this period recast the television audience, who had hitherto been addressed
broadcasting,
dominance
of public service
as
as citizens under the
Thus,
the
to
choose.
consumer's
right
placed
on
a
primacy
consumers with
beginning
the
television
the promise of multichannel
marked
of a sustained
broadcasting
the
value of public service
and unremitting attack on
Thatcher's
high
by
characterisation of
of
re-iterations
profile
underscored
fee
licence
BBC
as a poll tax echoing throughout.
the
Andrew Goodwin's comprehensive history of television under Tory
between
the
then
the
government's political
congruence
rule establishes
landscape
development
British
in
the
television
the
the
of
and
standpoint
56
era of availability. Importantly, Goodwin notes how the incentive for

developing the new technologies was reinforced by Thatcher's desire for
both
IT-led
an
economic recovery, as
cable and satellite technologies
provided significant opportunities for investment and development
(Goodwin,
1998: 54 - 57). Thus, at the start of the 1980s, the impetus for
developing new television technologies was particularly strong with the

have
delivery
by
intending
to
the
government
adopted one of
systems
new
the middle of the decade. In particular, the report on direct broadcast by
(DBS)
by
(HMSO,
by
Office,
Satellite
Home
Direct
Broadcasting
the
satellite
1981), urged quick action to develop a UK-based satellite television
footprint
due
delivery
the
technology. As
to
nature of satellite
structure
Goodwin notes, a satellite's footprint (its broadcasting range) was
èssentially national in scope, although with some significant overspill
...
[which] created concern for the Home Office' that external broadcasters
may set up solely to transmit programmes to the UK, thus threatening the
broadcasting
(Goodwin,
ecology
country's
1998: 41). Despite this concern,
fee
licence
by
the
the BBC to
the
the government prohibited
use of
develop satellite television. This decision, combined with a series of delays
to the launch of a UK based satellite service by a consortium of British
television and IT companies, the British Satellite Broadcasting group (BSB),
being
from
first
instigated
in
television
the
service
outside
satellite
resulted
had
hitherto
been
blocked
by
Murdoch,
Owned
Rupert
UK.
the
who
entry
foreign
by
legislation
UK's
television market
to the
against
ownership of
from
Satellite
Sky
television
the
television services,
commenced service
Astra satellite launched from Luxembourg. Arguably this changed the face
introducing
British
subscription services and triggering the
television,
of
for
dominance
landscape
battle
from
the
television
the
of
slow recasting of
between
one
between
BBC
ITV
BBC
to
the
one
the
and Sky: as John
and
57
Grogan (Labour Party MP) noted in 2007, this battle now sees Sky in the
40%
ascendancy, grossing
of television revenues compared to the BBC's
27% (The Guardian,
8/01/07).
The commencement of satellite television in the UK was therefore

commensurate
with prominent
discursive positionings
of the viewer as
consumer, rather than citizen. Both Thatcher's government and Murdoch

denounce
both
BBC,
Murdoch
their
to
the
prominent positions
used
launch
his
his
the
television
subsidising
of
satellite
service with
newspaper
empire and using this platform to attack the BBC. By the end of the 1980s,
this consumerism
had gained significant
regulatory
support through
the
Peacock committee's recommendations - to be enshrined in the 1990

Broadcasting Act - that concluded:
British broadcasting should move to a sophisticated market
based on consumer sovereignty. That is a system which
best
listeners
that
the
are
ultimate
recognises
viewers and
(Peacock, 1986: 133-134).
judge of their own interests
...
Although Peacock's recommendations represented a more favourable
had
been
broadcasting
than
anticipated, the report
review of public service
This
the
goal.
consumerism was
ultimate
saw consumer sovereignty as
been
both
have
discourses
in
that
the
pervasive
of choice
articulated within
debates
the
about regulation and
current era of excess'
era of plenty's and
broadcasting.
As
Peacock's
Broadcasting
in
the
such,
report
public service
90s: Competition, Choice and Quality set the tone and agenda for debates
has
BBC
Arguably
in
the
the
attempted to
era of plenty.
about regulation
discourses
in
their
such
of
choice
response.
provision within
position
Under Lord John Birt's director-generalship,
the BBC's 1991 review of
for
Choice
ìnternal
Producer's
the
created
an
marketplace'
commissioning
build
Furthermore,
in
the
of
programming.
provision and commissioning
Charter
Birt
Royal
1996
BBC's
to
renewal,
sought
position the
the
to
up
58
BBC in terms of the market-failure approach I outlined in discussing Barry

Cox's work in the thesis' introduction. As such, the 1992 review of services
Extending Choice promoted the BBC as an institution capable of taking the
`higher ground'. It concluded that the 'BBC of the late 1990s should offer a
distinctive,
range of
high quality programming
services in each of the major
for
the
the BBC of wide provision without
setting
genres',
up
problem
impinging on the commercial interests of rivals (1992: 5) At the final
.
Charter settlement, the BBC published its first Statement of Promises to
Viewers and Listeners -a clear recasting of the audience as consumers. I go
on to trace the importance of choice in relation to public service
broadcasting across the following two chapters and in Section 2 of the
thesis demonstrate how uses of interactive applications by the BBC have
been
further
to
this aim.
often
To conclude my overview of this period of plenty it is worth briefly
development
to
the
returning
of satellite television and the resultant
dominance of Sky in the UK television market. The supremacy of
Murdoch's Sky satellite service as the predominant subscription television
form in the UK at the start of digitalisation in 1998 was not assured simply
by the pre-emptive launching of his Astra satellite in 1989. Whilst BSB
launched
eventually
what was the officially government sanctioned satellite
beaten
following
the
the
out of the
platform was effectively
service
year,
financial
by
Sky
Murdoch's
television. In a
tactics
the
of
muscle
and
market
business model he was to repeat in 1998 with the launch of Sky's digital
television platform, and across the globe, Murdoch used sporting rights and
his cross-media ownership to subsidise his new venture, allowing him to
As
Murdoch
to
took
viewers
who
up
subscriptions.
give away equipment
himself articulates it:
59
We have the long term rights in most countries to

doing
be
in Asia
major sporting events, and we will
do
intend
to
what we
elsewhere in the world - that is
lead
battering
in
a
offering
all
use sports as a
ram and
our pay-television operations (quoted in Millar, 1998:
3).
The attempt by BSB to rival this equipment
give-away
failure
its
to
and
high
secure
profile rights to either movies or sporting events, crippled the
forced
hand
its
into a merger with Sky, with Murdoch at
consortium and
the helm. Besides the obvious echoes that the recent ITV/ONDigital
debacle has with this story, the beginnings of satellite television are
interesting for two further reasons for my purposes here. Firstly, satellite
television marked another moment of recasting television as a medium
discourses
and sensibilities; the selling of subscriptions to
with masculine
Sky was primarily based on it ownership of rights to show to Premier
League football. This positioned the target consumer as male (the
advertising
of its subscription
images of well-known
heavily
high
services
reliant on a
quota of
football players, intercut with shots and dialogue
from popular films) and, as Charlotte Brunsdon has demonstrated,

(Brunsdon,
1997). The positioning of satellite television
working-class
heavily
discourses
tied to the technological
of masculinity was
within
land
television
television
a
of
plenty,
spectacle
of
capacities of satellite
-a
but
just
the
not
points
on
schedule,
where sports and movies occupied
dominated entire channels. That the launch of Sky was linked to the rebranding of English football's top division as `The Premier League' is of
The
in
into
import
the
top-flight
this
context.
structuring
of
a
particular
but
high-profile
less
between
big
league,
games
more
clashes
with
smaller
big
the
with
combined
greater presence of sponsors,
stars
clubs and
Coca
Cola
international
corporations
such
as
and, of course,
particularly
bound
in
intimately
the selling of satellite television to a male
up
Sky - was
60
has
Brookes
Rod
However,
shown, the re-packaging of
audience.
as
football as the Premier League also coincided with an attempt to make the
(2002);
friendly
female
family
television's positioning as a
game more
and
window-on-the-world
keeping
domestic
the
one eye on
again
viewing
household
from
the
the
experience where alienating any members of
television is a risky tactic.
The second reason for this story of Sky's dominance being of import
to how the initial debates and structuring of the digital landscape played
have
issues
I
to
the
of choice, consumerism and regulation
out, returns me
discussed. The commencement of digital transmission in 1998 occurred in a
different
landscape
had
to
that
political
radically
which
provided the
bedrock for Sky's inception to the UK television market in 1989. The newly
elected Labour government of Tony Blair was particularly interested to
digitalisation
that
ensure
offered a moment to ensure competition
developed to challenge Sky's dominance of the multichannel landscape.
This led the government to grant incentives and push the promotion of a
digital terrestrial commercial competitor to Sky's satellite platform to be
begin
digital
Sky
As
transmitting
the
signals.
point
would
we shall
ready at
digital
backing
Chapter
2,
in
terrestrial platform as a necessary
the
of a
see
outcome of promoting consumer choice and sovereignty across the era of
be,
least
blame
business
to
to
at
partly,
models was
plenty's regulatory and
for the early failure of the digital terrestrial platform.
Conclusion
It is appropriate to conclude with Ellis here, who surmises that the
but,
in
is
simply
one
of
uncertainty
paradoxically,
not
one
period of plenty
broadcast
hiatus
from
television
of
can
provide
a
the
pleasures
old
\-hich
,
fatigue"
famine"
have
been
"time
"choice
that
and
the pressures of
61
introduced by digital technologies. That is, for Ellis television's broadcast

form will persist due to its ability to offer a pre-programmed schedule that
life
from
to
the
and relieves us
conforms
routines and rhythms of everyday
the overwhelming
(Ellis,
1999: 169-173). Indeed,
promise of choice
ITVDigital's advertising campaign in 2001 played with the notion of too

much choice. In an attempt to make a selling point of the smaller range of
figure
brand
in
1.1,
ITV's
the
advert
channels on offer,
utilises
value to
finger
from
that
surfing the
suggest
whilst one might still get a sore
filtered
brand
(its
ITV
these
through
the
available,
are
channels
platform
operating
as a portal that opens only onto ITV's proprietary
content and
those of its content affiliates) to produce ònly the best' for the consumer
(rather than Sky's rather undifferentiated
500+ channel environment). As I
discuss in Chapter 7, in such an environment one of the BBC's most

important - and successful tactics - has been to position itself as a "trusted
digital
to
guide"
content.
At the end of the period of plenty, it would seem easy to agree with
Ellis' characterisation of television as in a state of uncertainty. Whilst the
dominance
Sky's
true
to
of the multichannel
competitor
absence of a
landscape certainly lent credence to this idea, I hope to have shown that
the development of an era of excess had plenty of certainties to draw upon
from the recurrent discourses articulated across television's history. That
these certainties should return us to television's original positioning as a
window-on-the-world
is of fundamental importance. As Carolyn Marvin has
suggested, new technologies
have a special relationship
to when old
discourses
inherent
the
themselves
new
and
within the
technologies were
window-on-the-world
engaging
metaphor provide useful grounding points for
digital
television
with
that I return to across the thesis' body of
Caldwell
John
I
As
the
argues,
contextualisations
such
as
one
case studies.
62
1
Section
`debunk
in
the
thesis,
of
the
myths of
attempt across
chapters
digital as inevitably "emancipatory"' or that "high-technologies"
from a kind of immaculate-conception
of entrepreneurialism'.
emerge
Crucially, this
means that as new technologies emerge, the `critical capacity to engage

be
technologies
will not similarly
rendered to its own ash
with new media
heap of past trends' (Caldwell, 2000: 3). However, as Caldwell himself
acknowledges, the emergence of new technologies and televisual forms
following
Thus
in
to
theorising
television.
the
new
necessitates
approaches
discuss
digitalisation
I
its
television
that
chapter
as new media, arguing
places television as a technology, cultural and textual form at the
intersection of new and old media histories, theories and concerns that can
be usefully understood through a dialectic between its position as windowon-the-world and portal.
63
THE BEST
50 CHANNELS
The ITV Digital terrestrial platform is promoted through a link

Figure 1.1
to ITV's status as the `nation's favourite broadcaster' so as to turn the
limited
best,
by
into
the
platform's
channel offering
a positive:
as selected
ITV.
64
Chapter 2: Plenty to excess: Television

media
as new
As with Chapter 1's periodisation, my account of this television

Things,
in
Seeing
Ellis'
John
to
and it is useful to
work
epoch owes much
begin my account of a new period of excess by prefiguring it with a brief
leaves
Ellis'
period of plenty
account of where
off. Ellis' understanding of
television as a medium for working through social issues suggests that in
digital
delivery
landscape
multichannel
an era of plenty, neither
nor a
will
kill off the vital social role of broadcast television. However, at the same
time, Ellis recognises that new developments in television also move the
from
found
his
discussion
in
the
apparatus away
conceptions
of plenty. In
he
forms
interactivity
`likely
to
cites
particular,
as
produce new
of
broadcasting
`begin
to
audiovisual material', which will
stretch
rather than
finally
know
it'.
`this
is
He
it or
that
television
concedes
replace
not
as we
has
it:
it
nothing
use
to do with working
through.
It will be a genuinely
development,
new
a convergence with other ways of working with
information' (2000: 174). For Ellis, interactivity doesn't fit within his analysis
broadcast
his
because
to
television, particularly
television
of
restriction
of
defined
by
the process of scheduling and collective viewing.
as
As critics of public service broadcasting are quick to point out,
television's digitalisation both technologically
and culturally alters the
broadcast rationale of television. Whilst the centralised system of

broadcasting is largely retained across all digital platforms, the possibility of
for
interactive
carrying
a
return-path
now
services, as
the television signal
delivery
of video-on-demand
the
well as
and near-video-on-demand
in
differs
television
that
of
some
significant
'ways
content, creates a model
definition
broadcast
from the
of the medium. The experience of television
65
is becoming asynchronous, both from the time of transmission and its

collective experience at the point of reception. Thus I want to argue in this
defined
by
fundamental
is
that
the
the
section
period of excess
shift of
television from a broadcast to a post-broadcast medium. As a result, I
introduce the period of excess through a discussion of the aspects that are,
digital
television as a new media form.
perhaps, new about
This period is what Glen Creeber and Matt Hills, writing
in 2007,
termed "TVIII", borrowing from Mark Roger el al's work on The Sopranos
(HBO7 1999-). Their label refers to `television's present state and beyond; a
time of increased fragmentation, consumer interactivity and global market
economies-what
Ellis defines as "choice"' (2007: 1), in a way that echoes
my concerns with the choices on offer through the portals of interactive

television in the period of excess. However, I prefer the terminology of
here
for
its continuities with Ellis' periodisation, and for the various
excess
connotations and theoretical under-pinnings I draw out across the chapter.
As Creeber himself acknowledges, `[t]he wheels of TV Studies don't need
looks
build
the
term
to
reinventing' and my use of
excess
on previous
work, rather than simply re-imagine it and remediate the "web2.0"
terminology of the Internet to television practices (ibid: 3). In particular,
Ellis' periodisation is intimately linked to the place and purposes of public
largely
by
broadcasting
is
in
UK,
that
the
the
obscured
something
service
Cathy
Whilst
Johnson's
Creeber's
Hill's
in
collection.
and
approach
insightful essay thinks about how the branding function of a programme
like The Sopranos operates differently in the public service contexts of its
Channelscreening on
in the UK from its commercial origins in the US,
66
the essays are predominantly
concerned with American programming and
(Johnson,
2007)"
practices
In contrast, my aim here is to unpick the technological and cultural
developments in television's period of excess in relation to public service
broadcasting and the BBC, tracing continuities in these developments with
the key discourses noted in Chapter 1. However
in order to give space for
full
discussion
discussion
digital
I
the
a
of each aspect, separate
of
television's
technological
form (again taking a social-shaping
perspective)
deal
broadcasting
issues
in the
the
explicitly with
and
of public service
following chapter. As such, I commence with a discussion of digital and, as
define
integral
interactive
this,
television
that
to
the terms,
an
part of
serves
final
The
the
thesis.
corpus and object of study of
section of the chapter
then reviews and evaluates the appropriateness of a range of new media
discussing
these in relation to the television studies'
studies' approaches,
how
Chapter
in
1
to
suggest
we might start theorising the
work examined
interactive texts of digital television. Across the course of this chapter I set
out why we might understand
these developments
as constituting
a new
history.
in
television's
period of excess
In labelling the current digital television landscape one of excess I
describing
a technologically
am not
determined account of television's form
in the twenty-first century. Rather, I aim simply to draw attention to some

for
in
in
the experience of television,
the
changes
accounting
of
challenges
its technological and cultural form. As Roger Silverstone suggests:
To ask the question "what is new about new media?" is
between
the
to ask a question about
relationship
...
'' I assert this despite the fact that Farrell Corcorane's work in that collection explicitly looks to
imperialism
American
However
Corcorane
is
the
media
are.
of
consequences
engage with what
his
discussion
in
in
television
to
the
interested
specifically,
never
placing
relation
of
era
new
a
not
distribution
but
transnational
the
television
TVIII.
production
and
practices
of
rather
concept of
Indeed,
Corcorane's
television.
have
conclusion addresses satellite
that
emerged with satellite
is
TVIII
TVIII.
digital
that
than
suggesting
an under-theorised concept
or
television, rather
(2007).
67
continuity and change

which
also
requires
an
...
interrogation of some fundamental presuppositions
in
social science as well as a confrontation with some of its

enduring paradoxes (Silverstone, 1999: 10).
Silverstone's comments not only point to the need to investigate some of

the founding theories of television which I undertake here, but also as he
goes on to suggest, recognising
that this involves examining
freedom,
history
power,
and communication:
'
questions of
And we have to address

...
blinded
by
New media pose
these questions
that
so
we
are
not
excess.
...
but
new analytic challenges,
also reinforce
(11).
Television's
old ones'
digitalisation draws our attention to some of these by explicitly making a

but
has
Not
this,
television
new media out of an old media.
only
often
been positioned as the old medium that epitomises the passive audience:
by
broadcast
from
"push"
is
the
that
characterised
nature of content
centralised institutions and its one-to-many organisation that is perceived as
leaving little to no room for user feedback. In contrast, new media are
flexible,
interactive,
often characterised as
on-demand, individual,
personalised, "pull" technologies, with the web seen as the archetypal pull
medium.
As Jeremy Butler suggests, `the web is fundamentally
medium.
Nothing
a pull
browser
in
Web
appears
one's
until the user requests it'
(Butler, 2002: 5).
However, more nuanced theories, such as Lev Manovich's The

Language of New Media (2001), Uricchio's
discussion of TiVo (2004) or
Anna Everett's theorisation of "Digitextuality"
(2003), problematise the
by
binaries
not only tracing the existence of
old/new, push/pull media
(inter)active audiences for print and television media, but also more
usefully
how
the seemingly
suggesting
personalised,
limitless and liberatory
by
`curtailed
forms
corporate
of new media are often
spaces and
filtering
2003:
19),
(Everett,
in
technologies,
involvement
search engines'
68
aesthetic and ownership structures. As Buzzard suggests, the predominant

business model of the web has been the portal to aggregate users and
hubs
(2003:
`serve
Internet
205).
to
the
or
gateways'
content and
as
wider
Under such structures, interactivity becomes rationalised as a series of
choices to explore proprietary content, or as William Urrichio details in his
from
(2004).
TiVo,
study of
a selection
pre-filtered content
As Manovich argues, a common incorrect assumption about new
defined
discrete
from
by
digital
is
it
is
its
that
media
as
old media
virtue of
technological base (2001: 49). Manovich goes on to call into question a

further five common assumptions about new media, suggesting all are
false:
(2) All digital media texts share the same digital
code
(3) New media allows for random access

(4) Digitization
inevitably involves loss
information
(5) Digital media can be copied without
of
loss of
quality
(6) New media is interactive

In the discussion that follows, I focus on point 6 as it is most germane to
my thesis on interactive television, returning to other points as they arise.
For now, the usefulness in Manovich's
rebut these assumptions
his
is
in
work
ability to convincingly
by paying close attention to interfaces through
drawing
"from
that
the
methodology
ground up",
on programming
works
and software operations as much as upon cultural traditions. In this chapter
I therefore suggest that the formation of digital television is both marked
interactive
through
the
television, whilst
advent
of
out as new, particularly
discourses,
fitting
the
technologies,
very much within
at the same time
forms
have
defined
that
television.
continually
programming and aesthetic
Thus in choosing the term excess for this new period in television history, I
draw
these
of
continuities
as
well as
attention to
want to emphasise some
69
the newness of digital television. I use the term excess therefore to connote
the excess of content and choice available in an interactive, 500+ channel
television landscape; the excess of regulatory and review activity over this
following
(discussed
in
the
chapter); and the stylistics of excess that
period
lexicons
the
of postmodernism.
call up
critical
What is digital television?

As Charles Gere's tracing of digital culture suggests, digitality
is a
form
both
[and]
èncompassing
cultural
artefacts,
systems of signification
and communication'
(2002: 12). However,
it is worth starting out by noting
the substantial changes to television's technological base that mark out the
from
before
in
it
technological
terms
those
that
era of excess
precede
looking at the wider cultural implications. Thus in this section I deal with
three issues concerning digital television's technological form: digitality
itself and how it applies to television; convergence; and HDTV.
Digitality
Technological accounts of how digital transmission works are
f.
field
(c.
Harries, 2002; Lister et. al, 2000),
in
the
abundant
of new media
level
its
involves the conversion of information into a
which at
simplest
binary code, a series of òn/off' pulses commonly represented as Os and is.
Digitalisation allows for the transmission of data that is both greater in
for
both
producer and audience alike.
quantity and more malleable
However, for my purposes Karen Lury has recently provided a working
digitalisation
draws
how
She
television
affects
more specifically.
account of
digital
between
distinctions
the
transmission of
analogue
and
two
based
images
`digital
First,
that
are
upon a conversion of "real
television.
information
Vorld"
(the transmission of light) into the language of
70
Secondly,
(binary
unlike the
computers
code, and ultimately, pixels)'.
be
digital
image
in
image,
the
can
remembered and
analogue
each pixel
In
television's
to
pan
and
scan
system.
analogue
revisited as opposed
first
distinction,
important
Lury's
the
to
she makes
point that the
relation
digital
digital
`the
that
television image is still a
transmission of
code means
temporal image (it is always in movement)' (2005: 12). Although Lury
from
digital
image
that
the
television
the
moves away
suggests elsewhere
live,
TV,
"real",
image
it
is
traditionally
the
associated
with
of
connotations
implicit in this definition that television remains live. Or rather, despite the
foregrounding of the aesthetics of excess I detail below, television remains
baggage.
least
down
ideological
this
at
weighed
with
and ontological
As noted in my introduction,
digital television
is distributed
across
the three platforms of cable, digital terrestrial and digital satellite, with the
latter
far
the
two
these
of
outstripping that of cable. Both
penetration of
digital satellite and digital terrestrial work on a system of multiplexing,
digital
facilitates
larger
the
number of channels available on
which not only
television, but also enables the sending of multiple streams of data to the
end viewser as one "packet", called the "transport stream". Multiplexing
has
three important implications for understanding the economics, production,

digital
television. Firstly, each multiplex
programming and regulation of
contains a number of channels effectively crammed onto the single
transmission frequency of one physical UHF channel. Secondly, this
delivery
interactive
in
A
instrumental
is
television.
the
of
capacity
carriage
broadcast
"channel",
the
content
of
a
single
only
not
multiplex can contain
but also interactive applications. These can range in complexity from the
four videostreams discussed in Chapter 5's analysis of Walking with Beasts'
(Big
2003-2004
Brother,
text
series) and voting
stories
through to simple
interactive
Finally,
2001-2003)
Idol,
(Pop
or
advertising.
multiplexes
options
71
limitations
bandwidth
technological
mean
and
are proprietary. Freeview's
have
been
by
the
there are only six multiplexes available, which
allocated
has
This
BBC
these.
two
of
allocation
receiving
government, with the
launch
BBC
the
to
a raft of channels, which combined with the
enabled
Corporation's positioning to measure its public value in terms of "reach"
(discussed in Chapter 3), has ensured it retains a prominent place in the
digital television landscape.
In contrast to this BSkyB's digital satellite platform, Sky, has almost
by
BSkyB
BSkyB.
Because
is
unlimited multiplexes, which are all controlled
for
digital
Conditional
Access
System
the
satellite, BSkyB is
operator
also
determine
important
EPG
to
the
the
all
place
of
particular
channels
on
able
(whereby channels are listed in numerical order, making early slots more
likely to attract audiences who don't roam too far from the pre-existing
terrestrial channels). Conditional Access Systems are the technologies that
home
information
to
the
send
and
receive
on
allow
audience's set-top-box
digital satellite services, but more importantly, are the point at which what
is transmitted is determined. As a result, Conditional Access Systems might
best be thought of as a filter, or bottleneck point, where the owner of the
Conditional Access Systems can determine what information is let through,
how
Control
EPG
it
is
the
of
and terms of access to the
received.
and
where
for
Conditional
System
Access
the
therefore,
a
possibility
platform,
raises
favour
discriminate
in
its
to
third
order
party programmers
against
owner to
detailed
discussion
Conditional
Access
(for
of
a
more
content affiliates
Systems, see Galperin,
2004). As such, Conditional
Access Systems represent
iteration
the
that
important
new
media
portal,
acting
as
a
gateway
of
an
doesn't simply enable their controller to determine audience and viewser
determines
but
independent
to
producers'
access
also
to
content,
access
digital
in
I
issue
in
to
this
environments.
return
my
view sers and audiences
72
discussion of interactive audiences at the end of this chapter and in Chapter

7's examination
history
programming,
of
but it is important
to note at this
point that the BBC, as a public service broadcaster with a remit of universal
provision,
have
may
an important
facilitating
in
role
both
access of
digital
licence-fee
to
the
producers and
payers
spaces and opportunities of
television. For producers, such systems are governed by EU Directive 94/47,
which requires Conditional Access System operators to offer their services
to broadcasters on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory
terms (Art. 4d).
As Chapter 3's discussion of the public service formation of the landscape

details, BSkyB's Conditional Access System charges and conditions have
digital
issue
inception
television, with
thorny
the
since
of
remained a
falling
issue,
BSkyB
this
refusing to pay
out
over
companies
with
various
be
carried on the platform.
charges or
Convergence
As Manovich
suggests, convergence
isn't a predetermined
result of
digitalisation. Indeed, as my discussion of television as a window-on-thehas

been
key
hybridity
always
a
element of television
world suggested,
form. John Caldwell's work is suggestive here of how digital convergence
is
`hybrid
television
television's
this
media
a
window:
element of
renews
...
digital
form
in
the
age
as
a
combinatory
even
seen
art
regularly
...
forms
discrete
historically
in
art
are aggregated
which
medium; a venue
into and presented as part of a complete whole' (Caldwell, 2004: 55-6).
Such a conception moves beyond an understanding of television as a mere
forms
it
as an amalgam of
and constitutes
relay-er of other art or media
We
technologies''.
must therefore
other
media
these: a convergence with
12This hybridity of television is perhapsmost usefully attestedto in Raymond Williams' account

it
to:
akin
as
posited
the
which
medium,
of
73
think of convergence as a more complex term, referring to television's

history of hybridity and the cultural implications of this, which are in turn
by
the adoption of increasingly shared
reinforced and renewed
programming
languages of digital technologies.
In this regard, Henry
Jenkins has noted a distinction between media and cultural convergence,

whereby
the former constitutes a `structured interactivity'
in contrast to the
latter's understanding of fans' practices of community, participation and

appropriation
(1992,2002,2006).
The problems with Jenkins' work have
been aptly noted elsewhere (c. f. Brooker, 2001) and I do not want to
further
here:
this
the approach I'm taking in this thesis is
engage with
by
is
interactivity
the
the second
structured
explicitly concerned with
way
shift aesthetic practices of media owners and I am thus necessarily more
interested in a political economy view of media convergence.
As Graham Murdock demonstrates, convergence can be "unpacked"
into three aspects: convergence
communications
forms;
convergence
of cultural
systems; and convergence
of corporate
of
ownership
(2000b). The latter of these is aptly epitomised by recent mergers between

Telewest,
Sir
in
NTL
turn,
their
and
merger
with
and
cable-operators
Richard Branson's Virgin. With Sky's recent purchase of a controlling stake
in ITV, the digital landscape has increasingly come to be dominated by
from
behemoths.
BBC
is
immune
However,
the
not
such
such multimedia
leading
2006
Charter
Ofcom
Both
itself.
the
the
review
up
recent
charges
Independent
Review
BBC
Report
the
the
of
of
government's
renewal and
Online (DCMS, 2004) on the BBC's online services pointed out that the
it
"colonise"
BBC's
to
television
arm
allowing
the
was
effectively
muscle of
having read two plays, three newspapers,three or four magazines,on the

...
football
been
has
And
to
day
that
a
variety
show
and
a
match.
yet
one
same
in another way it is not like that at all, for though the items may be various
in
important
has
some
ways unified them
the television experience
(Williams. 1992[19751:95).
74
fear
BBC's
impact
The
the
that
online
presence
will adversely
online space.
having
been
has
Ofcom
in
granted new
resulted
on commercial rivals
jurisdiction over the corporation in the 2006 White Paper to assess the
(although
BBC
Ofcom
is
impact
service
paradoxically,
market
of any new
not technically
a regulator
of the Internet).
Of course, the convergence of media ownership also facilitates the

forms,
distribution
supplying content across as many
convergence of media
but
linking
these
sites
content across
outlets as possible, repurposing and
drawing them together under one experience: the portal. As John
Caldwell's and Karen Buzzard's work suggests, this is not simply a new
like
formation.
Buzzard
`function
that
portals
convincingly argues
media
the mass circulation
TV
or
networks:
magazines
they are sites that meta-
be
home
in
to
the
order
aggregate content and offer a range of services
(2003:
for
205). Similarly, Caldwell argues
as many users as possible'
page
that old media forms bring practice, experience and industrial business
development
`the
to
the
media,
spreading
gospel of
of
new
models
"repurposing
content"
"migrating
and
content" to this or that "platform"'
(2002,63). Caldwell's work is primarily concerned with the commercial

has
industry
that
the
television
nature of this repurposing, arguing
"clutter",
Internet
its
to
the
to
taken
out
of
make
money
ability
effectively
back
to television.
and the web's technological and economic potentialities
However, within the British television landscape this strategy is most
degree
in
360
BBC's
in
the
strategy
announced
commissioning
evident
2005, which brings with it public service rather than commercial models.
As Niki Strange argues, the "multi-platform
project" represents a new and
defined
by
its
form
text
creating
a
convergence,
cultural
of
complex
intertextuality
by
interwoven
is
that
concurrent across media sites and
demonstrate
2005).
Such
it
is
discourses
that
(Strange,
moves
particular
75
increasingly difficult to analyse television as a singular and separate media

form. Whilst the case studies of Chapter 7 are not direct products of the
BBC's 360 degree commissioning policy, my discussion there examines the
relationship between the linear broadcast television programme, the
interactive application and, in turn, how these act as portals to drive
but
to
viewsers
proprietary,
public service-imbued, online spaces.
This cultural convergence
is also importantly
apparent in the
forms,
audiences of such new media
who now take the reading
learnt
from
form
to another. The ability to read and use
competencies
one
an interactive television application isn't solely contingent on
understanding web-aesthetics, as influences such as teletext and ordinary
television videographics remain pertinent, but the form relies largely on a
hybridised reading strategy of the viewser. To these forms of convergence I
further
two
structures that are worth explicitly articulating.
would note
Firstly, convergence
is also apparent in the regulatory
framework
that
digital
the
television is part: in the UK
governs
new media-scape of which
the formation of Ofcom, one ber-regulatory body to deal with all forms of
media communication
(which
largely
Internet
the
except
remains
digital
Finally,
this
television must also
shift.
unregulated), aptly represents
be conceived of as a site of convergence in relation to the bodies of
academic work that touch upon it - television studies, cultural studies, new
film
theory to
media studies, visual culture studies, postmodernism and
few.
but
name
a
HDTV
As Terry Flew suggests, the advent of digital television was often
-significantly
in
a
terms
offering
enhanced picture and sound
of
marketed
(Flew,
HDTV
2002:
"cinema-like"
through
experience'
viewing
quality ... a
76
111). However, HDTV has largely been absent in the debate about the
form of digital television in the UK and only now, in 2007, is it being
failure
history
MAC-satellite
Galperin's
that
the
argues
of
slowly rolled out.
HDTV
1990s
in
that
the
suggested
was a cul-de-sac, and as I
early
systems
discuss in more detail in the following chapter, Sky's multichannel business
driver
digital
(Galperin,
has
been
important
2004:
television
the
of
model
135). In 2006 both Sky and the BBC have commenced
trials, with the high-definition
cautious HDTV
transmission of the Premier League again
being an important drawcard in selling the technology to consumers13

Returning to the difference in multiplexing
between
digital
capacity
digital
here
it
is
important
terrestrial
to
that
noted above,
note
satellite and
HDTV
industry
impact
to
move
make
an
standard
on the carriage
any
will
capacity of Freeview, reducing the number of channels available as HDTV
bandwidth.
likely
This
is
take
to make the Freeview
channels
up more
platform
less popular
with consumers speeding up the technological
discuss
following
in
I
the
the
of
medium,
as
chapter,
obsolescence
which
for
have
BBC
important
implications
the
the
place of
and its position
may
debates
digital
landscape.
The
UK's
the
and implementation
within
of
HDTV are largely still to come as television moves further into the period
has
HDTV
not played a significant
of excess and, as such,
part in my study.
Thus by the time "critical mass" was reached in 2002, when 45% of UK
homes had digital television (Broadcast, 20/12/02: 2), the answer to the
had
been
largely
defined
first
digital
"'
is
"what
television?
as:
and
question
foremost, multi-channel;
largely subscription; tiered in content access (with
I' In contrast the promise, if not the actual implementation, of HDTV has largely characterised the
States.
Galperin's
in
United
HDTV
has
the
that
digital
television
astute
analysis
suggests
to
move
largely been used as a bargaining tool by the American television industry to secure the existing
it
digital
in
than
to
dominance
rather
opening
environment,
up
massive competition.
a
players
However, the current moves to create a HDTV standard for DVD players' by major electronics
its
Panasonic.
by
Sony
American
Motion
the
combined
and
with
support
companies, particularly
HDTV
to
television
that
Association
make
a
move
sets
capable as standard may
Picture
suggests
be imminent
77
finally,
hierarchy);
interactive;
dominating
the
and
of
sport and movies
better sound and vision quality.
Despite many of these features representing a continuation of trends
apparent in the period of plenty, significant
shifts are apparent in the
digitalisation of the television landscape. These are perhaps best accounted

for by understanding the period of excess as marked by television's shift to
has
for
Whilst
term
this
a post-broadcast medium.
problematic connotations
thinking about how public service broadcasting operates in a period of
transition, when there is a divide between the have and have-nots of digital
that require us to recall that not all audiences are living in a post-broadcast
television experience, the usefulness of Parks' work lies in her explication
of the term's meaning. Parks suggests we might think of the digital era of
television as post-broadcasting not to `refer to a revolutionary moment in
the digital age but rather to explore how the historical practices associated
[broadcast
have
been
technologies]
combined with computer
with
technologies
to reconfigure
the meanings and practices of television'
(2004:
134). Central to Parks' concerns has been the development of increasingly

on-demand, personalised and niche/narrowcast
forms of television, which
flexible
Her
"flexible
that
terms
work suggests
she
microcasting".
distinctions',
degree
is
òrganised
around social
whereby a
of
microcasting
control is passed on to the viewer over `television's temporality, not only in
terms of timeshifting
by
but
determine
the
to
enabling
also
viewer
content
flow'
(135-7). Red-button interactive television
its
the schedule and regulate
in the UK, through the way in which they privilege choice (discussed
below), forms part of this change in the television landscape to a postbroadcast medium whereby television increasingly offers up a menu for the
from.
%viewser
to
select
audience;
78
This is in marked contrast to the flow of broadcast television's

has
lies
Ellis
John
`where
suggested
was
power
scheduling practices, which
in television'
(2000: 130-48). As Ellis recognises, digital television's
EPGs
broadcasting'
`time
the
timeshifting
technologies
replace
patterns of
and
leading
desynchronisation
`personal
them'
to
to
escape
attempts
of the
with
television experience. However, whilst Ellis suggests that the broadcast
schedule of television will remain an important answer to a world in which
too much choice leads to "time famine" and "choice fatigue", I would argue
that, in fact, it is of greater importance
these choices are structured.
As William
to pay attention to the way in which

Uricchio's
work on the metadata
by
filtering
like
(2004),
TiVo
DVRs
technologies
of
suggests
used
we need
to shift our attention to questions of gatekeeping, whereby content-owners
limit
the choices on offer and restrict user/viewser-flows
clearly
proprietary
to their
Buzzard
As
content.
suggests,
the future will be determined by those

first
be
the
to
screen
seen on whatever
who control
device of the future is tuned in (i. e. computer, TV or
be
it
thereof),
called the
some combination
whether
homepage, portal site, electronic programming guide,
(2003:
boot"
206).
interface
"first
or
system
Apparently,
This issue is picked up in my review of John Caldwell's work on second

below,
shift aesthetics
where I advocate that a methodology sensitive to the
industrial-textual
dispersed
is
crucial to
of
viewser-flows
structuring
for
(itself
investigating
just
interactive
the
television
one site
exploring
between
choice, ownership and aesthetic structures).
relationship
Importantly, post-broadcast television does not represent a radical shift to
Digital
imbued
television
the
of
medium.
remains
an on-demand model
baggage
liveness,
but
ideological
of
we must read
and ontological
with the
displays.
it
As
in
the
to
of
new
media
overtly
properties
now
these
relation
79
Ellis surmises, these new properties will stretch rather than replace
broadcasting
(174).
entirely
Interactive television: Television as new media?

In this section I want to concentrate more explicitly on interactive
television as that which, ostensibly, marks out digital television's
"newness". Whilst digitality, its antecedent multichannel environment, the
possibility of HDTV and television's convergence with other media might
have been at the forefront of selling digital television, interactivity has been
less
demonstrating
important
in
`the condition of newness' that is
no
for
destabilise
to
the status quo and promote takea new media
necessary
(Uricchio,
blueprint
for
2002:
219).
Georgina
Born
As
the
notes,
original
up
digital transition
was envisioned
by the government
as not just providing
lucrative sale of bandwidth, but also:

If it became universally available, digital television was
deliver
to
seen as a platform
universal Internet access,
divide".
"digital
In the government's
the
so mitigating
developments
help
in
these
turn
to combat
eyes
would
482).
(2004:
social exclusion and political apathy
The centrality of interactive services to the development of digital television

is significant here and whilst such a dramatic vision of interactive capacities
is yet to become a reality, the development of red button interactive
applications
has nevertheless
become pervasive. Arguably,
part of the
for
in
is
UK
interactive
the
television's
success
precisely the way it
reason
has been figured within
discourses
surrounding
existing
particular, television's window-on-the-world
television;
in
metaphor. As I suggested in
discourses
teasing
the previous chapter's
out of
within this metaphor,
been
button
interactive
Thus,
has
an
medium.
red
television
always
interactivity simply represents the most prominent and widespread
discuss
forms
desire.
I
In
interactive
this
the
this
section,
of
articulation of
80
television that make up the thesis' case studies, relating these to relevant
digital
lies
in
television
that
as a medium
work
new media studies, placing
histories,
intersection
theories and concerns.
at the
of new and old media
Interactivity is often touted as one of the defining features of new
has
had
deal
its
the
meaning
a great
of attention
exposition of
media and
from critical theory in a variety of disciplines. Lev Manovich, however,
debunks the centrality of interactivity to our understanding of new media
by suggesting that the term, as with the term "digital", is too broad to be
useful. The supposed radical element attached to new media's interactivity
is the real-time ability to manipulate information on the screen - therefore
to call computer media interactive is meaningless; it is simply the most
basic fact about computers. More important for Manovich is to move
beyond interpreting
interactivity
in terms of "interaction",
and think about
the psychological aspects of interactivity (2001: 55-57).

Manovich's
for
interpreting
argument
interaction
having
as
for
is
the way in which it eschews judging
psychological aspects useful
interactivity against a sliding scale in which face-to-face communication
is
f.
(c.
form
&
Sahwney,
This
interaction
2002).
Kim
ideal
the
posited as
of
have
has
informed
that
addressed interactive
a number of approaches
view
have
how
New
to adapt such a
struggled with
media.
media scholars
definition of interactivity to the properties of digital media, which often
involve asynchronous forms of communication. As Rafaeli's foundational
description of interactivity explicates:
is an expression of the extent to which in
exchanges any third
a given series of communication
(or later) transmission (or message) is related to the
degree to which previous exchanges referred to even
(1998:
111).
transmission
earlier
interactivity
Scholarship that has addressed interactivity, particularly interactive

face-to-face
has
that
therefore recognised
positioning
television,
81
communication
As
Kiousis
`most
is
ideal
suggests,
problematic.
as an
interactive experiences are associated with technologically-mediated

definitions
Jens
(2002:
As
Jensen's,
363).
such
as
a
result,
environments'
for
à
interactivity
to
measure of a media's potential ability to
act
as
argue
let users exert an influence on the content and/or form of the mediated
communication'
(1999: 201). This approach is apparent in the only volume
dedicated specifically to interactive television, edited by Jensen and Cathy

Toscan, which proposes that interactive television is:
"two-way TV" in which the viewer can make
programming choices and produce user input, in
TV's
it is a combination of
two-way street
short:
...
technologies that allows viewers, consumers, and users
greater control over what they watch and when they
(Jensen
it
watch
and Toscan, 1999: 16).
Such an approach is rather celebratory as connoted by their collection's

title: Interactive Television: TV of the Future, or the Future of TV?. Whilst the
anthology is not quite a technologically
deterministic account, it
problematically works with an ideal of interactivity that measures the worth

of interactivity against viewser's interaction and the ability to interact with,
That
is,
text.
the extent to which the return path
the
and physically alter,
be
the
text
to
allows
altered.
Terry Flew largely cuts through the problematics of defining
interactivity - although ultimately succumbs to them - when he suggests
that ìnteractive media are those that give users a degree of choice in the
information system, both in terms of choice of access to information
sources and control over the outcomes of using that system and making
him
(2002:
21).
Flexv's
to position
emphasis on choice allows
those choices'
diverse media forms as interactive to different degrees, so that video games
the
interactivity
through
the
combination
of
user
choices
and
skill
provide
different
World
to
the
individual
produce
experiences,
whilst
player
of the
82
Wide Web invokes choice to take users down distinctive hypertext

pathways (ibid). Whilst Flew goes on to complicate interactivity by
associating it with interconnectivity
and interoperability,
for
choice allows
an understanding
of interactivity
his emphasis on
that conforms with the
by
van Dijk's survey of interactive television producers,
views expressed
found
they generally thought of interactive television as `freedom of
which
for
(2001:
454).
This emphasis on choice is
consumers'
choice
viewers or
for
fairly
limited
(from
the
particularly useful
a communication studies'
forms
of interactivity that are subsumed in the UK's
point of view)
interactive TV landscape. Red button applications have generally been
promoted
in terms of providing
the viewser with the ability to choose: to
choose to opt in to extra coverage; to choose to opt out of the scheduled

programming;
to choose to watch another angle/sporting
event/replay;
to
choose to watch a particular sub-genre of news; to choose to vote, and

[their]
life!
level
for
On
to choose
to
to
one
or
another,
choose
vote
who
...
to "interact".
This brings us somewhat closer to a description of the kinds of

interactive
programming
that I will be discussing, but is still perhaps not
forms
delineating
in
interactivity
UK's
in
the
the
of
present
specific enough
digital television landscape. One could, as Karen Lury does, take television
define
interactive
the
traditional
and
audience
active
concern with
studies'
(pen
forms
`the
including
the
touch
to
that
television as
of
viewer
allow
all
finger
dial,
finger
floor,
feet
to telephone
telephone
to
on the studio
paper,
dial, fingers to keyboard, finger to remote control)' to àffect what is seen
be
To
include
166).
(Lury,
2005:
all
such
programming
would
an
on-screen'
ill-conceived project, as Lury's introductory account of interactivity there
has
interactivity
in
failing
the
to
place
what
emerging
address
suggests by
how
industry,
it
is
the
landscape
positioned
and
marketed
digital
and
83
experienced and used in its variously complex textual configurations. As a

Dijk's
interactivity
I
Flew's
to
work
on
as
and van
result, want
relate
industry's
to
the
own marketing of
choice,
something which promotes
interactive television and the text themselves.
The BBC explains interactive television as part of the wider
for
digital
it
the audience
television
which makes possible
revolution of
to do other things with your television - join in with
programmes, see extra news stories and sports
coverage, check sports results, travel information and
forecasts,
weather
even play games, go shopping,
bets
place
and use email
(http: //www. bbc. co. uk/digital/tv,
site visited 2/08/06).
Similarly, BSkyB define interactive television as that which enables the

audience to
interact with TV content, respond to an ad or access
Internet-based services. For example, viewers can take
TV
in
programme, play games, make purchases
part
a
and even send text messages and emails, all through
their television set
(http: //www. skyinteractive. com/sky, site visited
02/08/06).
As discussed in Chapter 4, these definitions and marketing of interactivity

have often been positioned as revolutionary and spectacular before giving
way to more everyday connotations.
Both BSkyB and the BBC, as well as
Channel 4 and ITV, define interactivity in terms of the applications reached

by pressing the red button on a viewser's remote control. These red button
applications
from
betting
and voting, through
range
to finding
out more
information about a series (replicating the web's ability to provide fans with
back-stories and previews), through to selecting movies at home, emailing
data,
online shopping
and online chat, news story selections, stock market
level
be
At
they
a general
can
or enhanced sports scores and statistics.
divided into the following
categories:
84
"
Enhanced television (e. g. Walking with Beasts discussed in

Chapter 5)
"
Interactive entertainment portals (e. g. SkyActive discussed in

Chapter 4)
Text Services (e. g. the replacement Teletext service provided by

the BBC)
Interactive
advertising
(the first example of which was an advert
for "Chicken Tonight", which allowed viewsers to enter a

look
competition and
at recipes through the interactive
application. In 2005, Sky announced the platform's 550"'
interactive
advertising
campaign).
I discuss the final three forms of interactivity primarily in relation to

the discursive formation of interactive television in Chapter 4, with the
focusing
forms
developed
the
television
on
of enhanced
remaining chapters
by the BBC in relation to the Corporation's
public service goals and remits".
BSkyB describes enhanced television as a `way for viewers to interact with a

TV show or extend their experience of a show by viewing more than just
the linear broadcast' (ibid). Such applications offer the chance for
broadcasters to encourage viewsers to develop more engaged and involved
relationships
merchandise,
with their programming

choosing
(viewing
alternate commentary
bios,
character
purchasing
or accessing extra coverage
that appends the programme's transmission slot). As with new media's

keeps
brand
this
viewsers on the channel's
adds
value and
portal structures,
for
longer
divides
The
BBC
time.
their
periods
of
proprietary content
four
into
categories:
enhanced television applications
14The notable exception being the news multiscreen service, which appends both the BBC's and
in
Sky,
its
Conditional
the
their
and
case
of
channels
all
channels
on
Sky's schedules on all
Access System platform.
85
1. Schedule Busters Live - These applications make the event

bigger than the transmission slot. The BBC often use these
for large live events with parallel action where interactivity
allows viewsers to choose the content they want, as
discussion
by
Olympics
Cup
World
of
and
my
exemplified
applications
in Chapter 5 (figure 2.1).
2. Schedule Busters Near-Video-On-Demand
These
allow
-
viewsers to access pre-recorded extra material related to

individual
Again the applications
programmes.
designed
are
to push the experience of the programme beyond the

traditional
boundaries
of a transmission
by
keeping
the
slot,
material available after the end of the programme proper;

for example, The Life of Mammals' (BBC, 2002-03)
interactive game was made available at the end of the
programme
longer
to
engagement with the
so as
ensure a
programme
(figure 2.2).
3. Engaging Participation - The BBC markets these as `driving

audiences closer to the programme'
(BBC Commissioning
by
23/04/05),
allowing the viewser to
website, site accessed
(Test
the Nation) or test themselves against
either play along
the programme's
topic (figure 2.3).
Applications
Enhancement
Engaging
those
as
such
4.
designed for the BBC's coverage of the Last Night of the
Proms (BBCi, 2003 -) or Shakespeare at the Globe (BBCi,
2004 -) (figure 2.4), layer text information on screen for the
interpretation.
notes
or
critical
as
programme
viewser, such
Arguably these are some of the Corporation's most clearly
driven public service applications.
86
Regardless of the individual application involved, the streaming of

data described above for interactive television has two important impacts on
how applications are received, used and understood. Firstly, they allow the
viewser to create personalised, navigable texts that remove the viewser
from the mainstream of the channel's broadcast content and allow them to
degrees,
lesser
in
their screens:
to
or
what
appears
greater
choose,
television becomes a pull media form. Secondly, the streamed nature of the
data keeps the experience,
in some important
Three examples of different
live.
respects,
kinds of applications
how
illustrate
will
television's live ontology not only remains intact, but is reinforced. Firstly in
like
is
Walking
Beasts,
with
where
a
mainstream
narrative
an application
from,
four
by
if
to
the viewser
choose
alternate videostreams
supplemented
leave
to
the mainstream and explore a supplementary videostream,
chooses
they will not be able to rejoin the mainstream at the point they left its
both
live
streams occur
at the point of transmission and time
narrative:
is
is
time
that
missed on the others. In a
spent exploring one stream
different form of interactive application, such as text-based systems,
data
be
(in
in
the
to
the
call up
application on-demand
able
viewsers may
below),
discussed
such as a text-story on
real-time ontology of computing
the Gulf War or a Big Brother contestant or, indeed, one of the games on
Sky's Active application. However, whilst this data delivery might mimic the
by
by
to
creating a
viewser choices
responding
real-time of computers
broadcast
transmission of scheduled programming
the
text,
personalised
duration
for
is
individual
live
that
the
the
the
viewser
on
continues
is
miss
will
whatever
programming
occurring
the
on
-iex\-ser
application:
,
during
broadcast
their exploration of the application.
stream
the channel's
liveness
in this sense as
do
the
television's
DVRs
effect
of
not prevent
Even
87
they can only record either the channel the viewser is on - in this case the
interactive application - or an entirely different channel; for example, if I
(Fox,
Slayer
Vampire
Buffy
1997-2003) on
the
am watching and recording
SkyOne and decide I want to enter an application associated with an advert
I see, my DVR will interpret this transport stream as `SkyOne' for the
duration of my exploration of this application - it cannot return to
recording the mainstream of a programme when the ad-break ends.
Thirdly, interactivity has often been associated with genres where a
liveness
is already in place, most notably sports and news,
primacy on
discuss,
for
have
been
investment
I
to
also
major sites of
which as go on
the development
of interactive
television.
This is evidenced
in the final
demonstration of interactive television's liveness, which concerns the

developing production practices around its use. As Cathy Smith, the BBC's
new media archivist explained,
launch
button
interactivity
the
with
of red
there was a real return to live production practice whereby there was
`literally someone pressing the red-button down the hall during live
transmission [to test if the application worked]
people
running
up
and
...
down the hall, people talking on the phone to discuss the problems', all of
labour
(Interview
large
in
à
investment
capital'
conducted
which required
(03/09/03). Thus, in fundamental and important ways, television's digital
form remains live.
Although the interactive element of many red-button applications is
degree
limited,
the
text
to
that,
they
allow a personalisation of
a
extremely
most importantly, allows the viewser to explore related - and proprietary content of the mainstream channel content whilst remaining within the
broad confines of the text's, and thus channel's, boundaries. In this regard,
be
regarded as a second shift
all interactive television applications can
programming
broadcasters,
by
now recast as content-owners and
strategy
88
designed
interactive
As
the
of
applications are
majority
gatekeepers.
such,
Caldwell
John
as
suggested in 1997,
as an extra revenue stream, which
begins `to look suspiciously like a marketplace, pure and simple'. Thus,
interactivity is as much a new technical, cultural or social phenomenon as a
designed
discourse,
is
`suturing
to
encourage
which
oneself via
powerful
menus to existing channels or to interactive games, which are not
With cable and its cohort of developers at the helm
interactive at all
...
interactivity means consumerism at its worst (1995: 260-61)15
For BSkyB, the mobilisation of these discourses and commercial use
by
has
interactivity
that
the end of 2002, its interactive services
meant
of
from
x,
14/year
profit
each BSkyB customer, which in the
were generating
final quarter of 2004 equated to ,22million in total revenue. By the end of
2005, Sky's interactive entertainment portals were being visited by over
Imillion
(Sky
Interactive
viewsers a week
Press Release, 20/12/05).
In
be
by
C4's
,
100million/year
to
contrast,
projection of
raised
new media
for
has
been
its
interactive
too
television
proved
much
services, which
from
mostly reliant on revenues
viewsers voting on Big Brother. As a result,
Channel 4 pulled the plug on their interactive television services in 2006.

ITV have taken a more cautious approach to interactivity
(as discussed in
failed
digital
launching
in
Chapter
3),
ITV
its service
to
the
relation
platform
in 2001 on a pilot basis to `to assess their use and appreciation by viewers'
(Statement of Programming
Policy, 2002/03). Whilst ITV's interactive
output
has continued to grow, it has mainly been through applications that enable
dial-up
from
to
secure
revenue
viewsers' setcompetitions and voting so as
15A2002
industry
by
interactive
interactive
Weapon
7.
television
the
an
media company
report on
interactive
for
EMI,
Microsoft,
Adidas
in
advertising
clients
such
as
and
producing
who specialise
Coca Cola, is indicative of how discourses of empowerment and participation are mobilised to
such ends:
the ability to
Television is no longer simply a passive one-way experience
...
iTV
dialogue
in
to
two-way
empowers
viewers
effect
and
control
a
engage
...
for
to
to
example,
shop, email, vote, order samples or
participate:
content ...
brochures, enter competitions etc (2002: 5).
89
been
has
to
ITV's
carefully assess revenue-generating
top-boxes16.
approach
decision
include
the
to
interactive
television
and
not
a returncapacities of
key
has
been
C4's
ITV's,
Five's
Freeview
to
the
and
platform
path on
failure to fully support interactive
television
develop
and
a wide-range
of
interactive applications. To a degree, this explains the bias in the thesis'

case studies of predominantly
BBC and Sky applications. Both the BBC and
BSkyB have placed interactive television as an integral part of their digital

television
launching
strategies, with each
in 2001, BBCi and Sky Interactive
a separate interactive
respectively,
to deal with interactive
television and such applications' links to a multiplatform

and programming
department
commissioning
strategy.
Arguably ITV's cautious approach, and C4's dismissal of the

interactive platform, demonstrates the value of a public service broadcaster
that is able, and willing, to take risks in a new platform. This can be
fundamental
by
BBC
the
as
a
public
service
performed
understood
value
that has helped to promote Britain as a world-leader in interactive
television. This may become more important as the platform develops to
be
launched
(the
launch
2004
Internet-like
to
services
of an
enable more
NHS Direct enquiry and FAQ service being a particularly pertinent example
discuss
developing
in
Chapter
7,
BBC's
As
in
I
the
this
of
role
potentiality).
the platform positions the Corporation usefully to take up the role of
facilitate
interactive
to
television
as a portal
access to
gatekeeper, using
16The prohibitive costs of developing interactive applications has led to a general outsourcing of
the production of interactive elements to separate companies or divisions. For example, even in
the most highly successful reality television formats, where interactivity has perhaps become most
interactive
is
in
the
tied
stream,
production
of
applications
outsourced.
as a revenue
consistently
Endemol, the most prominent production company in reality television, have used the BSkyB
for
high
Big
Skylnteractive
to
applications
profile
produce
programmes
such
as
subsidiary
Brother 5 (Endemol for C4.2005) and The Match (Endemol for SkyOne, 2004). Similarly, the
BBC's interactive television investments has included a substantial portion spent on independent
firms Wall-to-Wall (for example, Who do you think you are?
interactive
leading
by
commissions
interactive
for
(for
BBC
Flextech
UKTV
))
the
the
2004
(BBC,
example,
portal
affiliate
and
(2004-)).
90
digital spaces. In so doing, such a use calls up Burnett and Marshall's

description of a portal as an òrganized access point that allows the user to
herding
(2003:
98).
However
than
simply
rather
people to
move outward'
function
here
drive
digital
to
the
works
portal
proprietary content,
immigrants online, helping to bridge the digital divide. However, the
development of interactive television in the UK also attests to the value of
between
broadcasters
the peculiar relationship
public service
and
form
battle
increasingly
takes
the
of a
commercial competition, which now
between the BBC and BSkyB. Thus whilst my focus is on public service
broadcasting, it is important to note both the powerful and commercial
for
discursive
formation
(as
BBC
interactive
the
television
the
of
nature of
I draw out in Chapter 4), whilst these are simply marshalled for slightly
different purposes, the interest in viewser retention remains of paramount
importance.
As discussed above, the limited multiplexes available on Freeview's

digital terrestrial platform results in a substantial difference in the
difference
This
is most
complexity of applications on offer across platforms.
discussed
borne
in
in
the
news
multiscreen
applications
obviously
out
Chapter 6. On digital satellite television, both the BBC's and Sky's
interactive news applications allow viewsers to access a screen that is
broken into six or eight (respectively) smaller windows containing
headlines,
sport, weather etc.
videostreams of particular news sub-genres:
In contrast, on Freeview the BBC provides only two videostreams, whilst
Sky does not provide any interactive news service at all. This reflects not
digital
but
limited
terrestrial
the
platform,
also
carriage capacity of
only the
different
investments
in
broadcasters'
different
the
platforms and their
the
decision
interactive
BSky-B's
Thus,
to
transmit
not
relative obligations.
be
beyond
Freeview
its
channels can
read
simply one of
applications on
91
for
the company could have purchased extra
technological constraints,
bandwidth at the commencement of Freeview's transmission'-. Rather, it
decision
both
lack
business
to
the
related
of a return path
was a conscious
for
decision
keep
BSkyB's
Freeview
to
extra-revenue
generating
and
on
"premium"
or "enhanced"
services restricted to its proprietary,
subscription-
based, digital satellite platform. As a result, BSkyB hoped that Freeview

limited
for
in
to
terms
audiences
of carriage capacity
would seem not only
limited
but
digital
in
it
to
terms
the
also
viewsers
channels,
of
revolution
offered audiences; thus encouraging customers to see Freeview as a
stepping stone to BSkyB's pay services.
In contrast, the BBC's decision to launch interactive applications on

Freeview can be read both in terms of a public service value related to the
BBC's obligations of universalism, as well as the BBC's desire to promote
Freeview as a viable competitor to BSkyB. The obligation of universalism
development
brand
BBCi
BBC's
its
to
the
of
of
posed significant problems
services, as not only were Freeview interactive
digital
limited
inferior
to
those
and
compared
on
applications substantially
between
different
but
there
satellite,
was also significant variation
handle
interactive applications.
to
manufacturer's set-top-box's ability
Interviews
(BBC's
Senior
Dalzell
Executive
Producer
Patrick
of
with
Interactive
Sport) and Tom Williams
(Creative Director
of Interactive
Television at the BBC) revealed there was a long debate at the BBC as to
how to reconcile universalism with the different services across platforms
for
Freeview's
interactive
importantly,
to
standard
what
adopt
and, more
launch
BBCi's
interactive
2001's
From
television through to
of
applications.
2004, the BBC utilised a lowest-common
denominator' approach (Dalzell,
17This option is no longer available as the platform's spacehas effectively been used up by so
led
bidding
for
Freeview,
last
few
to
the
a
on
vhich
war
slots
many new channels starting up
..
for
by
C4
More4
their
in
2005-06,
service.
won
was
which
available
92
interview conducted on 22/03/04), with a move to higher standards

became
increasingly
more
mooted after this point as set-top-boxes
for
is
BBC's
As
the
capacity
used
range
advanced.
a result, a median
interactive television applications, meaning that the vast majority of
Freeview households have no problem using the interactive services.
Despite the resolution of this problem of access, it is worth noting that a
digital divide does exist between Freeview viewsers and their satellite
former.
due
desire
The
to
the
technological
the
constraints of
counterparts
to offer universal access to such systems and, should uptake increase, offer
HDTV to all audiences, means that a BBC-led Free-Satellite initiative still
remains a possibility over the BBC's current Charter period. Indeed, the
has
for
Trust
BBC
given permission
new
public consultation on the
Corporation investing in a Free-Sat service. Regardless of the platform
however, these forms of interactivity require new forms of engagement by
television scholars that might profitably draw on work by new media
scholars. Thus, I want to turn now to examining this interactivity in relation
to new media scholarship.
New media theory: Remediating television theory

As my discussion of television theories of textuality in Chapter 1 has
fruitfully
digital
draw
both
television
the
theorisation
suggested,
of
can
on
discussion
below
Thus,
attempts to think
my
old and new media work.
how
about
academic theory can usefully converge the methodologies of
film, television and new media. As a review of these theories, my central
forms
have
discussed
interactive
I
is
television
the
to
of
place
concern
discourses.
discussion
below
The
is
therefore
above within new media
divided into three sub-sections relevant to television's interactivity. The first
is concerned with general theories of new media, most notably Jay David
93
Bolter and Richard Grusin's theory of remediation, as well as the work of

Lev Manovich and others that returns to the question `what is new about
"new media"? '. This sub-section provides an overview of a body of work
distinguish
both
draw
discussion
I
that seek to
and
upon
my
of individual
from.
deal
I
In
the
second sub-section
case studies
with ideals of the
(inter)active audience, particularly in relation to the notions of communities
drawn
the
that
public sphere
are
upon in Chapter 7. Finally, I conclude
and
the chapter by examining new media approaches to the textuality of
interactive media forms, explicitly relating these theories to the forms of
interactivity in the UK's digital television landscape that I discuss in the
following chapters. In order to keep this review as succinct as possible, I
have attempted to avoid entering into protracted debates about whether
determinists
technological
or celebrants, instead
particular scholars are
looking to draw largely on work that considers the social shaping of
technology and pointing out where there are limitations or divergences
between my approach
and those I cite.
It is worth opening by examining Bolter and Grusin's Remediation:

Understanding New Media, which addresses television's place in windowdiscourses
lineages
on-the-world
and
of media technologies. They argue
that new media technologies do not so much act as ruptures with
borrowing,
but
imitating,
them:
technologies,
preceding
rather remediate
repurposing,
honouring,
revising and attempting
to improve
and renew the
leads
but
This
to
two
technology.
contradictory,
process of remediation
old
hypermediacy.
logics:
dependent
immediacy
Bolter
For
and
and
mutually
Grusin, Western culture -wants both to multiply its media and to erase all
it
ideally,
its
in
to
the very act of
wants
erase
media
traces of mediation:
multiplying
hand,
logic
(1999:
On
5).
the
the
them'
one
of immediacy
disappear
leave
itself
in
the
the
should
and
that
us
medium
'dictates
94
immediate,
intense,
the
thing
giving
us
a
more
presence of
represented',
hypermediacy
hand,
`makes
On
the
other
us aware of the
real experience.
medium or media itself', asking us to take pleasure in the act of mediation
(ibid: 15-34). Thus, àlthough each medium promises to reform its
by
immediate
offering
a
more
or authentic experience, the
predecessors
leads
become
inevitably
to
us
aware of the new medium
promise of reform
leads
hypermediacy'
(19).
Thus,
immediacy
to
as a medium.
Bolter and Grusin are careful to assert and demonstrate that this
has
been
always
apparent in representational media
process of remediation
technologies, rather than something that simply accompanies the move to
digital media. As such, they see continuities and similarities between a
by
by
Saenredam,
Edward Weston, and a virtual reality
painting
a photo
system, all of which attempt to achieve immediacy. Thus, `whenever one
have
to
convinced viewers of its immediacy, other media
medium seems
try to appropriate that conviction' (9). However, they do see remediation as
à defining characteristic of the new digital media' and outline a `spectrum
different
digital
in
of
ways
which
media remediate their predecessors',
dependant
is
which
on the `degree of perceived competition or rivalry
between the new media and the old' (45).
At one extreme there is a transparency of remediation, whereby the
form
to
an old media
whilst
new medium simply offers access
simultaneously
attempting
to erase its own presence, such as a CD-ROM
is
At
the
extreme
other
remediation through absorption,
picture gallery.
form,
for
Myst
Doom
the
original
media
example
or
as
which cannibalises
between
lie
forms
films".
However,
these
two
extremes
"interactive
other
of
difference
first
improvement,
The
these
of
emphasises
as
an
remediation.
into
DVD-RO\1s.
digitalisation
In
of
encyclopaedias
the
contrast,
such as
(GUI)
interface
CDthe
as
graphical
such
user
of
remediation,
aggressive
95
ROM and other database forms, have a complex hypermedia aesthetic that
draws
interface
forms
that
clearly
within an
attention to
present old media
the new media form. Such an approach is evident in my discussion of the
fragment form of interactive news and sporting applications in Chapter 5,
be
better",
but
"television
to
only
actually an
which claim not simply
foregrounds
links
its
televisuality
that
the
aesthetics of
extension of
with
final
form
digital
The
technologies.
media
of remediation,
other new,
discontinuities
between
the
the two media types.
absorption, minimises
Bolter and Grusin suggest that on the web television is largely remediated,
borrow
through
the
particularly
webcams, whereby numerous sites
function
broadcast
by
live
TV
images
monitoring
of
presenting a stream of
definition
Such
of elsewhere.
a
recalls television's early, and recurrent,
positioning as a window-on-the-world.
However, whilst Bolter and Grusin
suggest television and the web are in an ùnacknowledged competition in

which each now seeks to remediate the other', I would argue that this
form
is
competition
seeking to
very openly acknowledged with each media
fulfil the promises of the other (47).
That is, whilst remediation is an important aesthetic assertion of the
forms,
fails
between
Bolter
Grusin's
to address
and
continuities
media
work
the convergence of the political economy of media industries. As I have
suggested in my previous
discussion
of convergence
and the meaning of
digital television, the economic and production relationships between

fundamental
future
importance
is
Internet
the
to
television and the
of
of
fails
BBC.
Furthermore,
their
to address
the
television, particularly
work
two important aesthetic tropes on television: televisuality and quality
been
dealt
has
latter
The
these
admirably
with elsewhere,
of
television.
(2001),
have
been
Jacobs
by
television scholars such as
who
particularly
keen to demonstrate television aesthetics as worthy of sustained critical
96
film
derision
for
face
in
the
of
the
studies'
strands
some
attention
of
Lury's
Karen
Indeed,
recent work on the possibilities
apparatus.
aesthetics in the increasingly HDTV-production
digital
of
ecologies of American
demonstrates
that the importance of this kind of aesthetic
television
quality
is only likely to be more apparent in a digital landscape (2005). Whilst a
different concern to Lury's, across the course of the thesis I pay attention to
interactive television's digital image to discuss their aesthetics in relation to
debates
to
notions of quality pertinent
about particular genres.
It is worth paying closer attention to the relationship between Bolter
hypermediacy
Grusin's
and Caldwell's work on televisuality
and
notion of
in correspondence with the aesthetics of interactive television. Arguably the
combination
of these two approaches
is suggestive of the aesthetics of
by
excess
which I characterise this new period of television. Caldwell's
how
televisuality
work shows
was the result of the US television
industry's
Characterising
Miami
the
television.
concern
stylistics
of
self-reflexive
with
Vice (Michael Mann Productions
foregrounding
for NBC, 1984
1989)
as
-
the aesthetics of excess, Caldwell suggests such programmes were

did
`dialogue
èxcessive
to
the
that
stylishness'
extent
really
obsessed with
influence
èxtrain
Instead,
the
of
many
episodes'.
not even matter
Hollywood
aesthetics', such as MTV and postmodernism, replaced the `zero
degree style' of the 1970s. Caldwell goes on to argue that this style
`the
image
industry
that
television
television
promoted
as an
produced a
image-commodity'
(1995: 92):
look
like
televisuality
may
merely
a
it
to
style
also
attempts
of excessive
performance
...
feelings,
products, surfaces,
create visual analogues of
Rather
than
the
pictures
material
and
artefacts,
...
concept
contemporary
"window
on the world"
...
flaunts
"videographic
art-objects" of the
televisuality
"fiction
the
the
than
concept
of
cinematic
world; rather
deny
is
to
the
there
attempt
no
video
effect"
...
in
Rather
television.
the
the
new
process
picturing
Although
97
is
the
televisual
objectification
of
apparatus
dramatically evident in its appetite for the pictorial
artefact, surfaces and images. The new television does
not depend upon the reality effect or the fiction effect
but upon the picture effect (152, emphasis in original).
As Lury has recently asserted, digital television takes televisuality's "picture
further,
effect" a step
meaning that the àpparently
"appropriate"
use of the
television image, which relied upon its veracity and connection to the real'
is potentially displaced by a celebration of style: rich, complex and diverse
in the digital image (Lury, 2005: 12). Televisuality, therefore, marks a form
hypermediacy
draws
in
in
it
the
of
way
which
attention to the medium's
own presence.
However,
I would
aesthetics of televisuality
mediating
argue that in relation to interactive
Rather, they recall important
window-on-the-world
positioning.
Caldwell's
suggests that televisuality
functions
in advertising
the medium's
the
do more than simply draw attention to the
presence of television.
conception
television
aspects of
original
to retain
audience attention, whereby style `becomes visually excessive and

hyperactive
temporally
on network
television'
(1995: 94). This was largely
busy-ness
As
is
television's
through
clutter.
of
videographics:
a
achieved
figures
by
in
interactive
is
2.5-8,
this
apparent
many
similarly
evinced
applications,
particularly
viewser in spending
However,
those with a commercial
money on voting, shopping
these applications
turn traditional
orientation
to engage the
or playing games.
videographics
into hyperlink
becoming
The
degrees,
"interactive".
by,
in
viewser
varying
aesthetics
the
individual
use of an onscreen cursor
via
videographics
selects
These
by
then
videographics
essentially
their
control.
remote
manipulated
become hypermedia links that transport the viewser to a new
By
'stream
to
the
the
content.
selected
adding
that
corresponds
page/space
basic capacities of hypermedia to television's pre-existing
-ideographic
98
aesthetics, digital television remediates web aesthetics and portal practices.

However, through the ontology of liveness and intimacy associated with
status, this promises a more immediate
experience than those offered by the hypermedia aesthetics of the web. As

I demonstrate
interactive
in Section 2, mobility
television
promotion.
remains an important
Thus, hypermediated
trope of
videographics
take
logic of transporting distant events to the
fulfil
distant
its
to
transporting
corollary promise of
viewser and
viewsers
least
markedly new - places.
or at
Of course, in turn, the journeys on offer through interactive
television
rationalise this mobility
according to second shift programming
practices. This is suggestive of the way in which portal structures of second

shift aesthetic practices continue to offer mobility. As Michele White argues,
just as television remediates Internet design practices, so the Internet
attempts to convince
the user of its liveness. Whilst, as White herself
her
Internet's
the
television
and
argument
regarding
acknowledges,
liveness is confusing,
her work does point to the way in which metaphors
being
both
liveness
neither unique
media,
and windows persist across
of
forms'
(2006:
353).
is
important
It
`key
these
to
of
either
aspect
nor a
to
both
these
media.
metaphors across
acknowledge the persistence of
However, whereas White often conflates the distinction between real-time
discourses
demonstrate
liveness
in
the
about
relatedness of
order to
and
liveness between television and Internet, my discussion maintains a
liveness
in
between
to
and
order
the
real-time
of
ontologies
separation
As
between
the
and
of
portal
window.
notions
a
explicate the tension
Bolter
televisuality,
the
in
notion
of
and
with
combination
thought
of
result,
Grusin's work on the way media remediate one another provides a useful
interactive
In
for
television.
the
of
aesthetics
thinking
about
starting point
99
how
interactive application's aesthetic style relate to the
particular,
liveness
immediacy
of television and the more complex
perceived
and
understanding of its window-on-the-world
have
I
metaphor
argued for.
Similarly to Bolter and Grusin's work, Lev Manovich's work usefully

future
larger
histories
trends
of
new
media
current
within
grounds
and
of
distinctions
Whilst
Manovich's
technologies.
many
of
create a
media
dichotomy between new and old media forms, he prefaces this by
suggesting that all new media ìnterfaces act as "representations" of older
forms
(2001:
the
cultural
and media, privileging some at
expense of others'
16). He goes on to suggest that the representational
capacities of old
film
and television, are opposed to new media's
media, such as
characteristics of simulation, control, action and information. As with Bolter
and Grusin's work, Manovich does not accord television any weight in
these histories. At times his account of the transitions in media forms reads
development
from
as a
print to cinema to new media with nothing in
between. Manovich privileges cinema as the old media through recurrent
(Russia,
Dziga
Camera
1929)18 in
Movie
Vertov's
Man
to
a
reference
with
his formulation of new media principles, leading him to view television as

aesthetically uninteresting: merely a communication technology. However,
Manovich also proposes that the representational technologies of old media
are posed in contrast to the "communication"
technologies of real-time,
difficulty
forms.
Typifying
the
of positioning television within
new media
debates about old and new media, Manovich therefore inadvertently places
television as analogous to new media forms: television's early imaginings
facilitating
interactive,
the
medium as
real-time
already envisaged
communication.
More problematically,
deficiencies
in
the
some
recalling
of
18As Mtanovich suggests, 'Man with a movie camera is perhaps the most important
(2001:
in
imagination
database
modem
media
art'
xxiv)
a
of
example
100
(c.
f.
Negroponte (1995) and Wired
other, earlier new media scholarship
Magazine), Manovich's focus on a lineage that runs from cinema to new
fails
formation
to
television's
media
recognise
as a window-on-the-world.
Thus, whilst he acknowledges that the `dynamic, real-time, and interactive'
screen of new media is, às was the case centuries ago [still] ... a flat,
rectangular surface, acting as a window into another space', he
figure
television within this trajectory, naively
nevertheless cannot
future
`perhaps
TV
that
suggesting
sets will adopt the window metaphor of
a computer'
(97).
However, despite these problems Manovich importantly and

for
persuasively argues
an understanding of the interface as a
form
in its own right - imposing its own logic on those
cultural/aesthetic
forms
it contains: ìn effect, content and interface merge into one
media
longer
be
(65-7).
follow
In
the
taken
that
entity and can no
apart'
chapters
I attempt to build on Manovich's work by paying close attention to the
interfaces of interactive
television
applications,
beyond
the
moving
technical aspects to think about the form, experience and socialisation of

these technologies. However, my concern is also to trace window-on-thedemonstrate
from
discourses
that
the
continuities
preceding chapter
world
in television's ontology, which include its always, already interactive form.
As Caldwell rightly observes, while many media theorists spend their time
speculating
on polar oppositions
(digital media and the Internet),
between push media (TV) and pull media

fewer have recognised
one increasingly
long
been
had
itself
television
trend:
making
a pull medium
obvious
(through interactivity), even as it merged and conglomerated in an
Internet
bid
through
the
the
to
medium
a
push
viable
make
unequivocal
deployment
of programming
and advertising
(2004:
45-6).
The
strategies
function
both
television's
interactive
television
as
calling
up
as
a
of
position
101
window-on-the-world
in
the
evidences
portal
a
way
which new and
and as
old media strategies and aesthetics converge and are remediated by

television. Thus, as a number of prominent television studies scholars
(Boddy,
Cinema
in
Journal
issue
suggested
of
a special
et al, 2005),
television is positioned at the boundaries of the distinction between new
by
informed
technologies,
theories
and old media
and
and informing both.
As Manovich argues, `the computerization
of culture not only leads to the
forms
emergence of new cultural
such as computer games and virtual
(2001:
it
9).
worlds;
redefines existing ones'
(Inter)Active
audiences:
Communities
and the public sphere
Television needed the computer to be free from the

but
their coupling, with major potential
screen ...
for
large,
long
consequences
society at
came after a
detour taken by computers in order to be able to talk
to television only after learning to talk to each other.
Only then could the audience speak up (Castells, 2000:
371).
Manuel Castells' ambivalent attitude towards television is indicative

of its position within new media work: at once a precursor to new media
technologies and their audiences, but as such, an inferior media form: old
media. Castells' work is more productive than many in this area, dancing
between this distinction he attempts to account for new media's
(inter)active audience in contrast to the passive one that occupied the
dance
The
by
front
is,
in
television.
the
of
course,
complicated
of
couch
the fact that Castells must recognise that one audience is the other: the
television audience are the same people who are the users of new media.
Thus, whilst Castells acknowledges the cultural studies tradition of an
is
it
the
through
return paths of new media
only
active audience
102
technologies that they become interactive: only then can the audience
speak up.
Castells' characterisation is one that is indicative of the

contradictions inherent in much of the work on new media's "virtual
communities", which are often espoused as utopian models of society
liberated by the possibilities of new media technologies. This contradiction
found
be
being
labelled
Castells'
in
to
careful attempt
can
avoid
a
technological utopianist/determinist
he
contrasts new media with
whereby
former
by
diversified"
"decentralised
the
mass media,
characterised
and
fragmentation,
differentiation
control, causing
and individualised users. In
his
contrast,
view of mass media is arguably very much informed by the
Frankfurt School's pessimism, describing media forms such as television as
having `the content and format of messages
tailored to the lowest
...
denominator'
(2000:
360). Castells therefore sees mass media as
common
concerned primarily with entertainment. Ultimately, in his efforts to avoid
being labelled a technological determinist, or utopian theorist of new
he
future
is
the
the
spectre
puts up as
media, entertainment
possible
of a
dull
liberatory
its
Internet
that
possibilities. What is
would
commercialised
interesting about this contrast is the way in which it figures a segmented,
fragmented, diversified audience as one that can fulfil the notion of
linking
through
people with common interests,
community - achieved
broadcast
"arbitrary"
than
the
communities of
geographically
rather
technologies' mass audience.
Much of the work on virtual communities in new media approaches
determinist
from
technological
viewpoint.
utopian and/or
this possibility
a
It is important to recognise the impact that such a viewpoint has in
informing this work on virtual communities as it tends to obscure attention
inequalities
and practicalities, often erroneously
to real-world conditions,
103
be,
online. Nicholas Negroponte's
assuming that we are all, or soon will
is
work
exemplary of such a viewpoint.
In Being Digital he suggests that
`digital technology can be a natural force drawing people into greater world
harmony' (1995: 230, emphasis mine). Such discussions, case-studies,
limited
theories
to examinations of hard-core
are often
examples and
Internet users, such as Sherry Turkle's study of gender-play and MUD-users
(1996) or Howard Rheingold's work on social connection in the WELL
(Whole Earth `Lectronic Link) project of Californian early-adopters of the
Internet (1993). Community, particularly in the form of a Habermassian
foundational
is
in such theories. Rheingold argued that
public sphere,
for
different
electronic networks of communication allowed
a very
media
from
broadcasting
the
to the many-toexperience:
one-to-many model of
defined
interaction
Rheingold
many, peer-to-peer
of computer users.
virtual
communities
as `social aggregations
that emerge from the Net when
[using
long
discussions
Internet]
the
those
public
enough people carry on
feeling,
form
human
to
webs of personal
enough, with sufficient
(Rheingold,
5).
The
1993:
in
problem with studies
cyberspace
relationships
such as Rheingold's
and Turkle is not simply that they are overly optimistic,
but that they are based on very small user groups, extrapolating from small
heralds
dawning
democratic
`grander
the
that
of a new
rhetoric
case studies
is
informed
(Street,
28).
Arguably
1997:
a
very
much
such
viewpoint
order'
by the same perspective that Richard Dyer identifies as the "utopia"
be
better
(1992).
feeling
film
by
things
that
the
the
could
musical:
achieved
Furthermore, such an approach fails to take into account the importance of
gatekeeping
issues, ignoring
by whom and how these sites are accessed.
Of course, in the context of new media's ability to compress time

there
to
in
are
good
the
a
globalising
world,
reasons
of
shifts
and space
facilitate
technologies
the
the
to
can
such
way
pay close attention
104
formation of communities of interest. However, television has always been

facilitating
communities particularly
similarly positioned as capable of
through public service broadcasting, such as Lord Reith's outdated notion
digital
Whilst
"making
technologies are often
the
nation as one man".
of
posited as renewing such promises, as Livingstone and Lunt's survey of
`talk on television'
suggests, engaging civic participation
is never simply
facilitated by technological change:

there is no necessary connection between the
development of mediated systems of communication
development
democracy
the
and
of a participatory
(Livingstone and Lunt, 1994: 12).
In relation to interactive television, this theme has been explored primarily

through discussions of programmes like Big Brother (Endemol, 2000 -) and
Pop Idol (ITV/Thames
Television,
audience the opportunity

examined
2001-2003) which, through giving the
to vote and influence the outcome, have been
in relation to their potential
to allow participatory
forms of
by
have
Tincknell
As
Raghuram
the
engagement
and
correctly
audience.
observed, the participation of Big Brother's audience through voting `meant
that the relationship between the "active" audience of cultural studies ...
for
first
"interactive"
the
time,
the
perhaps
and
audience of new media was,
(2002:
211). As with other new media technologies, the
visibly articulated'
possibility that interactive television will enable engagement and
democratic participation has been the subject of both negative and positive
pronouncements.
John Street provides a useful overview of the need to recognise how

`different media systems construct different opportunities for political
(1997:
levels
draws
different
11).
Street
thought'
of
on
engagement and
Schickler's
Winner's
Langdon
and
work to suggest that participatory
forms
`conducive
like
television
to
the
phone-in,
are
prejudiced,
of engagement,
105
sloppy thinking, and to extremely simple views of the social and political
(Schickler,
ibid:
37).
in
Street goes on to argue that:
quoted
process'
the way information is presented and organized is
forms
discourse.
In other
of political
correlated with
words, the citizen's capacity to make political
judgements is dependent upon the way in which
delivered
(ibid).
is
information
political
and received
Virginia Nightingale and Tim Dwyer have explored notions of participation,

democracy and new media in relation to interactive television recently in
their article `The Audience Politics of "Enhanced" Television Formats'. Their
work suggests that such participation
be recognised
as a commercial
transaction.
Brother and Pop Idol, Nightingale

customisation
through
interactive
television
Discussing programmes
should
like Big
and Dwyer suggest `voting, like other
[of
interactive
options
television],
involves a commercial
transaction' through the viewser's payment of premium phone-line rates to

have their vote registered (2006: 29). Similarly Su Holmes argues that whilst
like
Pop Idol situate the audience as the arbiter of musical
programmes
taste, èncouraged to adopt a viewpoint at odds with official or expert
has
text
that
their
capitalism
opinion',
votes ultimately serve a conservative
(2004:
heart
Dwyer
166).
Nightingale
its
are particularly scathing of
and
at
the participatory
models invoked
by the voting applications.
They argue
that by seeking to depict results as "national outcomes", such applications

between
distinction
in
the
that
erases
a neo-liberal rhetoric
engage
Thus
the
through
as
mobilisation of nationalism.
consumer and citizen
Holmes suggests, despite the debates about the potential for interactive
television
degree
to
all of these programmes
a
to engage the audience,
levels
intervention
demonstrative
'increased
of
audience
of
not so much
are
...
is
level
the
through
audience
increased
which
of
self-reflexivity
as the
(2004:
164).
beckoned,
invoked,
and addressed'
106
However, the debates here suggest that the BBC's attempts to

facilitate participation and fulfil its commitment to "engage" audiences
be
for
discussions
important
White
Paper
in
the
an
site
will
about
outlined
digital
broadcasting
in
In
BBC's
the
the
age.
particular,
service
public
basis
(at
least
in remit and theory, if not in practice)
inclusive
national and
how
BBC
the
the
thinking
about
public
service
of
remits
are
makes
discussed in terms of Habermassian notions of facilitating civic engagement
in the public sphere an important
and productive
for
evaluating
way
digital
The
BBC.
interactive
that
of
a
promise
an
value
public
the
BBC (BBCi)
fulfil
both
is
in
the Government's
such engagement
made explicit
will
White Paper and the BBC's Building Public Value, which positions new
media as opening
up:
but
just
individual
new civic
not
consumer pathways
avenues and town squares, public places where we
from
learn
each other,
can share experiences and
debate
and reflect
places where we can celebrate,
(2004: 24).
Relating these promises and fantasies of a digital BBC to particular case
how
interactive
in
Chapter
7,1
these
evaluate
studies
applications
draw on
both new media ideals of a Habermassian public sphere, as well as the

traditional public service concerns of defining the national. As such, these
democratic
interactive
imbue
the
television
with
applications seek to
become
to
viewsers and
potentialities of new media - allowing audiences
In
I
addition,
argue
communities.
participants within micro and national
both
the opportunities of new media to groups who
that they also extend
have been left on the wrong side of digital divide (the digital immigrant),
digital
In
the
to
media.
new
spaces
of
so
offering television as a portal
doing, these applications rationalise the mobility on offer according to
goals of re-formulating
the national as an important category to the
fragmented
diverse
communities of twenty-first century
and
increasingly
107
Britain. Thus the case studies in Chapter 7 evidence the dialectic between
the position of television as a window-on-the-world
and television as a
hand
interactive
That
is,
the
the
applications act as a portal
one
on
portal.
driving viewsers to the BBC's proprietary content. On the other hand, in so
doing they open up a digital world
for viewsers to explore which, as a
have
digital
been
from,
immigrants
is infused
previously
excluded
space
broad
the
vistas of television's - particularly public service
with
broadcasting's - window-on-the-world.
Aesthetics
and textuality
I have already dealt with the textual models developed within

television
limitations
their
studies and
for approaching
the non-linear,
personalised texts of interactive television. In this section I want to examine

the relevant theories of new media that deal with interactive textuality;
hypertext
theory, Caldwell's second shift aesthetics and Manovich's
namely,
forms.
database
All these works investigate non-linear texts that
work on
discussing
how
interactions,
to
they pose significant
respond
user/viewser
both
describe
to
the
and theorise the text. Although
problems
way we
digital textualities have made these problems more acute, the debt of
hypertext theory to critical literary theory clearly demonstrates how nonlinear forms pre-date the digital revolution and need not only technologies
to realise them, but also specific terminologies".
Thus, hypertext theorist
George Landow describes how Jacques Derrida conceived of a new kind of

devices
have
did
but
it:
`he
terminology
to
the
text,
or
articulate
not
describes it, he praises it, but he can present it only in terms of the devices
19Vannevar Bush's article, As wiemay think', which appearedin Atlantic Monthly in July 1945
is exemplary here and often cited as the origins of hypertextual, non-linear systems.In it, Bush
knowledge
thinking
his
`memex'
as
computational
a
means
of
of
making
stored
model
presents
hypertext
back
Landow
George
traces
but
Similarly,
to
theory
not
only
critical
more accessible.
first
hypertext technologies (1994).
footnotes
the
how
of
one
mark
also suggests
108
kind
here
a
with
particular
associated
those
of
writing'
of
punctuation
(2001[19911: 103). However, fundamentally my concern here is to trace
how these works and textualities can be read in light of my call for the
has
in
Chapter
Su
1.
Holmes
text
the
television
made
recently
retention of
few
in
the
one of
pieces of television scholarship
reasserted this argument,
to tackle interactivity (2004). Her excellent analysis of E4's textually
(E4
The
2003-04)
interactivity,
Salon
that
suggests
even where it
complex
literally
diegesis,
that
to
the
the
extent
audience members can
enter
exists
does not require the abandoning of the text, but does require an
acknowledgement of its shifting parameters. I suggest that the adoption of
interactivity in television also requires television studies to cast its net wider
into the related disciplines it draws upon in order to have the tools to
down
for
following
Thus,
interactive
the
text
the
successfully pin
analysis.
framework
the
review of new media scholarship necessarily establishes
build
develop
lexicon
the
to
a critical
of
remaining chapters
upon which
Hypertext's theoretical and technological terrain has largely been
forms.
In
American
West
the
to
particular,
computer-based media
restricted
Coast computer counter-culture's interest in hypertext technology and the
liberatory
to
the
theory
possible
uses and
ponder
application of critical
impact of such non-linear forms. Thus founders of both hypertext and this
Ted
`called
Tim
Berners-Lee
Nelson,
and
upon
counter-cultural movement,
for
benefit.
Nelson
their
own
to
power
computer
seize and use
people
imagined a new system of organising information, which he called
links,
he
horizontal
information
based
"hypertext",
called
which
on
"hyperlinks"'
(quoted in Castells, 2000: 50). Hypertext, according to Nelson,
branches
that
text
and allows choices to the
is ''ion-segire; rti(il uv'ltiug As
interactive
is
best
this
screen.
popularly
conceived,
a
an
at
read
reader,
109
links
by
different
the
which
offer
text
reader
series of
chunks connected
pathways'
(quoted
in Landow, 2001[1991]: 100). Its theory and terminology
have utilised Roland Barthes' terms of lexia, node, network, web and path,
describe
he
deploys
"ideal
S/Z
in
to
textuality". Barthes' "writerly
an
which
beginning',
but
is rather òpen-ended, perpetually
is
`has
that
text",
no
one
is
text
this
a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds'
unfinished ...
(Barthes quoted in Landow, 2001[1991]: 99). Thus, for hypertext theorists
like Landow, `hypertext fulfils "the goal of literary work [which] is to make
the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text"' (Barthes in
Landow, 2001[1991]: 101).
The problem with ascribing these terminologies to the interactive

television
text primarily
distinction
the
revolves around
between the real-
time and live ontologies of computers and television. As Mark Williams

explains,
both terms are grounded in the capacity for electronic
media to represent something at roughly the same
different
But
it
in
term,
significantly
occurs.
each
moment
key
dynamic
disavowal,
designates
in
of
a
registers, also
that each names an act of mediation but also the desire to
(2003:
163).
this
act as unmediated
experience
Thus, as I noted in my introduction, whilst television's liveness may now

functions
less
it
the
to the ontological status of
nevertheless
referent,
refer
to describe `what an electronic medium is representing at this moment'
(ibid). In comparison, the ontology of the computer is one of data
structures and algorithms, whereby real-time processing power allows
information to be called up, on-demand by the user (Manovich, 2001: 223).
As a result, the texts of new media technologies are capable of having the
large structures, navigable spaces and open-endedness that are hallmarks
Halasz
Hypermedia
to
hypertext
systems,
according
and
systems.
of
Schwartz, `provide their users with the ability to create, manipulate and/or
110
examine a network of information-containing
by
interconnected
nodes
40).
links'
(quoted
ibid:
The emphasis here is on the ability of
in
relational
the user to manipulate the text to the extent that we might assign their
work as equally important
in the creation of a personalised
text. In
forms
hypertext
to
these
open-ended
comparison
of
on the web, interactive
television applications are largely bounded both by time and space, which
restricts viewser interaction to navigating a series of choices. As John
Caldwell demonstrates, time is still the metric that broadcasters must master
(2003).
Furthermore,
hypertext's
differ
spaces
not only according to the
limitations of digital television's more simplistic technological base and

but
bandwidths,
also according to television's screen and viewing
smaller
environment.
Interactive
As Nick Cohen (BBC's Senior Executive Producer of
News) suggests, factors such as the remote control, used over a
distance, as well as the lounge-room's set up and the television's cathode

lead
to:
ray all
different design constraints as well as user mindsets
[from the web]. Television lends itself, aesthetically, to
dark
backgrounds
designs
and
with
sparse and simple
lighter texts, whereas the web has a dense aesthetic;
lighter backgrounds but a lot going on (Interview
conducted 1/11/05).
As a result, there is a need to develop new terminologies that deal with the
how
it
television
the
and
remediates the
experience
specificities of
discussion
forms.
from
In
interactivity
my
other new media
experience of
(solely)
do
I
this,
individual
to
as an attempt to
not
case studies attempt
of
in
landgrab
digital
theory
in
new media
of academic
the
stake a claim
both
technologies
but
that
of
convergence
a
recognition
as
rather
studies,
forms,
in
bodies
similarities
means
recognising
work
of
academic
and
fields
from
and not obliterating
drawing on relevant work
other
111
distinctions. Thus, some might argue that the forms I discuss in the
following chapters are simply descriptions of hypertext systems, pure and
linking
but
interest
is
in
Perhaps,
aesthetics with the political
as my
simple.
in
the UK, specifically the BBC's public service
television
economy of
status, such an approach would obscure the very importance of discussing
interactive television as television, with its own histories, uses and
from
distinct
those of new media.
understandings
In this regard, a more useful approach to the non-linear and
dispersed texts of digital media is proposed by Caldwell in his `Second Shift
Media Aesthetics: Programming,
Interactivity
and User Flows'. For Caldwell,
flow
television
text
models, such as
and segment, are "first shift
analogue
like
the
tent-poling and
goal of programming strategies
aesthetics" where
hammocking
proprietary,
`was to keep viewers engaged with a single network's

ad-sponsored
"flow"'
(2003: 134). Such programming
strategies
began to be undermined before the advent of digital media, with

developments such as `cable, the VCR, the remote control, multichannel
fragmentation
finally
Internet
the
television and
of the
all promot[ing] a
flow' (ibid). However, these programming strategies have been replaced by
forms
[to]
bring
`new
that
to
of rationality
seek
second shift practices
...
(136).
Caldwell's
industrially
dispersals
textual
navigations'
and user
master
and textually
sensitive approach
investigates how such practices produce a
loose textuality that addresses and attempts to order, or herd, the viewser's
The
introduction
the
or
site.
of
programme
application,
navigation of
between
to
that
interactive applications to television
choose
allow viewsers
individual
through
content, whilst ostensibly
paths
navigate
and
events
for
"programme",
similar
problems
any
presents
the
same
on
remaining
linear
the
texts
through
these
models
of
existing
to
understand
attempt
television studies.
112
However, before we throw out these first shift textualities with the
bath water, it is important to consider their usefulness in this new
environment. Whilst these models may not effectively be able to grasp the
non-linearity of an interactive application, importantly, as Brunsdon
forms
these
textual
recognises,
are intimately related to the perceived
drive
`central
the
absence of
organising
of the author, or ... the specific
hierarchies of form given by an established aesthetic' (1989: 123). This is an
absence made more conspicuous by the interactive text but not quite so
first
first
it
As
these
challenge
new a
as
appears.
a result,
shift textualities
for
discussion,
but
still provide useful reference points
my
arguably the
lack of authorial control that Brunsdon evokes was a gap filled by the
flow
the
temporal
place of
schedule,
and super-structuring of television.
The challenge now is to work out the new structuring logics of
interactivity, or in Caldwell's terminology, of the second shift aesthetics of
the medium, in particular those of public service broadcasting.
It is worth finally briefly mentioning Manovich's work on databases.
Manovich suggests that a key feature of new media is "variability", which
he
format.
database
be
In
in
turn,
to
suggests that the
a
comes
ensconced
`database itself [comes] to function as a cultural form in its own right' (2001:
37). For Manovich, the database is simply the collection of items on which
the user can perform various operations - view, navigate, search, etc - and,
digital
long
form
is
technology: the
that
predates
a cultural
as such,
forms.
being
The
library
antecedent
readily
recognisable
museum or
database has become such a pervasive form that arguably, as Manovich
be
that
is
it
to
all neuermedia can
understood
understand
possible
suggests,
database,
interface
the
on a multimedia
or as
right
as either constructing
defining navigation methods through spatialised representations (215).
113
As I argue in Chapter 6, the database form is particularly pertinent

for a discussion of interactive television for the way that it privileges and
foregrounds the element of choice. Whilst database structures may be
hierarchically,
in
a variety of ways, some
some relationally, some
organised
in a network, the privileging of choice always subverts the normal
linear
leads
As
Manovich
this
to a
narrative.
prominence of a
suggests,
tension between database and narrative: às a cultural form, the database
list
the
of items, and it refuses to order this list ...
represents
world as a
therefore, database and narrative are natural enemies' (225). As I suggested
above, the organisation of interactive television as a series of video/data
from
database
logic,
fits
this
the
streams
which
well within
viewser chooses
(such
its
to
with
aesthetic
greater
as the news multiscreen)
lesser
or
degrees (such as Who do you think you are? (Wall to Wall for BBC, 2004
)) foregrounding this structure. To this end, my description of the era of
how
database
television
suggests
a
excess as one of post-broadcast
ontology
is emerging in digital television,
characterised
by a primacy
linked
have
This
I
to
the
notion
of
a
portal.
on
choice,
placed
which
linkage is helpful in understanding how this database logic must be
linear
the
experience of watching television, its
more usual
negotiated with
broadcast flow and the medium's ability to generate ideological and
liveness
liveness.
functions
it
is
just
However,
that poses
not
of
ontological
but
for
interactive
television
applications
also the
particular challenges
forms, requirements and experiences of particular genres. Thus the
interactive
is
in
television
of
explored
mobility
and
rationalised choices
individual
to
the
case studies' positions as examples of natural
relation
history, news, sports and history programming. Television's digitalisation
but
the
out
of
an
old
one,
continuities and
media
a
new
may make
114
baggage of television's analogue form will be with the medium for a long
time to come yet.
Conclusion
These new technological and cultural features of television suggest
that we are entering a new period of television history marked by nonlinear, desynchronised, post-broadcast experiences of television. As I have
does
break
however,
this
not mean a radical
with previous
argued
has
In
television.
particular, my periodisation of excess
understandings of
broadcast,
demonstrate
to
television's
analogue
continuities with
sought
liberatory
to
the
theories attached to new media
past and
eschew
formations.
These are connotations that might attach to my use of the term
digital
landscape.
discuss
the
to
television's
excess
new emergent period of
Work by theorists such as John Fiske and John Hartley have equated a
liberatory
postmodern aesthetics of excess with a
understanding of the
audience's relationship to the text. In such an understanding, the aesthetics
"positions"
`with
an
excess
of
of excess provide an audience
which
...
(Hartley,
be
quoted in Fiske, 1987: 58).
nevertheless can
easily recognised'
However numerous rebukes of Fiske's work, such as Meaghan Morris'
(1998),
banality
the
remind us of the need to
of excess
arguments about
freedoms
to
the
conferred on the
constraints or
pay careful attention
discussed
here,
In
through
these
constraints are
audience.
my study
examining the rationalising of viewser-flows through second shift aesthetic
interactive
Thus
television provides the viewser with the
whilst
practices.
possibility
of personalising
the text, using it for their own purposes and
does
Fiske's
"semiotic
to
equate
this
not
notions
of
a
excess"
meanings,
be
is
too
television
àlways
to
much
meaning
on
there
whereby
115
(1987:
91).
To
by
dominant
ideology'
the
controllable
return to Stuart Hall's
be
(1980:
`polysemy
134).
work,
confused
with
pluralism'
must not ...
116
.:,
,,.
r-:...,
,.
Figure
2.1
2004 Athens Olympics
Figure
2.2
The Life of. Ilammals
application
(BBC, 2004)
(BBC, 2002-03)
117
Figure
2.3
Test the Nation
(BBC, 2000
-)
The cliff notes here for the BBC's coverage of a performance

Figure 2.4
(BBC,
by
2003) at the Globe Theatre
Shakespeare's
Measure
Measure
of
privilege the viewser with interpretative information, which through their
doesn't
bottom
intermittent
the
the
appearance
placement at
of
screen and
disrupt the play itself.
118
DAYr
Celebrity Big Brother

Figure 2.5
(Endemol for Channel 4,2001 -)
Figure
1999
2.7
SkySportsActive (BSkyB,
SkyGamestar (Sky
Figure 2.6
Interactive, 2002 -)
Figure 2.8 Wimbledon

(BBC) 2000
-)
Interactive
Interactive applications build on the `clutter' of

Figures 2.5-2.8
hypertext
into
turning
these
systems that allow the viewser
videographics,
to choose, navigate, vote and ìnteract' in different ways.
119
broadcasting,
Chapter 3: Public service
BBC and the period of excess
the
Chapter 3 investigates the immediate regulatory and technological

detailing
the new public service
the
period of excess,
environment of
digital
BBC
in
Across
the
the chapter the
a
environment.
of
obligations
BBC
Sky
is
the
and
of
and
regulation
of pivotal
relationship
government's
defined
digital
has
largely
it
is
the
this
that
relationship
concern, as
television landscape, particularly the development of its two predominant
digital
first
digital
Thus
in
terrestrial.
the
section of
satellite and
platforms:
the chapter I discuss the government's approach to shaping the initial
digital environment,
discussing the failure of the first digital terrestrial
by
ON/ITV
Digital,
its
the BBC-led Freeview.
and
platform,
replacement
This story is returned to in the chapter's concluding discussion of the
digital
television, returning to the issue of gender that I
marketing of
developments
in
Chapter
1
is
in television's
to
suggested
central
technological form. However, as I suggested there, this is never a simple
binary opposition between masculinity and femininity, but is intimately
backdrop
landscape.
institutional
UK's
Thus
to
the
the
television
related
of
drawing on Charlotte Brunsdon's (1997) pioneering study of satellite
television in the UK, I demonstrate that the advent of digital television was
both
in
Sky and ITV
terms
that
positioned
of working-class masculinity
saw
Digital competing for the same market. Across the remainder of the chapter
I set out the public service criteria against which I discuss the thesis' case
studies. The discourse of choice is again of paramount importance in this
discussion, as the digitalisation of television was, and is, often posited as a
between
broadcasting
binary
in
public service
opposites,
and the
choice
free market.
120
This is evident in Mark Booth's welcome message to Sky's new

digital platform in the company's listing magazine, which assertively
digital
into
the
television age, confident
positioned the company as striding
in their position as market-leader and promising a revolutionary new
television experience:
Dear Customers, The future of television has arrived here
honoured
that
to share it with
you are
and we're
SkyDigital
Nothing
to
television
close
comes
us ...
...
A service which offers a new dimension in choice and
have
beyond
anything you
ever
viewing control
[digital]
bring
SkyDigital
this
revolution
experienced ...
to the television, transforming not only the way you
future
but
how
The
it
of
also
you use ...
watch,
television is in new hands (Mark Booth, Chief
Executive, BSkyB - October 1998: 2).
Booth's rhetoric continues to place a primacy on choice as the value of
digital television, à new dimension in choice', which is inherent in the
form of not only multichannel
television
but, significantly,
interactive
but
how
`transforming
the
services as well:
not only
also
way you watch,
digitalisation
Booth
it'.
In
turn,
that
suggests
you use
both wrests control
from
(sic
hands
BBC)
institutions
it
in
the
the
away
established
and places
discourses
These
the
of
of choice and consumer empowerment
audience.
frameworks
have
dotted
discursive
that
throughout
the
established the
are
digital
landscape
the
regulatory structure of
new
as well as the promotional
have
from
broadcasters
that
materials
positioned television as a new media
for
its audiences. As Booth's comments suggest, any transition
apparatus
from old to new media entails a moment of choice: of industry standards,
for
how
business
frameworks,
they
consumers,
models and
regulatory
Booth's
it.
rhetoric recalls the characterisation of
watch and whom supplies
digital
Barry
Cox's
licence-fee
`poll
tax'
the
and
re-imagining of
as a
burden,
freed
this
as an electronic retail outlet, the equivalent
television,
of
(Cox,
Thus,
2004:
28).
Smith'
\VH
the
to
call
put the
of
version
of a video
I'll
future of television in "new hands" and supply the consumer/audience

has
been
by
how
this
period of excess
marked
with choice aptly connotes
broadcasting
that is suffused
a sustained period of attack on public service
liberatory
digital
technology's
the
with
rhetoric of
revolution.
However, as I've suggested, the move to digital television is not
does
not entail any of the radical
such a revolutionary move and certainly
breaks suggested by Booth's grandiloquence. Most obviously, the attacks
broadcasting
are neither new nor appearing in radically
on public service
different forms. Nevertheless, digitalisation does pose new challenges to
frameworks
institutions,
existing
regulatory
and the way we study them. As
defence
broadcasting
of public service
a result, any
must position its
institutions and principles against this changing, and challenging, backdrop.
The DCMS has recently articulated this challenge as requiring a new public
service ethos, under which ìnform, educate and entertain'
longer
far
no
go
enough. Whether the newly articulated vision of public service

broadcasting represents a radical new set of impetuses for the BBC to fulfil
is a moot point; the period of sustained attack on, and review of, public
has
begun.
This was compounded in 2004 when
service principles
already
the BBC lost Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies, the Corporation's
Director
General and Head of Board of Directors respectively, as a direct result of

the Hutton Report's white-washing
of government action in the wake of a
BBC story on government knowledge about weapons of mass destruction

in Iraq. 20
As I go on to demonstrate in Chapter 7, the loss of Dyke and Davis

BBC
Charter
in
to
the
renewal within
run-up
came at a crucial moment
formed
interactive
television
part of a robust response to the
which
20For detailed discussion of the Hutton Report see Georgina Born's Uncertain Visions: Birt,
a
BBC.
Reinvention
the
DVVkL'
of
and the
122
blow
digitalisation.
Fundamental
to
the
timing
this
of
and the
challenges of
BBC's response was the concurrent writing and publication of the internal
document,
Building Public Value, which set out the BBC's
strategy
landscape.
digital
Despite
in
the
obligations and role
most commentators
agreeing that the new Director General, Mark Thompson, and Governor of
the Board of Directors, Michael Grade, could not have provided a more
lead
defence
Corporation's
in
the
the
of
up to Charter
position
vigorous
licence-fee
final
White
Paper
the
and
settlement
government's
renewal,
have left the position of public service broadcasting and the BBC in a
perilous position.
This is most evident in the ti kite Paper's requirement
that the BBC investigates forms of subscription funding over the next
Charter period. In addition, the decision to unhook increases in the licence
fee from general inflation has squeezed the Corporation's financial capacity
to exploit the opportunities of digital television". Unfortunately therefore,
the government's approach has tended to move increasingly towards
deregulation and favouring the address of the audience as consumer. Thus
television's new digital period of excess is likely to be the last period of
licence-fee
defined
by
funded
broadcasting
as
a universal
public service
BBC.
The formation
digital
television
of
Everybody here knows there's a revolution taking place

in the world of broadcasting and communication: a
transformation in compression, picture quality,
But it's not technology
interactivity, conditional access
...
failure
decide
the
that will
ultimate success or
of the
digital revolution - it will be the range and quality of
services, the ease with which viewers are able to
digital
it
the
world
and
of
course
round
will
navigate
It's my job to make sure that it happens in
be price
...
21 Such
have
the
by
an
effect
on
content
and
programming
undoubtedly
will
produced
pressures
has
demonstrated
is
increasing
CRESC
from
the
BBC,
group
already
under
the
the
strain
as
which
fill
its
in
hours
interactive
to
required
schedules
a
multichannel,
augmented programming
2006).
(Froud,
at..
et.
environment
123
(Chris
Secretary
Smith,
of
the interests of the consumer
State for Culture, Media and Sport, Royal Television
Society Lecture, 14/10/1998).
Chris Smith's announcement of the digital future largely echoes that

digitalisation
both
by
1998
in
Booth
Mark
as
voiced
- characterising
figured
to
the
viewer,
revolutionary and as offering unprecedented choice
But
it
interestingly
employs some of the window-on-thealso
consumer.
as
have
digital
discourses
Chapter
in
1,
I
teased
the
out
characterising
world
television landscape as a world that must be navigated. Georgina Born's
(2004) anthropological
digitalisation
BBC
the
the
over
period of
study of
details the regulatory and policy initiatives that have shaped digital
television's first phase in great detail and I don't want to repeat her work
here. Instead, I will concentrate on the period that has followed the
publication of Born's Uncertain Visions, relating window-on-the-world
discourses to pertinent debates about public service broadcasting and
doing,
I suggest that television's
In
so
choice.
window
is increasingly
drawing on portal practices that continue to circulate television's windowbut

liveness,
discourses,
in
as
mobility
and
ways that are
on-the-world
such
in
important
structured
ways.
rationalised, personalised and
As I noted in my introduction, the place of the BBC during this
has
been
the subject of intense scrutiny and I try to not only update,
period
but differentiate my work from others in this field. In particular, whilst
Hernan Galperin asserts that the promotion of competition in this period
broadcasting,
defence
I suggest
in
of public service
resulted
something of a
that this might be too simplistic an account of the rise of Freeview as
BSkyB's main competitor
(2004). Galperin
both
in
that
the US and
suggests
has
been
by
digital
UK
to
the switch
structured
government policy that
the
has supported local commercial television and public service broadcasting
124
development
digital
he
the
that
of a
argues
respectively. In particular,
terrestrial platform to compete with BSkyB was specifically supported in
best
broadcasting
the
opportunity
order to allow public service
to `compete
in a platform with limited carriage capacity rather than among the

hundreds of channels that digital cable or satellite would offer' (2004: 166).
Whilst it is certainly true that the BBC continues to achieve higher audience
homes
(c.
f.
digital
Ofcom,
2004b,
2004c,
2006a,
2006b),
in
terrestrial
shares
final
is
Furthermore,
true
the
terrestrial
the
this
main
channels.
also
of all
licence-fee settlement indicates a waning of support for public service
broadcasting. Thus I suggest that the development of a BBC-led digital
terrestrial platform has been the result of more complex interplays between
the government, the BBC, ITV and BSkyB than Galperin's analysis suggests.
I argue that Tony Blair's New Labour Government, caught between
appeasing Rupert Murdoch
and promoting
competition,
failed to
latter
by
launch
digital
the
the
terrestrial
adequately secure
pushing
of a
development
The
BSkyB.
that
platform
could not compete with
of
Freeview in the aftermath of this was then the result of the BBC's shrewd
manoeuvring
Director
the
under
General-ship
of Greg Dyke.
It is this
failure
the
environment, coupled with
of ITV Digital to establish itself as a
largely
Sky,
informs the BBC's
to
therefore
that
serious competitor
promotion of itself in terms of choice.
In 1997 Tony Blair's Labour party swept into government,
backed
leftist,
by
Labour
the
traditionally
supporting papers
only
resoundingly
not
such as The Guardian
but
The
Independent,
also significantly Rupert
and
Murdoch's The Sun. Widely recognised as, at the time, Britain's most
have
its
that
the
tabloid,
argued
switching
many
of
support to
circulated
from
Conservative
its
traditional
Labour
position, was crucial to
the
party
Blair's success. However, as BSkyB announced plans to roll out digital
125
television in 1998 this left the newly elected government in a difficult

hand,
On
Labour's commitment to competition in many
the
position.
one
for
had
been
landscape.
invoked
Born
As
the
television
sectors
specifically
demonstrates, à central government aim was to ensure pluralism by
identifying a rival universal platform' (Born, 2004: 483). On the other hand,
there was undoubtedly pressure to appease Rupert Murdoch in the wake of
The Sun's support for Labour's victory. The need to promote pluralism led
the government
to grant incentives
and push the promotion
digital
of a
terrestrial commercial competitor to BSkyB's satellite platform to be ready

begin
digital
Sky
the
transmitting
point
would
signals. However, as Des
at
Freedman's extensive study of Labour government television policy
implicitly suggests, these incentives were calculatedly limited (2003). In
particular,
the bandwidth
digital
for
terrestrial
the
new
made available
limited.
This meant that not only was
OnDigital
platform
was extremely
OnDigital's signal limited to covering approximately 30% of the country,
but that its carriage capacity for channels and interactive services was
similarly restricted. In comparison,
digital
the
terrestrial platform
when
was
taken over by a BBC-led consortium in 2002, bandwidth was increased

threefold. As a result, when OnDigital launched just months after BSkyB's
digital satellite platform, not only was Murdoch's service available to
but
hundreds
it
the
consumers all over
country,
also offered
of channels
(although
This,
interactive
1999).
these
available
and
weren't
until
services
decision
BSkyB's
to refuse OnDigital permission to carry
combined with
BSkyB's premium sports and movie services on the digital terrestrial
(in
ITV1
BSkyB's
2000
not
made
retaliation,
was
available
on
platform until
like
(c.
f.
OnDigital's
service
a
seem
rather paltry offering
platform), made
Iosifidis, 2005).
126
Whilst the need to promote consumer choice in the digital television

landscape remains a laudable goal, the desire to push a new platform at a
first
digital
its
infancy
the
terrestrial
was also part of
relative
stage of
downfall.
decision
Born
implicitly
As
the
to
argues,
government's
platform's
push a terrestrial platform to promote consumer choice stood in stark relief
to its failure to intervene in BSkyB's anti-competitive policies. These
Conditional
Systems
issues:
Access
two
and
revolve
around
primarily
football
football
As
in
Chapter
1,
I
suggested
rights
rights.
ownership of
have been key to BSkyB's model of subscription television since its launch
broadcast
in
1989.
BSkyB's
Astra
to
the
the
satellite
monopoly of
right
of
from
the English Premier League remained unchallenged when
matches
digital transmission started and the New Labour Government came to
has
largely
been
down
it
Indeed,
to European intervention rather
power.
than the UK government that BSkyB's monopoly has been put into
has
The
Commission
European
question as anti-competitive.
stipulated that
from 2006 the English Football Association
must sell rights to Premier
League matches in six separate packages, of which any one broadcaster

five22
can only own a maximum of
As discussed in the previous chapter, Conditional Access Systems
form
to
effectively amount
a
of Caldwell's second shift aesthetics. Galperin
from
that
notes
a regulatory perspective, the concern is about the potential
devices
`by vertically integrated operators to
EPGs
use of
and searching
escort viewers toward affiliated
programmers
and interactive
TV service
(2004:
detriment
11).
In 1998 ITV refused
third
the
to
of
parties'
operators
to pay BSkyB's carriage charges in order to support its fledgling
OnDigital
initiative, in the hope that by making Britain's most popular channel (as it
22That, in reality, this has translated to Sky owning all bar one packageof games is perhaps less
important than the fact that Setanta,who purchasedthe remaining package,will offer gameson
digital terrestrial television as well as satellite.
127
drive
it
OnDigital,
digitally
would
consumers
then was) only available
via
from
BBC
the onerous charges
Similarly,
the
to this platform.
sought relief
imposed by BSkyB, who retaliated by threatening to move BBC3 and 4 to
less prominent
culminating
positions
The
issue
EPG.
the
remains ongoing,
on
in the BBC's announcement
of a "FreeSat" initiative
arguably
under Greg
Dyke to transmit the BBC's digital satellite in the clear and free from
BSkyB's system. This looks likely to be fulfilled by an ITV/Channel4/BBC
for
but
desire
2007
BSkyB's
in
the
all
of
some
point
major
at
conglomerate
programming
importance
competitors
of gate-keeping
to work together demonstrates
the ongoing
issues in the digital landscape".
In the context of the above discussion, we might read the

digital
BSkyB's
to
terrestrial
push
of
as
a
rival
platform
government's
from
failure
deflect
the
to
tactic
to
calculated
attention
satellite service as a
address BSkyB's anti-competitive practices. As a result, the New Labour
Government was able to placate both those who wanted to see
by
leaving
his
in
Murdoch
the
television
market, as well as
competition
had
little
that
real chance of
empire untouched and establishing a rival
failure
first
instance.
in
Undoubtedly
the
the
of the
succeeding
OnDigital/ITVDigital
least
partly a result of the company's
platform was at
decision to over-bid for rights to Nationwide and Champions' league

football rights, particularly when ITV had not secured carriage for these
The
BSkyB's
more
widely
available
service.
much
premium services on
British
Satellite
2002,
in
ITVDigital
that
the
therefore
echoed
of
collapse of
Broadcasting group at the start of the 1990s, similarly brought about by
Murdoch's exclusive ownership of important sporting rights (though as we
23Of course, with BSkyB's recent purchase of a controlling stake in ITV, even this tactic may
come unhinged.
128
will see the battle between BSkyB and its competitors has a great deal to
do with class formations as well).
However, press coverage's focus on the overpayment for football
by
ITV unhelpfully
rights
and the government's
both
BSkyB's anti-competitive strategies
obscures
failure to actively support a commercial
rival to
Murdoch. Freedman notes that during this period New Labour's

both
took
consultation on media ownership rules
contradictory positions,
for
the
supporting
need
continuing restrictions and intervention as well as
be
deregulatory
às
that
they
suggesting
would
as possible' to promote
competition.
As Freedman astutely suggests,
document's
the
not surprisingly, given
adoption of two
contradictory positions ... the government simply
further
before
proposed a
consultation period
decision
itself
to
that
committing
making any concrete
from
itself
to
might open
up
possible criticisms
either
Murdoch or non-Murdoch interests in the UK media
(2003: 177).
The killer blow in this story of course comes in the government's

maintenance of a `pro-competition',
`platform neutral' stance as ITVDigital
(admittedly
largely
deathbed.
its
Under the weight
self-inflicted)
writhed on
from
deals,
began
football
debt
its
ITVDigital
of
rights
slowly collapsing in
limping
mid-2001,
on until April 2002. During this period Freedman
documents how Charles Allen, the Chief Executive of Granada, `wrote to

Tony Blair pleading
for
...
legislation
allowing
and Carlton to rescue an ailing OnDigital'
between
a merger
(Freedman,
Granda
2003: 180). However,
be
that
the government maintained
against its `proa merger would
competition'
ùnwilling
and
was
stance
to intervene
OnDigital
and rescue
for fear of showing that it favoured particular technologies or particular

digital
ITV's
(ibid).
Ironically,
the
after
collapse of
venture the
companies'
2004.
Carlton
in
Granada
to
merge
and
government allowed
129
This failure of the government to adequately support the new digital

terrestrial platform at its inception, particularly in the form of regulating
BSkyB's anti-competitive
has
been
made more obvious in the
policies,
digital
launch
BBC-led
Freeview
the
the
terrestrial
of
context of
launched
Freeview
When
the government granted increased
replacement.
bandwidth and frequency strength, allowing the service to be received in
for
Thus
BSkyB's
75%
UK.
the
of
a major problem
approximately
large
instantly
the
to
competitor,
ability
reach
a
audience,
was
commercial
lead
in
institution
took
the
providing
role
overcome when a public service
figured
digital
is
in
Whilst
to
television.
this
often
platform
alternate access
the BSkyB vs. BBC, 8001b gorilla battle picture of the new digital television
landscape, positioning Freeview as solely a BBC service unhelpfully
To
BSkyB's
the
of
an extent therefore,
part-ownership
platform.
obscures
Galperin's analysis of the development of digital television in the UK as
broadcasting
defence
is correct.
in
an overall
of public service
resulting
However, this is only true to the degree to which we can see that defence
keen
fitting
into
to
that
the
saw
government, although
as
a schema
promote pluralism, reluctant to promote a robust commercial competitor to
Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB.
Across the development of digital television there was a
by
Peacock
Report,
in
the
the
established
where
continuation of
rhetoric
theory at least, consumer was king and choice was paramount. This
de-regulation
whereby
rhetoric often conflates consumer choice with
for
is
the abolishment of public
to
technological change
argue
enlisted
(2004)
Barry
Cox
broadcasting,
to
critics such as
which according
service
be
judged
ùnnecessary',
David
Elstein
now
allowing the
could
and
fee
be
(2005:
licence
70).
As Elstein
burden
to
the
`regressive
eliminated'
of
argues,
130
is there a continuing need for public service

broadcasting when the original justification for its
has
disappeared, and
provision - spectrum scarcity from
the public has hundreds of TV
channels
which
...
to choose? (68).
The current government
requiring
seems increasingly
the BBC to investigate subscription
at ease with such viewpoint,

funding
over the next Charter
Ofcom,
through
and,
period
refusing to ring-fence a slice of UHF-frequency
for
Freeview
the BBC and C4 to transmit HDTV on. This de-regulatory
on
drive has been apparent since the Communications Act (2003), which
barriers
foreign
to
ownership
removed
(replacing
terrestrial
of
channels
them with a public interest test). As discussed in Chapter 2, the tendency

for media ownership to converge in congruence with technological
developments has resulted in a few large multi-national,
or American,
having
conglomerates
unprecedented control and access to national
markets, as well as power at the negotiating table. As a result, the
irresistible
seemingly
push of corporate, economic convergence in media
has
large
to
ownership
ensured,
a
extent, that ìn place of universal service
debate,
[sic]
diverse
TV
to
satellite
committed
representations and open
offers subscription channels tailored to commercially viable interests and
limited to those able to pay' (Murdock, 2000: 127). Furthermore, in
(discussed
below),
driving
digital
Britain
BBC
the
a task
charging
with
600million,
,
estimated to cost
without
promising
to commit further funds to
the task should this prove insufficient, the government is increasingly

forces
BBC
to
the
the
of global markets whilst simultaneously
exposing
indeed,
its
it
take on
to
and,
obligations
service
public
requiring
retain
those shed by others.
There is not space to detail the decreasing public service obligations
briefly
here,
however
detailing
it
is
worth
of the other terrestrial channels
Ofcom's investigation into the diminishing public service obligations of
131
other channels. Ofcom's second phase review of public service

broadcasting recognised that there was a strong chance that the `compact'
between commercial public service broadcast providers and society will be
broken as the benefit of free/cut-price spectrum compared with the costs
falls
(2004c:
27-32). In Ofcom's
programming
of providing public service
analysis, it is programming that is èither expensive to produce, such as
large
to
audiences, such as
regional programming, or relatively unattractive
being
lost
by
is
that
the
most at risk of
more challenging programming'
increasing market pressures of a landscape of digital choice (32). As Ofcom
drop
to
the
to
suggest,
pressures
public service obligations
go on
are `likely
to be more intense for ITV than for Five' because of the more onerous
becoming
benefits
by
held
by
in
Five
ITV
the
and
accrued
obligations
digitalisation.
for
first
Similarly,
C4's
through
the
time
universally available
for
developing
revenue model
innovative
and challenging
public service
be
by
Ofcom
2012, `the
As
that
content will
challenged.
a result,
concludes
BBC will be the only significant PSB [sic] provider of any scale' (33). Thus,
how the BBC's public service obligations are articulated, judged and
measured is of increasing importance
to the shape of the digital television
landscape.
When the attacks on public service broadcasting are figured in terms

little
has
forces
BBC
it
that
the
seems
wonder
of market
and choice,
defence
The
influence on the BBC's
in
its
terms.
the
exactly
same
couched
its
1990s
is
to
one
considers
clear
policy
when
approach
public service
documents: Producer Choice (1991), Extending Choice (1992) and The
Future Funding of the BBC (1999) in which former Board of Directors
Chairman Gavyrn Davis promoted the BBC as an institution capable of
diversity,
`the
choice and
public policy aims of quality,
supporting
Indeed,
Patrick
Barwise
(1999:
136,
emphasis
mine).
accessibility'
132
focus
BBC
Report
his
Barwise
that
the
should
concluded at the end of
`mainly on the extra choice [digital television] provides ... [in promoting]
following
in
(2004:
As
I
94).
to
the
on
go
show
consumer uptake'
section
6,
figuring
in
Chapter
in
terms of public service value
the
of
choice
and
has
However,
Freeview
the
success of
ensured
requires greater scrutiny.
for
least,
in
is
the
that there
short-term, competition and choice
at
digital
how
in
television.
to
the
access
spaces of
consumers and citizens
Reformulating public service broadcasting, principles for a digital

age
Ellis suggests that the close of the twentieth century witnessed a
by
industry
increase
in
the
television
services
without a
massive
based
hope
increase
in
income.
He
the
that
this
on
argues
was
comparable
that `television consumers will respond to the offer of more choice,
by
interactive
possibilities
paying increased
convenience of access, and
(Ellis,
his
2000:
177).
As
theory of working through,
such
subscriptions'
discussed above, works as a passionate defence of public service
broadcasting. In the digital age, Ellis suggests that it is public service
broadcasters' strength as brands that will enable them `to provide gateways
to interactive services' as a `necessary consequences of [their] key social
here
beyond
his
(ibid).
Crucially,
Ellis'
position'
argument
moves
more
broadcast
television, recognising that public service
to
restricted approach
broadcasting's place in a digital television age must entail a gatekeeping
Future
Public
Service
in
Looking
As
Ofcom
to
the
their
of
role.
suggested
BBC positioning
7elec'isio,i Broadasting, ìt is not difficult to imagine
the
...
itself as a trusted guide to the digital environment' (2004a: 40). 1 pick up on
detail
but
hope
in
Chapter
7,
in
I
below
to show across
more
this role
and
for
broadcasting.
the
thesis
this
continued
public
role
service
the course of
133
I argue that contrary to critics such as Elstein, public service broadcasting's

driven
by
but
is
is
technologically
spectrum
scarcity,
rationale
not simply
cultural. Undoubtedly there is a need to re-articulate these public service
fundamental
loss
light
in
of such a
rationale as scarcity and it
of the
values
is a difficult act that the BBC must perform in this environment. As
Georgina Born usefully suggests in reformulating the old BBC dilemma of
`be popular, just not too popular': `The BBC must indeed by popular, but it
474).
(2004:
be
more'
must
As formulated by the government, in its Green Paper and White
Papers, and the BBC, in Building Public Value and various related
documents, this challenge has been articulated in two intertwined ways.
Firstly, by expressly drawing on the discourses of choice that have
has
fulfilling
been
BBC
this
the
positioned as
consumer
pervaded
period
discuss,
has
in
As
I'll
to
this
and citizen choice
a variety of ways.
go on
been particularly evident in both the launch and success of the Freeview
both
BBC's
interactive
Secondly,
the
the BBC
platform as well as
services.
and the government have attempted to reformulate the primary aims and
broadcasting
for
digital
These
the
purposes of public service
age.
are the
criteria against which I judge the public service value of the various
interactive applications I discuss across the thesis, exploring how these
both
fulfil
limitations
their
these
applications
requirements as well as
and
those of the criteria themselves.
The publication of The Future Funding of the BBC in 1999 was
for
BBC's
in
the
agenda
positioning
setting
arguably crucial
broadcasting
in a digital environment.
public service
It suggested that in this environment
there was a `need to support the public policy aims of quality, diversity,
is
Pluralism
in
the multi-channel
not
guaranteed
choice and accessibility.
broadcasting
can counterweight private
age ... public sei vice
134
BBC's
(1999).
The
that
the
suggests
usefully
part
report
of
concentration'
ìnformation
be
ùniversal
to
the
access'
to
age'.
role must
provide
However, the report also more problematically
suggested that the rhetoric
have
to
a prominent place in
of choice and consumerism would continue
debates about public service broadcasting. Indeed, the report suggested
that the BBC's place could be understood in terms of a market failure
approach, providing programming and services the rest of the television
deliver.
by
have
Subsequent
BBC
Ofcom
the
reports
and
market would not
continued to position the BBC in these terms, with Ofcom suggesting that
the BBC's place should be assessed in terms of an èfficient market
delineates
(2006a).
Public
BBC
In
Building
Value,
the
the
outcome'
development of digital television into two periods, the first commercial, the
launch
implicitly
Freeview's
the
commencing with
second offering
broadcasting.
doing,
BBC
In
the
of
service
so
contrasts
possibility
public
the commercialisation of television and the forms of consumer choice on
first
by
in
the
that
offer
phase with
made available
a second, public service,
phase:
In the second phase, quality of content and choice of
build
be
key,
the
to
opportunities
content will
and
be
many and various.
substantial public value will
They will include new ways to involve people in civic
learning
institutions,
tools,
personalized
processes and
access to previously closed archives, new ways of
connecting communities, more convenient ways to
localised
listen
to
programmes, more
watch and
for
(2004:
9).
tailored
minority groups
services
content,
This delineation of the transition to digital enables the BBC to figure the
`digital
the
revolution'
early stages of
as `leaving many untouched'
because
it has `been driven largely by business models based on subscription' (50).

Therefore, since the Peacock Report there has been a move 'within the
BBC's own positioning to figure choice as a public service broadcasting
value.
135
This is evident in the way the BBC has positioned itself as enabling
"real choice" to the audience - of how to access the digital world, what
services they can experience
etc. As Andy Duncan (former BBC Director
of
Marketing and Communications) suggested a year after Freeview's launch,

(speech
become
had
"the
to FT New Media
the platform
people's choice"
Broadcasting Conference, 3/3/03). The importance of Freeview's nonlinked
limited
base
BBC
is
the
to
to
the
platform's
carriagesubscription
for
has
thirty
only approximately
channels, which
capacity, allowing
far
higher
in
BBC
channels achieving
audience ratings and reach
resulted
in Freeview households than in those that subscribe to digital satellite or
(c.
f.
Ofcom, 2006a). However, in terms of interactivity,
cable packages
by
is
interactive
the
to
realised
most
explicitly
promise
choice
use
bring
different
to
viewsers a choice of
coverage or experiences
applications
figuring
I
the
the
of choice in these terms
of
same event or genre. explore
in relation to sports and news programming
in Chapter 6, where I suggest
that as a direct response to the need to reconfigure public service

broadcasting's role, choice stands as a largely problematic criterion.
However, previous to the BBC's Building Public Value document,
the ITC had already figured choice as a problematic criterion against which
public service broadcasting could be measured. The 2002 ITC report
by
Sir Robin Biggam, Extending Choice, Securing Quality, argued
chaired
that while both choice and quality were seen as desirable, the ITC
be
commensurate,
suggested they might not always
concluding
that
ìmproved choice to the viewer and industry consolidation should not be at

the expense of quality' (2002). Of course, quality itself is a problematic
by
Ofcom
in
BBC's
Building
to
the
response
criterion, as exemplified
figures
Here,
Public l alue.
prominently
choice again
in the discursive
formation of the BBC's role so that Ofcom's assertion that in the digital age,
136
longer
be
`will
broadcasting
no
needed to ensure that
public service
buy
and watch their own choice of programming' (2004a) is
customers can
firm
by
BBC's
the
rebuke that aligns quality with expenditure, away
met
from choice. Thus, in Building Public Value the BBC assert that high
dramas
documentaries,
be
British
`will
to
and
comedies
continue
quality
44).
(2004:
to
make'
expensive
Helen Wheatley has discussed the alignment of expenditure with
in
BBC's
taste
to
the
codes
usefully
relation
coquality and middle-class
(2001).
The
Discovery
She argues that we
Blue
Planet
with
production of
need to place such alignments
of quality with expenditure
within
the
flow
difficulties
is
television
the
a useful reminder of
of
experience of
defining quality. More usefully for my purposes, Niki Strange has recently
invert
Wheatley's analysis to think about the
to
that
suggested
we need
interactive,
in
judging
experience of user-flows
multi-platform
content
(2007). For interactive television, I suggest that quality is most often aligned
to issues of "useability" that relate quality to how choices are structured for
the viewser (c. f. Chapter 6). As Tom Williams
(BBC Creative Director
of
Interactive Television) outlined, the BBC's approach to quality in interactive

but
threefold,
also quality of
applications was
requiring originality,
it
is
`100%
that
ensured
of
application
useable'
execution and a robustness
(Interview conducted 1/09/04). However, we must also pay attention to the
specificities of particular genres in evaluating quality in interactive
television and I pick up on Wheatley's arguments across the individual case
studies.
Away from questions of quality, the centrality of choice in debates
broadcasting
digital
in
the
about the regulation and place of public service
landscape is that it has assisted in constructing the new period of excess as
his
in
Grade
Michael
this
problematic
sums up
consumer marketplace.
137
prologue to Building Public Value when he suggests that, at the heart of

the BBC's commitment to public service lies a desire to renew the BBC's
digital
to
the
relevancy
world, a `world that contains the potential for
limitless individual consumer choice'. However, he also notes that this
leads
broadcasting
[being]
`possibility
to
the
also
choice
of
reduced to just
for
The
the BBC is to meet the potentialities
challenge
another commodity'.
by
digitalisation,
of choice offered
whilst `counterbalancing a market-driven
drift towards programme-making'
(2004: 3). At times, therefore,
the BBC is
happy to place choice as a public value, whilst at others it is keen to
distinguish choice as a consumer value differentiated from the possibilities

the BBC can offer. Across Building Public Value, this alternative is often
pictured as a Habermassian public space in which the British public can
digital
television
use
services to connect with one another, providing
ùnique public space in which national debate can take place' (2004: 30).
As I suggested in Chapter 2, this Habermassian view of the digital

field
has
been
discussed
in
the
and advocated
of new
environment
widely
BBC
ideal
interactive
is
It
that
a number of
media studies.
also an
discussed
by
in
Chapter
7,
to
those
attempt
mobilise
applications, such as
renewing and revisiting conceptions of the national. Of course, the
fragmentation of the audience I have detailed problematises any readily
defined concept of the nation. Such fragmentation is not simply the result
landscape.
digital
it
interactive
Rather
is
television's
of
multichannel and
intimately related to wider processes of globalisation that have seen the
increasing movement of peoples and communications technologies across
borders,
in
the emergence of complex national and other
resulting
national
identities. Such identities problematise the role of the BBC in defining and
bringing the nation together for shared experiences. To a degree this has
been recognised by the BBC adopting a `100 tribes of Britain'
138
characterisation of its audience. These problems and approaches are

discussed in more detail in Chapters 6 and 7, when I examine how the
database and portal structures of interactive television have been utilised to
form a notion of community
fragmented
and the national amongst an increasingly
audience.
In the age of excess choice therefore, the BBC is attempting to

position itself as a trusted guide to the new digital realm. Mirroring John
Ellis' assertion that public service broadcasters' position will lie in their
brand value, the BBC has asserted that
As media choice expands, we will work with others to
ensure that people can easily find the content they
develop
We
want.
will
consistent, easy-to-use
based
tools
navigational
on open standards, so that
audiences can make the most of the ever-increasing
choice of programmes and information available,
device
they choose to use (2004:
whatever platform or
64).
As I've already suggested, this gateway function for the BBC will be a
for
fulfilling
broadcasting
crucial role
a re-imagined public service
responsibility
in the digital age. Whilst its tying to a Habermassian
notion of
the public sphere may be problematic, it is a role that both the BBC and
the government
appear comfortable
DCMS's reconfiguration
figuring
with,
of public service principles
Essentially the Government
prominently
in the
in its 2006 White Paper.
White Paper has guaranteed the BBC's
broadcasting
for
the short-term
the
place as
cornerstone of public service
future, granting a new ten year Charter but also suggesting both a midCharter review and a requirement that the BBC investigate subscription
funding during this period. The implications of requiring the BBC to
investigate other forms of funding have already been felt at the time of
investigating
include
Corporation
to
the
plans
advertising on
writing, with
its ,vebsite at the start of 200; and commencing an advertising-led
139
partnership with Google/YouTube.
Further, the White Paper has also
suggested that the traditional public service remit of ìnform, educate, and
be
for
longer
the BBC in the digital age. The
entertain', will no
sufficient
BBC will now have six core public purposes:
0
Sustaining Citizenship
Promoting education and learning
Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
Representing
and civil society
the UK, its Nations, regions and
communities
Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK
"
Building
digital Britain
Whilst, ìnform, educate and entertain' will remain the mission statement of
the BBC, these public purposes will be judged against criteria of being of
high quality; challenging; original; innovative; and engaging across all
This
genres, services and output.
means that all programmes,
output and
display
least
focus
I
these
services should
at
one of
core purposes and
on
the most relevant criteria in each of my individual case studies. Whilst I do
not want to comment
extensively
on all of these newly worded
public
briefly
it
is
noting a number of points.
service obligations,
worth
Despite the wordiness of these new definitions and purposes, there
is nothing to suggest that, like digital television itself, this will represent a
departure
radical
from traditional
public service obligations
and ideals. In
driver
here
discussion
BBC
the
the
the context of my
positioning of
as a
of
digital take-up suggests that its commitment to principles of universalism
has
been
by
This
become
important.
if
evidenced
more,
not
will remain,
linked
it
is
debates
this
the
criterion
appropriateness
of
when
about
recent
building
digital
have
Britain,
financial
which
not
cost of actually
to the
140
materialised in a large hike in the licence fee. It is significant that the

requirement to build digital Britain has now been articulated as a core
for
the BBC, having originally been articulated as an ancillary
purpose
(DCMS,
in
Green
Paper
2005). As Steve Barnett has
the
purpose
preceding
decision
the
to make the BBC responsible
government's
recently suggested,
for the task of digital switchover not only raises important questions about
how this switchover is funded and what part of the licence fee is used for
this purpose, but also arguably places the BBC as the potential
scapegoat
logistical
delays,
faults
financial
technical
problems,
shortfalls
and
should
(Barnett,
final
for
funding
2006).
At
the
time
the
arise
of writing
structure
digital switchover is yet to be agreed, however the creation of DigitalUK
for
BBC.
indicative
the
the
and current proposals are
of
potential problems
DigitalUK is a not-for-profit
by
the terrestrial
company established
broadcasters (at the behest of the DCMS) to promote digitalisation of the

households
final
25%
of
country's
in light of the government's
plans to
digital
by
lion's
The
2012.
complete
switchover
share of DigitalUK's
funding comes from the BBC, with the remainder coming from ITV, C4,
Five, SC4, Teletext, SDN and National Grid. The body is designed to
impartially promote the different digital television platforms, particularly
targeting groups defined as vulnerable by the DCMS, such as the elderly
disabled.
and
Whilst the public association of the BBC with this body is kept to a
for
drive
digital
Corporation
the
to
the
requirement
minimum at present,
Britain will not only result in an increase in their funding input but also
increase public awareness of this link. Consequently, any failures in the
digital switchover process are likely to be publicly attributed to the BBC.
Thus whilst the development of the Freeview platform may have been
for
BBC
in
the
and public sen-ice
instrumental
assuring a central role
141
broadcasting in the digital age, the 2006 licence-fee settlement and Charter
obligations may work to undermine this achievement. Furthermore as I
have suggested above, although the money directly attributed to building
digital Britain will be ring-fenced, the question as to where additional funds
(should they be necessary) will come from is, as yet, unanswered. As a
be
horror
left
there
either
stories of people
result, should
with no television
in
2012
in
the amount of money required to complete
or
a
shortfall
signal
digitalisation, the BBC is likely to find itself in an extremely compromised
be
for
first
Charter
it
its
time
at
a
where
will
gearing
renewal in
position
up
digital
landscape.
totally
a
Returning to the other new public service remits set out in the White
Paper, arguably promoting education and learning replaces educate and
from
inform
Lord Reith's
sustaining citizenship and civil society replaces
tripartite edict on the BBC's public services. Whilst there is no explicit
furore
in
èntertain'
to
these
the
core purposes,
over its complete
reference
absence in the preceding
Green Paper (DCMS, 2005) has been largely
by
in
White
Paper
the
that
the
government's
reassurance
resolved
BBC's
important
to
the
mission. However, this
entertainment will remain
by
been
has
a strongly worded caveat regarding the
accompanied
promise
for
distinctive.
for
BBC
it
is
important
BBC
Whilst
the
to
the
to
need
remain
fuzzy
detail
here
distinctive
is
White
Paper
the
on
programming,
produce
for
legitimate'
BBC
is
`wholly
it
the
to `to provide
that
suggesting only
but
be
that
entertainment should
programmes aimed at a wide audience',
(11).
lack
be
in
The
to
reaching such audiences
achieved
only one quality
be
intends
here
the
this
that
to
government
obligation
suggests
of clarity
documents,
Charter
discourse
light
surrounding other
renewal
of
read in
including that around the Green Paper, which specifically picked out
lifestyle''infotainment
programming as areas that the BBC should avoid:

142
genres implicitly
devoid
seen as
of public service. However as the work of
Brunsdon (2004) and Rachel Moseley (2000) has demonstrated, lifestyle

21
fulfil
does
functions
importance
programming can and
civic
Finally, of central importance
to my concerns here, there appears to
be an institutional enshrinement of television's window-on-the-world

function in the requirement to `bring the UK to the world and the world to
the UK'. The White Paper therefore re-circulates television's window-onthe-world position for the digital age as intimately related to the purpose
broadcasting:
both
BBC
the
to
place
of
public
service
supply
and
requiring
broad
the
vistas of television's window, and viewsers with a
audiences with
digital
to
the
television. That is,
portal with which
access
new services of
firstly in requiring the BBC to bring the world to the UK the White Paper
broadcasting's
calls up public service
traditional
audiences with an informed worldview,
in
supplying
role
primarily through news and
documentary. As I go on to discuss in Chapter 6, this is problematically

fulfilled by the interactive news application's fragmented textuality.
Secondly, and conversely, whilst this remit also obviously places an
(bring
BBC
UK
the UK
the
to
emphasis on
represent modern multicultural
to the world), it is also suggestive of the journeying involved in acting as a
portal, or gateway, through which audiences and viewsers can gain access
to digital spaces. I explore this in Chapter 7's discussion of building digital
Britain, whereby interactive television acts as a portal to access a range of
formulations
BBC
that
the
the
opens
and
of
nation
services, communities
The
for
digital
immigrants.
enshrinement of this metaphor
out onto
therefore shows the importance of the continuation of television's window
24This importance is further underscoredby the recent ratings successand public debatethat
(Fresh
School
Dinners
One
's
Productions
for
Jamie
C4,2005),
4's
Channel
from
which
ensued
demonstratedthat much derided genres- Jamie's School Dinners being essentially a reality
have
the ability to entertain, inform and educate.
following
chefTV/Docu-soap
a celebrity
143
dialect
functions
its
in
it
the
with
new media capacities
metaphor and
way
as a portal.
The BBC largely prefigured the DCMS' move to shift the public
by
digital
television
the
pitch
announcing not only
service goal posts on
but
also committing to measure every
new ways of measuring public value
new service against such a test. In Building Public Value the BBC
five
for
the Corporation's
core purposes
proposed
role and various modes
for
democratic
the
these:
to
corporation
provide
of assessing
value, cultural
and creative value, educational value, social and community value, and
finally global value. In turn, the BBC proposed to measure these values
by
individual,
citizen and net economic value
examining
against
programming
four
against
performance
criteria: reach; quality; impact; and
for
money.
value
In the digital landscape, the move to judge public value against
by
from
BBC
is
the
the
shifting
emphasis
a
reach arguably a shrewd move
direct measurement
against `ratings' to one that indicates the useage of BBC
have
low
BBC3
BBC4
For
and
very
ratings
example, although
services.
figures with both channels rarely topping 1% of the audience ratings for
BBC's
the
measurement of reach only examines
any particular programme,
how many people spend 15minutes or more on that service a week. Such a
demonstrate
BBC
to
the
millions of
criterion enables
users/viewsers/audiences
basis.
individual
Whilst I
services on a regular
of
discuss quality across the chapters in Section 2, the other measurements
of
impact and value for money remain rather vague in the BBC's terms. The
former criteria is dotted throughout the Building Public Value document

but is rarely defined beyond examining what impact the BBC's practice will
have on the commercial sector. Indeed, it took until the settlement of the
licence fee became imminent at the end of 2006 for Director General
lark
144
Thompson to define impact. He stated `we're trying to go beyond

immediate audience data to gauge the wider effects of our output - in
terms of public response and participation, educational outcomes, critical
(11/10/06).
reactions'
The impact of the BBC's interactive
television
applications and criteria such as public response and participation are

discussed in Chapter 7. The final criteria of value for money and quality
both link into the proposal to judge the BBC's services against individual,
citizen and societal value. It is particularly important that the category of
beyond
in
BBC's
it
the
the
the
remit, as moves
channel
citizen remains
This
the
audience as consumer.
mere provision of choice and addressing
be
by
judged
that
criterion suggests
citizen value can
considering the
investment needed by another public body to achieve the same outcome
through evidence-based tracking of audience use of BBC programming
(e. g. enrolling
in further education),
international
comparisons
and expert
panels25
The regulatory
developments
over the transition
to digital television
have, in many ways, been excessive and it has not been possible to
here.
hope
how
for
developments
Instead
I
to
the
there
show
account
all
have been significant shifts in the rationale for public service broadcasting
that will be important for both my discussion of particular programmes
here, as well as future television studies surveys of the field. Importantly,
throughout this period interactivity has been implicitly invoked in reimagining the television apparatus as a digital world, navigable,
is
It
a
plethora
of
choice.
worth returning to
offering
personalised and
Chris Smith's speech that I opened this discussion with at this point.
Coming soon after the dot corn crash, interactivity was conceived as
25This final method for assessingpublic value suggestsa useful dialogue may be opened up
between academic scholars of television studies and the BBC whereby some of the economic and
be
by
focus
tempered
reports
might
government-sponsored
of
more cultural
market-driven
analyses.
145
integral to the digital television project; a means of getting people online

familiar
in
through
a more
and spending money
apparatus.
e-commerce
Imagining the digital future, Smith explicitly aligns television's future with
interactivity: a portal through which to access ìnformation, news, education
As
involved
the
affairs'.
so
much
of
current
with
rhetoric
and
in forming
digital television's
by Chris
possibilities,
the positioning
of interactivity
Smith here oscillates between references to news and information that

position the viewser as citizen, and to references of entertainment and
home-shopping that position the viewser as consumer. Smith's oscillation
facing
BBC:
is
therefore
the
the
aptly suggestive of
challenge
and confusion
There's no doubt that digital television has the
harness
best
familiar
to
the
the
the
of
old potential
strengths of television in entertainment, information
and education - with the most exciting of the new:
greater choice and individualised schedules,
interactivity, home shopping, home banking, email,
Internet access
It has the potential to create a world
...
have
access to
where all sections of society
information, news, education and current affairs,
difference
between
knowledge-rich
the
the
and
erasing
(14/10/1998).
the knowledge-poor
Platform choices: Digiboxes and the landscape of taste

Charlotte Brunsdon's influential essay `Satellite Dishes and the
Landscape of Taste' suggestively argued that along with pricing strategies
and the sorts of content available, satellite television was positioned as
although not explicitly working class, explicitly not congruent with the taste
Brunsdon
"legitimate
capital".
persuasively argues that the
cultural
codes of
both
distinctly
by,
television
was
marked
and a marker
purchase of satellite
because
taste
of the effect that placing such, at the time,
of,
codes
had.
house
Thus,
dishes
`buying
large
the
of
one's
side
on
or
extremely
be
legitimately
desire,
dish
as
an
act
read
which signals
a
can ...
renting a
146
dishes
these
are understood to mean, or
connection with something that
(1997:
151).
connote, or promise'
Here, almost as a necessary corollary to Brunsdon's work, I argue
that Freeview has been pivotal in the extension of digital television to
different
England
the
taste codes entailed there. Whilst the
and
middle
has
digital
BBC
the
the
of
meant
extension of
public service remit
television to many new groups, excluded from the marketing strategies of
has
been
it
primarily through the successful
subscription services,
Tony
Blair's
England
"Mondeo-Man"
that
of
middle
mobilisation
Freeview has recorded such staggering growth from its launch in 2003 to a
beyond
BSkyB
in
2006.
Moving
a
position of near market equality with
technologically determinist approach that would simply suggest that if
dishes
by
digital
taste
then
middle-class
codes,
satellite
were rejected
terrestrial television
be
how
I
the
must necessarily
more amenable,
suggest
for
have
been
BBC
Freeview
the
the
and
marketing campaign
role of
crucial in this positioning.
In particular,
I pick up on the nuances of
Brunsdon's argument that suggests how the ownership of a satellite dish

being
bothered
`not
to "like what it is
not only works as a visible sign of
better to like"', but does so specifically in relation to the ideas of `citizenbound
broadcasting
`national
that
are
up with public
culture'
making' and
by
detailing
how
(ibid:
broadcasting
163).
I
Finally,
the
conclude
service
build
digital
Britain
England
in
Freeview
to
success of
mobilising middle
has been influential in the strategies adopted by BSkyB to increase digital
in
2003/04.
it
uptake after stagnated somewhat
Over the course of this final section, I suggest we can trace a brief
digital
that
television
marketing
and
uptake
sees the
continuum of
introduction
of On/ITVDigital
align its strategy with that of BSkyB's
digital
through
to
the
extension
of
working-class, satellite aesthetic
147
households.
As Brunsdon's
television to more middle and upper-class
Britain's
on
satellite television uptake
examination of newspaper reports
suggests, class tastes were articulated through the construction of valued
knowledge on a binary axis whereby television stood in distinction to
between
less
èvidently
contrast[ing]
and more culturally
architecture,
legitimate forms' (156). After the failure of ITV's service, the BBC-led
Freeview consortium targeted the audience group that Brunsdon's work
for
television
class-taste
explicitly picks out as resisting multichannel
As
Pedro
losifidis
reasons.
suggests, the `re-direction
digital
terrestrial
of
towards a primarily free-to-air system has proved compelling to many

households which had negative preconceptions about pay television'. In
has
Freeview
appealed to affluent and older consumers
particular,
(losifidis, 2005: 58-61). In such a history, On/ITV Digital's failure therefore
its
identify,
to
to
target and successfully sell to a
as
ability
much
relates
football
does
Blair
it
its
the
to
and
on
rights
market
as
expenditure
new
Government's
introducing
precarious
juggling
act of appeasing Murdoch
and
pluralism.
The launch of OnDigital in 1999 was accompanied by a great deal

fanfare
but
ITV,
the
major
shareholder,
sales
platform's
slow
early
of
after
leant its brand name to the service in order to boost sales. A major
featuring
"Al",
Johnny
Vegas,
playing
comedian
and
marketing campaign
Monkey, a small puppet friend that recalled the previously popular "Flat
Eric" from Levis commercials a few years earlier, accompanied this move.
In the series of commercials
Al represents the confused laymen, uncertain
bother
how
it
it.
digital
is,
to
to
television
and
use
why
with
as to what
demonstrating
digital
Al's
that
Monkey acts as a counterpoint to
stupidity,
for
it.
However,
that
is
can
use
monkey
even a puppet
television
so simple
is
in
interest
is
the
these
they
tie
advertisements
way
of
what
purposes
my
148
linked
that
to slobbery,
the platform to particular notions of masculinity
are
football and, implicitly, a particular vision of a working-class audience. The
flat
in
is
that sits uncomfortably
a
series of adverts
set
between an ideal of
home
and a more upscale residence where cutting edge
a working-class
technology appears fairly `natural' against polished wooden floors and lowkey lighting.
As Brunsdon,
drawing
on Ten Ang suggests, `the upper class,
instead of decorating and celebrating the television, enshrining it as the

family
life,
leave
it
its
it
often
give
of
a
room
of
own,
and
always
centre
(1997:
its
in
152).
techno-austerity'
unembellished
However,
two key aspects maintain the appeal to working
class
ideals and tastes. Firstly, in Al and Monkey's dialogue there is continual

local
lads
have
`the
to
reference
estate', where
may
attacked Monkey, and
their home as a `Des Res'. Shots of the Des Res' exterior are rife with iconic
lower-middle/working-class
markers of
homes, such as white panel vans,
Ford escorts and caravans parked outside new-built homes or àverage

hanging
by
in
Al
Monkey
out
shopping
consumers' - played
and
-
centres.
The second aspect that connotes this ideal of class is the way Al and
Monkey's flat is defined by male slobbery, in particular, television
frame
dominant
large
leather
the
two
watching:
reclining chairs
and the
(indeed,
be
food
is
in
to
that
crisps
one advert the
available
only
seems
defined
for
digital
is
television
to
against the cost
pair's preparedness
pay
key
here
bag
Of
to
the
connotations of class
are
of a
course,
of crisps).
Johnny Vegas' associations as a `working-man's' comedian, latterly
film
(UK:
Sex
Potato
Lives
Merz
Midlands-based
in
the
the
of
epitomised
2004). These are carefully played up to in the advertisements, which
feature Vegas' character referring to "our kid" in a voice that mugs to an
ideal of Northern-working-class
accents, which shortens vowel and
is
Vegas
Further,
costumed as working-class not only
consonant sounds.
149
football
jumpers,
tracksuits,
scarves, caps and
through the use of sloppy
his
juxtaposition
The
but
Monkey.
fabrics,
with
via
also
various polyester
decked
in
Monkey
out
silk robes and more refined
use of
as a contrast,
Digital
ITV
to play off an odd-couple
allows
clothing at various moments,
directly
lower-class
households,
that
tries to
at
whilst aimed more
scenario
not alienate other consumers.
However, the final emphasis on working-class cultures through the
football
description
is
incessant
to
pivotal
not only my
promotion of
almost
here, but also the demise of the ITV Digital platform as well. As with many
linked
Digital's
in
ITV
technological
television,
the
revolutions
marketing
of
the new digitalisation of television to masculinity, particularly through
football, which had most recently been articulated in the move to satellite
television. As discussed in Chapter 1, the strong ties between Murdoch's
Sky television service and football placed an emphasis on masculine forms
of television watching.
However,
as Brunsdon's
dishes
work on satellite
demonstrates, the association of satellite television with masculinity moves

beyond the prominence of football in marketing strategies. She notes how,
literal
home,
dishes
be
to
the
they
extension
whilst satellite
might
familial
also condense
and cultural extensions. The
several instances of male erecting, and indeed,
inventing their own dishes further suggest that this
have
technology
a particular place in the
new
may
(1997:
division
labour
157).
gendered
of
Arguably, ITV Digital's campaign fits within this pattern of gender
division, placing an emphasis on a particular representation of football that
ties it to a "blokey", slobbing masculinity, where extricating oneself from
the sofa is nigh-on-impossible,
food takes the form of large bags of crisps
by
division
dictated
Here,
fashion
is
the
comfort
and
ease.
gendered
of
and
labour is not that of masculine activity; the male hobbyist of Boddy's
150
history
(2004a),
in
for
fishing
television
that
early
or
of
signal
a
account of
Brunsdon's account, dashing up the ladder to erect a satellite dish (1997).
Rather it is that problematic depiction of male laziness, passivity and
demonstrated
has
Spigel
Lyn
that
successfully
accompanied
slobbery
television
advertising
throughout
the 1950s. Spigel's work suggests that the
"male adventurer" figure that associates television's discourses of mobility

with masculinity was a response to the perceived pacifying effect of
television. She discusses a range of advertisements that preceded this trend
figure
from
dream
father
to
that represent a
either returning
work
of a
front
his
feet
in
of the telly, or already in this position
up
night-in, with
while a mother/wife
figure cooks dinner/cleans/dreams
of a night out. As
Spigel suggests, this

inverted - or at least complicated - normative
femininity
the
conceptions of masculinity and
...
demanded
be
ideals
that
cultural
women
shown as
home
had
in
the
the peculiar
productive workers
also
father
(1992:
96).
"feminizing"
the
side effect of
Significantly,
in the ITV Digital advertisements
discussion
here
there
under
is an absence of the active female figure that is so formative in

figure.
Without the
inactive,
the
problematising
passive male couch-potato
figure,
the campaign is able to celebrate male slobbery
presence of such a
better
invoke
telly
telly, and
the
taste
that
and
codes
more
as
associated
both as the primary, if not only, form of entertainment desirable.
Here then the gendered divisions of labour are slightly obscured to
further
by
This
is
inactivity
to
aided
allow male
appear unproblematic.
tying male slobbery to the cultural activity of football supporting - indeed
in one advert, Al's football fanatascism is depicted as such that he will go
to great lengths to enjoy the game, including
unplugging
the digibox
and
his
(though
he
it
to
town
nephew
watch with
remains chairtaking
across
bound on this trip.
Vegas' blokey masculinity is mobilised - such as is

151
frame
keep
football
large,
his
to
slobbish
a prime sellingpossible with
focus
it
isn't
in
the
these
where
main
of the
adverts, even
strategy
individual advert. Thus in one advert, which heralded a desperate
free
by
to
the
give-away a
company
monkey toy with
marketing strategy
focus
football
on
remains prevalent throughout.
each new subscription, a
The advertisement opens with a deep-focus shot, tracking across Vegas'
door
back
frame
in
the
of shot opens to reveal Monkey
as a
chair-bound
having
from
been
by
ladies
"in
the
two
shops
nearly
mugged
a
returning
depicts
The
".
Vegas
their
as
own!
opening shot
shop who claimed me
(again,
tabloid
paper
with connotations of working-class
reading a red-top
taste codes) that is focused on sport: a large headline in centre of frame
Cup
Shocker!,
reminding the audience of the possibility of receiving
reads,
football through
ITV Digital. Similarly, when Al and Monkey appear as
"average consumers"
in a shopping
be
interviewed
to
centre
by Des
Lynam, he appears wearing football shirt and scarf and in one advert, Ryan
Giggs appears in the pair's abode to demonstrate the fact that "Sky don't
have all Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal's live competitive games. We do".
The focus on football is, through associations of slobbing
be
that
tied
to
masculinity,
a particular consumer group
might
attracted to
ITV Digital for its slightly cheaper offering than Sky's packages. The
emphasis across these adverts is therefore on content, sports and movies in
particular. As such the campaign addressed the consumer group already
had
been
for
by
SBkyB's
catered
already
positioned
satellite services, which
falling outside middle class taste codes and legitimate cultural capital
(Brundson, 1997). As my discussion of government policy suggests, the
failure of this marketing
strategy to identify
a new consumer group alone
demise
Digital.
However,
for
ITV
the
of
cannot account
the targeting of an
by
BSkyB
that
terms
in
already
well
secured
was
class and gender
audience
152
battering
key
its
offerings
was
arguably
sports
and
of
a
ram
element in the
failure
itself
to
as a serious competitor to BSkyB.
start-ups
establish
While BSkyB was able to successfully see off ITV Digital, the launch
has
for
Freeview
the Murdoch-owned
caused greater concern
of
service.
Freeview's arrival was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the number

digital,
households
digital
increasing
to
the
choosing
go
of
share of
terrestrial digital households to 28% from 10.6% from its launch in 2002
base
has
2006.
In
BSkyB's
the
start
of
comparison,
subscriber
until
digital
households
30.3%
to
slow,
now
representing
only
continued
of
with
final
limited
in
2005
the
to 0.3% whilst Freeview, Cable
quarter of
growth
and now ADSL competitors
respectively
(Ofcom,
recorded growth
of 9.8%, 2.6% and 21.4%
2006a). The stagnation of BSkyB subscriptions
through 2004 and 2005, which saw James Murdoch appointed Chief
Executive of BSkyB and attempt new strategies such as a one-off fee
has
Freeview
to
the
satellite service, compared
rapid growth of
obviously
deal
for
behemoth
(arguably
the
caused a great
of anxiety
media
more so
free
the
the
given
satellite service, which grew 8.4% in the same
success of
2005 period and may soon be joined by a competing
BBC FreeSat service
(ibid)).
A recent interview
with BSkyB's Mike Darcy, Head of Marketing
Strategy, is illustrative here. At once dismissive and derisory towards

Freeview, describing the platform as `for the elderly and economically
inactive', BSkyB's concern that Freeview has greatly benefited from the
BBC's brand value is clear when he complains that the BBC promote
Freeview at the expense of digital rivals, dubbing the corporation as guilty
of `structural non-neutrality'
(quoted in The Guardian,
20/12/05). Further,
Darcv`s view that Freeview is 'simply not up to the job' because it caters for
deprived markets is, of course, to miss the point entirely-. The public
153
it
is
behind
Freeview
that
catering to this exact
ensures
service ethos
brand
linked
BBC
inexorably
the
is
to
the
value
of
as trusted
market and
guide, whose involvement with the platform adds an air of consumer
both
involvement
"Auntie's"
in
the
guarantees against
service:
confidence
high prices and consumer fear of digital redundancy (i. e. the fear that the
fast,
be
is
This
technologies
so
quickly
of
pace
will
outmoded).
change
brand value is reinforced by the series of Freeview adverts that have
launch
have
These
BBC
the
the
the
of
service.
since
adverts
screened on
from
linking
digital
the
an
emphasis
on
content
moved away
and
of
technology to forms of masculinity and have instead stressed the ease of
digital,
playing on television's
going
hard
already
won-easy
domesticity.
This is a process that I demonstrate is repeated in the following chapter's

discussion of the discursive formation of interactive television, which traces
its everyday-ing
from its spectacular inception.
Freeview's initial advertising
campaign,
"Television,
it's evolving"
addressed the consumer in a manner that attempted to negotiate the

domesticity
its
technology
the
and easy
newness of
without usurping
familiarity. The advertisement used a number of prominent British
television personalities and actors who, through a direct address to camera,
shot in mid-close-up, extolled the virtues of Freeview in very simple terms.
The advert was given fanfare by using digital imaging technology to allow
the ad to, rather than cut between speakers, replace one personality or star
by
each seemingly rip off a mask to reveal the next celebrity.
with another
Thus, in figure 3.1 Jon Simpson pulls of his mask to reveal Richard
Blackwood. The balance of the astonishing newness of digital technology
is thus carefully balanced by the familiarity of the faces that are being
familiar
by
is
Spectacle
televisual
therefore
recuperated
manipulated.
devices: stock names, mid-close-up shots and direct address. Furthermore,
154
the advert explicitly relates digital television to the very birth of television
in 1936, Terence Stamp's opening monologue looking back with faux
nostalgia to a time when the UK television's second channel was
introduced, BBC2, in comparison to the eight new BBC channels available
on Freeview. Finally, in an effort to retain the ordinariness of digital
television, and thus attract a wide general audience, the mask ripping
in
a very public and open park, where the morphing of
scene occurs
by
bystanders
into
the
one another goes unnoticed
personalities
many
kept
frame
in
and into whom Terence Stamp mingles at the
often
advertisement's close.
More generally, the easy domesticity of Freeview's plug-and-play
technology is key to the platform's promotion. Andy Duncan argued that
this was pivotal in the marketing decisions for Freeview as the BBC's
had
identified a core group of "refuseniks" who wanted
market research
`something clear and simple', enabling the Corporation to `cut through the
apathy and negativity'
(2003). During
2005, Freeview ran an animated
faithful
family
dog
TV
in
is
the
the
campaign
set rendered as
old,
which
depicted as an aged, but much loved, pet who is in need of learning some
form
digital
first
TV.
In
in
the
the
tricks;
new
of
of these
supplied
father
figure
takes the television-dog,
commercials a white, middle-aged
"Boxer", for a walk. In the background, people play with energetic digital
televisions, which chase sticks and footballs with verve whilst Boxer mopes
behind Dad. On their way home, the pair pass a television shop that
becomes
box.
Boxer
drags
immediately
Freeview
animated, and
contains a
Dad into the shop and then home with the new box. On return, a female
do
he
",
idea
figure
"Did
the
everything?
playing
on
of
asks
mother
traditional dog-walking
for the purpose of defecation, to which Dad replies
furnished
living
Boxer
".
does
runs about a newly
room,
"He
now!
155
decorated with a white sofa, polished wooden-floors
and clear tasteful
digital.
discuss
Answering
Mum's
to
the
move
the
artwork, as
couple
have
Dad
to
to
"I
telly",
that
get
thought
going
a
were
new
we
concern
how
box
Freeview
is
"Oh
there
a
with
no
and
explains
no",
replies
he
it
in,
The
"I
just
in
and
was
away".
plugged
emphasis
and
subscription
digital,
later
in
is
the
this series of adverts
ease of going
so
a
on
advert,
Grandma is given a Freeview box for her television. Here, the language of
digitality
is stripped back to Granny's jargon free monologue
the digi-box a "thingy-me-jig" and "plug-and-play"
that re-brands
as "you just plug it in
da!
digital
low-cost,
The
".
in
television
terms
to
promotion of
of
ease
and
domestic
help
digital,
interactive
the
the
to
setting of
advert all
move
and
television away from the forms of masculinity promoted in the ITV Digital
following
discuss
in
I
those
that
the
of spectacle
chapter.
ads and
The move away from associations of digital technology with
final
is
in
masculinity
made explicit
a
advert in this series. This commercial
figure
from
know-it-all
join
the
the earlier
man
mother
sees a middle-aged
advert. Dressed in turtle-neck sweater and trendy thick-framed glasses, the
have
Sis
"aye,
you still got that old thing? ", gesturing
character admonishes
to Boxer in the corner of the living room. In response, she defends Boxer
him
showing
all the new tricks the television
can now perform
through
Freeview. Somewhat impressed, the brother acknowledges, "... that is

forward
to put a coffee
table
as well" and steps
good, make a great coffee
cup on top of the television
however,
At
this
point,
set.
Boxer jumps up
(USA,
digital
1999)
"Bullet-time"
The
JIatri
in
x's
effects,
and
a parody of
knocks the man back on to the couch and through a series of martial arts
him.
his
in
Put
Mum
fires
taps
cushions
at
place,
sofa
of
a round
moves
documentary,
"Martial
BBC3", as the
head
Boxer on the
arts
and explains
found
Thus,
in
these
Boxer's
skills.
martial
arts
series of
new
cause of
156
domesticity
digital
is
is
that
with
a
the
aligned
available
adverts
spectacle of
to all, not just the male figures of the ITVDigital adverts or other marketing
form.
heralded
have
The
technologies
to
television's
that
new
campaigns
importance of public service broadcasting's place as a facilitator of
digital
landscape
here
is
the
to
clearly invoked and, to a
universal access
large extent, fulfilled. As Ioifidis notes, the BBC's domination of channels
on the platform
is significant
in driving
digital take up. These channels
make up approximately a quarter of Freeview offerings and `gain about

5.5% of Freeview household' audiences, whilst it stood at only 2.7% in all
66).
homes
(losifidis,
2005:
multichannel
Although the shift away from explicit discourses of masculinity and
illegitimate cultural capital might suggest a successful move to address a
by
is
in
Freeview,
Freeview's
there
also
a
current
audience
universal
being
is
that
suggests
marketing strategy
a more middle-class audience
targeted. In the advertisements thus far discussed, particularly the animated
fit
is
in the
there
to
that
series,
an audience
a much clearer address
might
homeBBC
England's,
traditional
mould of
envisioned
audience: middle
family
legitimate
issues
2.5
owning,
children
who are concerned with
of
digitalise
The
to
this audience are clearly
cultural capital.
attempts
manifested in Freeview's 2004 ad-campaign that places the multi-channel
digital
television as an art-gallery of screens through which the
choice of
by
browses
Nick
Knowles,
Presented
the advert
chooses.
viewer
and
features him taking in various art pieces where a television screen has
The
Knowles,
Nick
the
use
of
who presents
canvas.
painted
replaced
holiday programmes and "artsy" sections on DIY programmes, clearly
lifestyle
taste
to
audience,
and
whose
a particular
codes
signals an address
Whilst
Freeview
by
the
invoked
the
art
gallery.
other
of
space
are
broader
different
this
and
audiences,
address
advert
campaigns
advertising
157
is of particular interest for the way it represents the digital television

environment:
as a space to wonder
browsing
around,
and appreciating
the
display.
Across Freeview's campaigns there remains a
offerings on
conception of the audience in traditional public service, familial terms. The
dish
to
the
adverts address an audience, who conversely
satellite
owner of
Brunsdon's study, does want to be part of a national broadcasting system.
Freeview's limited multichannel environment, dominated by BBC offerings,
be
might
read as appealing to an audience who want to remain àvailable
for the ritual, citizen-making moments of national broadcasting', who wants
to `like what is better to like' but who, simultaneously, also wants to be
digital
`supranational
the
technologies
that
entertainment space'
part of
offer; of course, without
declaring
it
to the public world
visibly
in the form
dish
(Brunsdon,
1997).
of a satellite
The address to middle England in adverts such as this, combined
for
dish,
has
helped
the
the
a satellite
mobilise a
eradication of
need
with
digital
dish
to
that
the
and marketing strategies
satellite
go
consumer group
far
failed
had
Sky
ITVDigital
to capitalise on. As the press
thus
of
and
launch
Sky's
initial
suggested, the platform was unlikely to
coverage of
in
its
a
significant
shift
marketing
capture upper-class audiences without
campaign:
But unless Sky changes tack and goes for a more

from
dish
the
protruding
upmarket audience, a satellite
front wall will do about as much for your standing in
the neighbourhood as a visit from a rat-catcher
(Evening Standard 12/07/1989 quoted in Brunsdon,
1997: 162).
As a result, Freeview's success in mobilising this audience combined with
led
to the satellite provider attempting to
Sky's stagnating subscription rates
In
in
this
a
of
adverts
series
run
press outlets
consumer.
explicitly address
throughout
200-4,under the tag-line "Sky: What do you want to watch? ",

158
Sky launched a campaign that promoted content traditionally not

film,
history
independent
Sky,
natural
associated with
such as
high-end
drama.
documentaries
In one advertisement, a
and
programming,
film
(Australia,
from
Rabbit
Proof
Fence
2003) is
the
glossy movie still
film?
"Love
independent
Try the place you'd
the
question
overlaid with
least expect", in bold letters. The campaign explicitly acknowledges the
have
been
that
associated with the
working-class, masculine connotations
famous
for
but
"Sky
is
things,
many
platform with statements such as
you
first
for
film"
digital
independent
"Sky
is well
think
and
of us
may not
known for showing innovative new drama and comedy". With a return to
the window-on-the-world
has
history,
that
television's
characterised
rhetoric
Sky's campaign attempted to manage its image by simultaneously
like
let
its
"see
its
the
that
world" whilst
products
suggesting
services
you
Sky+ enabled this world to be tailored, controlled and suited to this
little
TV,
"If
tastes:
only
audience's
one advert proclaiming
watch a
you
have
best".
both
Sky
In
Freeview
this
the
and
campaigns
only watch
way,
attempted to mobilise the middle-class refusenik audience with more
traditional
representations
digital
television
of
that fit within
the window-
but
discourse,
increasingly position the window as a portal to
on-the-world
access personalised content that conforms to particular class-taste codes.
Conclusion
Just as the following
how
details
a similar pattern marked
chapter
the discursive formation of interactive television, whereby spectacle quickly

domesticity
and a wider audience, the
gives away to concerns with
have
debates
forms
discourses,
that
the
pervaded
and
period of
concerns,
Section
2
into
the
thesis
the
of
of
excess.
period
examines
plenty continue
from
interactive
this
television
the
period
of
'within
studies
case
particular
159
in
Section
Before
have
1.
I
three
the
chapters
context
outlined across
is
it
to
these
worth returning to the notion of
moving on
studies,
detailed
I
that
at the start of this section. Arguably uncertainty
uncertainty
has marked the commencement of the period of excess in two important
despite
for
Freeview
"the
Firstly
the
success
of
as
people's
ways.
choice"
digital
have
Born
Ellis
to
television,
as
and
noted, the BBC's and
switching
broadcasting
future
looks
in
increasingly
this
period
public service
first
digital
The
BBC's
Charter will sustain the BBC's position as
uncertain.
the `cornerstone' of the emergent digital television landscape, but this status
is far from guaranteed beyond this.
Secondly, television studies itself is relatively uncertain in the object
of its study. As Tara McPherson noted at the Society of Cinema and Media
Studies conference
methodologies
in 2007, it is questionable
are the most appropriate
whether
television
studies'
tools for engaging with emergent
forms
technological
that see televisual content exist
programming and
forms
(2007).
in
John Corner
evermore-malleable
across platforms and
for
how
here.
issue
think
this
about
we might
provides an apt conclusion
Summarising
lack
a
of preparedness
within
the field to deal with these
has
forms,
he
that
television
argues
studies
newly emergent
barely begun to make a full political social and cultural
know
it",
its
"television
yet
very
of
as
we
assessment
"television
is
towards
as we
shifting
object of study
knew it" with some speed. However, with such a
modest amount of achieved scholarship concerning the
has
in
television
changed political, social
which
ways
it
is
arguably not very well
and cultural values,
know
"television
to
as we will
engage with
equipped
it" or to offer much of a contribution to public debate
(Corner,
different
1999:
121).
the
opinions
about
be
to
thesis
In asserting that this
contends
an active engagement with
I
am embarking on a process of pinning
excess,
of
television's new period
down the texts of 'television
know
it'.
In
the process, I aim to
as we will
160
have
the
addressed this period and,
reduce
uncertainty with which scholars
against McPherson's polemic, assert the importance of television studies in
establishing a methodological,
framework
for the
critical and contextual
by
both
Thus
interactive
television.
engaging
study of
with the newness of
digital television, and recognising that such an engagement must be
historical
the
specificity of the moment and against a
grounded within
longer historical backdrop, I aim to equip television studies for the study of
digital television.
161
Appendix of Images for Chapter 3
Figure
3.1
John Simpson "rips off" his face.
162
Section 2: From windows to portals:

Interactive television and the BBC
The window's metaphoric boundary is no longer the
frame
beholders
singular
of
of perspective - as
"windows", we now see the world in
multiple-screen
fractured
frames,
temporally
through
spatially and
"virtual windows" that rely more on the multiple and
simultaneous than on the singular and sequential"
(Friedberg, 2006: 243).
Whilst interactive television's aesthetics often fracture the screen into

multiple windows, unlike the real-time ontologies of the computer,
television's liveness often keeps the experience of these texts `singular and
how
is
It
thus
this experience is organised, rationalised and
sequential'.
by
second shift programming strategies that is of central concern
structured
in examining how we understand the changing `metaphoric boundary' of
the window; that is, as the window becomes a portal. In the first chapter of
this section I demonstrate the persistence of the window-on-the-world
both
how
formation
it
interactive
in
television,
the
suggesting
of
metaphor
has served to "everyday" interactive television as well restrict the mobility
Similarly,
institutional
to
concerns.
gendered and
on offer according
Chapter 6 charts how window-on-the-world
discourses continue to be re-
but
by
in
interactive
television
ways that often obscure the
circulated
by
is
the viewser.
that
actually experienced
restricted, personalised portal
In contrast, Chapters 5 and 7 examine the rationalities of interactive
has
Street
Thus
John
in
terms.
as
argued,
television's portal
more optimistic
falsely
dichotomy
is
technology
polarised as a
often
the moment of a new
between
(1997:
determinism,
`between choice and
activism and passivism'
demonstrate,
in
is
discussion
this
this
the
36); as my
section
chapters
a
over
binary that television negotiates as its window becomes a portal. The portal
163
digital
television's screen does not simply replace the window, rather it
of
repurposes, remediates and constantly recalls and re-circulates television's
window-on-the-world
positioning.
164
Chapter 4: ` Your window-on-the-world'

Rationalising
the
mobility
and
viewser
interactive
television
emergence of
As I noted in Chapter 1, television has always been interactive in
both technological and cultural senses. Television's development since the
has
been
littered
&
Dink
You
instil
Winky
to
with
attempts
more
pioneering
formal and commercial interactive capacities into the medium. As John
Caldwell has rightly pointed out, the use of phone-ins during television
forms
interactivity,
the
televisual
one
of
earliest
of
programmes represents
largely
is
replicated
which
by digital forms of interactivity.
Show (NBC, 1952 -) began using phone-ins
NBC's The Today
far
back
as
as 1959, whilst the
development of the Ceefax and Teletext systems of interactive text in the

UK dates back to 1972. Indeed, the 1970s saw a relative flurry in
developing interactive television with commercial interactive services
launched on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States Qube was
launched in 1977 in Ohio, offering 30 channels divided between broadcast
television,
pay-per-view
and interactive
programming.
Although
Qube
States
its
United
to
adoption was
cities,
of
other
expanded
a number
hindered by high prices and technological fragility, with it finally ceasing
launched
UK,
Prestel
1990s.
In
in
the
the early
transmission
a television-PC
interface that signalled the coming of technological convergence by linking
late
During
1980s and
the
the television set to a modem and phone-line.
both
broadcast
in
UK
the
1990s,
television
and
programmes
were
early
Australia that allowed the audience to decide the outcome of story lines,
happens
ideas
In
UK
to
the
in
the
as
what
next.
suggest
to
or
vote
phoning
(BBC,
hosted
Story
1988),
by
What's.
broadcast
a children's show
yorui
BBC
in
the
to
McCoy
audience
that
ring
with suggestions of
allowed
Sylvester165
happened
Channel
10
Let
Australia,
In
the
the
aired
comedy
what
next.
Blood Run Free (Network 10,1990). Based on a long running stage show
decide
how
by
to
the
the
story evolved
where
audience were able
voting
on a set of options presented to them, the programme represented a
collectively `personalised' text as it twisted and turned with the majority's
decisions on narrative. Whilst the narrative remained linear, the ability to
vote on storyline outcomes replicated the `choose your own adventure'
books
largely
is
that
credited with influencing early interactive
genre of
forms
(c.
f.
Manovich, 1999; Murray,
the
on
computer screen
narrative
1997).
Finally, shortly before the commencement of digital television in the
UK, two phone-based interactive television systems were launched in
Scotland and the Midlands. The Midlands based OKTV service (1996) used
input
that
to
complicated
phone-in
system
audiences
a
required
for
be
delivered
to
applications
programme codes and wait
via a teletext
like system. The promotional material for OKTV clearly tried to position
this as a simple extension of television. The explanatory feature in OKTV
Interactive Magazine represented the technology as simple to use via a
lady,
depicted
Mrs Mack, guiding the reader
that
an elderly
promotion
through the process of interacting and voicing the audience's perceived
concerns about new technologies:
I am sceptical about new fangled ideas, but I'll make
This
in
this
remarkable piece of
case.
an exception
instant
communication with
allow
you
equipment can
hours
brings
be
that
of entertainment
the irowers
and
in a jiffy.
v
demonstrates,
4.1
figure
the quaintness of this address could
However as
for
the
the
of
system,
complexity
which
required
extreme
not compensate
Jeffrey
Sconce's
and,
phone
recalling
control,
the use of teletext, remote
166
be'
(2000).
`with
haunted
the
that
powers
work on
media, communicating
Despite the relative failures of all these attempts to create commercial
interactive television systems, they demonstrate how television has always
been figured as an interactive medium. As John Caldwell argues
Interactivity, then, was not a cybernetic product, but a
for
programs to seal a relationship with viewers.
way
Even if one did not actually call the number
one
...
knew it was there (1995: 260)26.
Nevertheless, this history of failed attempts to launch formal,
technological interactive television systems has meant that, to a degree, the
button
has
in
UK
the
applications
come as a surprise
relative success of red
to many. In this view, television has popularly been thought of as a passive
longer
has
As
Crary
is
Jonathan
this
shown,
part of a
and wider
medium.
history in which successive technologies have been positioned as
inherently invoking a passive state in their audiences (2001). Television's
has
been
discourses
these
repeated throughout its
positioning within
history. Its initial inception into everyday life was met by diatribes like
Philip Wylie's 1955 edition of Generation of Vipers, which extended his
feminising
influence
to
and
a
pacifying
of
as
condemnation
radio
television. Similarly, in the UK the 1962 government Pilkington Report
failure
to produce challenging
the
triviality
television's
and
critiqued
interactive
late
Mail
2001,
Daily
As
the
proclaiming
was
as
programmes.
like
Direct
interactive
NHS
duck',
`dead
the
television a
which with services
having
`fiddle
`couch
to
the
around with the
potato',
too
of
much
required
(7/11/01:
14).
Equally
tricksy
telly
system'
after
remote control on some
began
Open,
first
to fold
interactive shopping and gaming portal,
Sky-'s
financial
declared
low
Daily
Mail
from
the
again
returns
pressure
under
26The idea that interactivity can help 'seal a relationship with the viewer' is one that has
in
branding
f.
(c.
Johnson,
2007;
in
tactics
the
the
been
of
period
excess
of
use
increasingly
noted
Lury. 2005; Strange,2007).
167
interactive television a technology unlikely to take-off (8/10/02). Most

boom
digital
during
dot.
the
and
notably,
revolution of the 1990s, new
com
media soothsayers such as Wired Magazine, continued to place television
liberating
inherently
in
to
the
contrast
as
passive
potential of new media
(c. f. issue 1.01 and 1.02). To an extent, such attacks are accompanied by a
strand of new media scholarship that proclaims digital technologies'
activation of the audience, re-imagined as users, as revolutionary (c. f.
Negroponte, 1995).
However, since the launch of digital interactive television in 1999,
the UK's interactive TV market has continued to grow in terms of the
number of viewsers and suppliers of content, with New Media Age
households
had
by
90%
interactive
that
television
reporting
over
of
used
August 2006 (31/08/06: 1). Given the tendency to represent television as
something
of a pacifying
agent, it is unsurprising
that the advent of
interactive television was accompanied by a great deal of fanfare and

Tom
Gunning's
in
its
However
spectacle
as
and William
marketing.
Uricchio's (2002) work on media histories suggests, new media
technologies must not only proclaim their own newness, but also refer to
Thus
introduction
the
of a new media often
existing provision and needs.
involves èxamining [the] move from dazzling appearance to nearly
transparent utility, from the spectacular and astonishing to the convenient
here
(Gunning,
2004:
39).
My
to
approach
spectacle
and unremarkable'
therefore relies on Gunning's work in this area, whereby it is associated
designed
is
to provoke astonishment and wonder:
that
with a newness
A discourse of wonder draws our attention to new
but
tool,
precisely as a
technology, not simply as a
less
task
that
a
performs
useful
something
as
spectacle,
by
in
that
performing
a
us
astounds
than as something
45).
before
(2004:
way that seemed unlikely or magical
168
By promising to activate the passive audience of the television set, the

discourses around interactive television highlight and define the medium
through this `magical nature'.
By tracing this everday-ing of interactive television from the
spectacular to the `convenient and unremarkable' I aim to demonstrate the
discursive shaping of interactive television as a new media technology,
locating it within longer histories of television's position as a window-onthe-world.
As I set out below, by suggesting interactive
TV calls up
link
I
to
metaphor want
not only
television's digitalisation to `when old technologies were new' (Marvin,

1989) but also further tease out some of the competing discourses
doing,
I suggest that the metaphor
In
this
subsumed within
positioning.
so
has not simply been key in everyday-ing interactive television but key
discourses subsumed within the metaphor, particularly surrounding
facilitates
in
the
television's
mobility and
way
which
window
a negotiation
of public and private/domestic
differently
spaces, attach
according to
has
Thus
Orr
Karen
Vered
gendered preconceptions.
whilst
suggested a
from
movement
window-on-the-world
to a `windows interface' with the
digital,
interactive television, I argue that television's position as a
advent of
window-on-the-world
is constantly recalled, re-circulated and remediated
by interactive TV (2002). That is, whilst the aesthetics of interactive

television often evidence a fracturing of the television screen into multiple
hyperactivity
Caldwell
that
the
turning
of
videographic
style
windows,
(1995),
hyperlinks
into
in
1980s
these are
television
notes arises
by
down,
the persistence of window-onnormalised, and ultimately pared
the-world discourses.
(2001a,
(2004),
Spigel's
2001b) and
Lyn
Gunning's
Drawing on
(2004a),
interactive
I
that
television's initial
Boddy's
suggest
William
work
169
developments
in
by
is
that,
as
wider
with
appearance
spectacle
marked
television's technological form surrounding its digitalisation, is linked to
from
I
the
that
spectacle to everyday is then
masculinity.
movement
argue
facilitated
by
the prominence of window-on-the-world
not only
discourses,
but these discourses also serve to normalise gendered conceptions of

interactive television that link female viewsers to domestic spaces,
restricting access to the control and mobility on offer to the male viewser.
Thus, whilst window-on-the-world
discourses are explicit in this discursive
have
idea
I
the
television
that
traced in Section 1 of
of
as
shaping,
a portal
the thesis is implicitly apparent in the way mobility is rationalised. The link
between technological newness, spectacle and masculinity is well-trodden
discussions
but
in
American
is relatively undertelevision
of
ground
focus
landscape
here
in
UK.
My
UK's
the
the
therefore reveals
explored
on
but
the
this
not only
continuation of
pattern
also the importance of the
particular
institutions
involved
in shaping the technology.
As I outline
below, the gendering of interactive television is not simply a

straightforward
binary between masculine activity, control and mobility
and
feminine domesticity but is rather intimately linked to the presence of both

broadcasters
British
the
television
within
commercial and public service
landscape, especially BSkyB and the BBC. The discussion below is
therefore first concerned with the association of interactivity with spectacle
and masculinity
before returning
to my interest in television's
positioning
as
a window-on-the-world.
This chapter is concerned with how marketing and industrial
discourses have shaped and informed interactive television, drawing on
diverse
have
the
that
semantic networks
archival research to examine
in
interactive
television
a socio-technological
placed
imaginaire
(Flichy,
170
1999: 34)27.The discursive formation of a new media technology is as much

built through regulatory moves and consumer uses, as it is the circulation
fantasy
of
scenarios that accompany the launch of any new technology. As
William Boddy argues,
Every electronic media product launch
carries
with
...
it an implicit fantasy scenario of its domestic
consumption, a polemical ontology of its medium ...
The scattered public record of these selfforms
in
the
representations,
ephemeral
of TV
commercials, corporate press releases and trade press
reporting, can offer insights into the larger contexts
firms
implicit
and
assumptions within which media
(2004c:
191).
operate
Boddy's work suggests these ephemeral forms of a new media's

larger
the
representation act within
context within which media
technologies are received. As such, they cannot be read as determining
how a new technology will be received. Rather, as Spigel's work on the
initial figuring of television in everyday life suggests, these ephemera
`reveal an intertextual context
through which people might have made
...
life'
(Spigel,
Thus,
1992:
2).
in
its
in
television
and
place
everyday
sense of
the social shaping of a technology's history I am taking here, the creation
between
interplay
is
the
of a new medium
result of a complex
technological developments, planned uses fitting into evolving lifestyles
and modes of working.
The semantic network of this socio-technological
encompasses mainstream
press reporting,
imaginaire
print advertising,
television
listing
interactive
the
applications on television
and
magazines as well as promos
itself. All of these representations are included in the discussion below;
however, three sources provide a particular focus. Firstly, the bulk of the
both
based
is
materials
screened
on
on an analysis of promotional
study
27As such, I would like to highlight the importance of the British Library- as a site of
in
this essay.
the
to
research
irreplaceable sources
171
television and existing as independent marketing documents, campaigns

and television adverts circulated by Sky and the BBC. The second source of
study is television listings magazines, particularly Sky's own Sky magazine
(previously
Sky View) and the BBC's Radio Times, as well as TV Times. As
listed
below,
the
these sources were examined over the
with
magazines
first launch 18 months of digital and interactive television (August 1999
December 2000) and over periods that coincided with significant events in
interactive
television
programming
(such as the BBC's first ever interactive
launch
late
Sky's
in
2001;
Walking
Beasts
the
with
of
programme
NewsActive service in June 2000; and the re-branding
of Sky's Open
late-2004).
late-2002
SkyActive
in
and
shopping portal as
As part of my concern here is to discuss interactivity in relation to
gender, the third source of materials comprises a sample of men's and
women's
drawn
from
These
the popular
magazines.
are
men's magazines
Arena, FHM, Loaded and GQ, as well as from satellite television and
technology magazines, such as T3, the unabashedly masculine technology
magazine28. As a point of comparison,
New Woman and heat magazine
heat
looked
The
New
the
choice
of
and
corresponding
period.
were
at over
Woman was based on the high circulation and availability of each
highest
being
heat
during
the
this
selling weekly
period, with
magazine
celebrity gossip/women's
f.
during
(c.
this
much of
period
magazine
Gough-Yates, 2002). Whilst the documents discussed below attest to the

focus on masculinity in the way interactive television was figured at its
inception, it is significant to note here that across these two women's
magazines titles only two advertising
campaigns related to digital television
interactivity.
Despite
the
the
cursory
mention
of
most
only
with
appeared,
'' The gendered address of the magazine is evident in the use of a scantily clad woman on
draped,
throughout
front
the
the
of
models
appearance
magazine
cover and
each issue's
featured.
technology'sexy'
of
the
pieces
as if adornments, over
172
fact that heat carried television listings for both free-to-air and cable and
satellite digital services, the only advertising reference to interactive
television came in 2001, when a full-page advert was used to promote
Channel 4's Big Brother (30/6-6/7/2001). This concentrated on the ability of
the audience to gain in-depth and extra knowledge about the contestants
and, of course, vote them out through interactive television. In general,
focused
digital
heat
in
in
television
terms of the channels
on
advertising
for
digital
it
2000-01
Sky's
offered,
such
as
a
campaign
and packages
music
digital
Similarly,
New
Woman
to
channels.
contained only one reference
television, which focused on the possibility of seeing Robbie Williams'
free
if
Sky
torso
to
to
the
one were
subscribe
company's
naked
and receive
book'
(02/01).
Of
`Free
naked celeb poster
magazine, which came with a
for
lack
interactive television in these
the
of promotional materials
course
female
does
interest
in
to
total
the
a
absence of
magazines
not equate
differently
but
to
that
gender attaches
consumer
rather, as we shall see,
interactive television's inception as a moment of spectacle to its later
everyday-ing.
"Touch my button babe"! Spectacle, masculinity and the advent of

UK interactive television
The negotiation of a technology's spectacular newness to its position
discussion
below
familiarity
is
the
a complex process, which as
of everyday
linear
interceding
In
is
the
trajectory.
eight years
attests, never simply a
different
1999,
in
launch
interactive
television
currents of
of
since the
have
been
interactive
television
apparent, at
promoting and positioning
the
time
their
same
positioning
at
newness
whilst
radical
once proclaiming
formations.
discursive
Beverly
the technology within existing uses and
Lyon's editorial introduction
to OKTV Interactit'e Magazine is instructive
173
here. Although this relates to a very localised, analogue form of interactivity

(which failed to take-off), she heralds the coming of interactive television
fits
fanfare
but
the technology into existing
with great
nevertheless
discourses about television. Lyons proclaimed that
The words [interactive television] have been bandied
boardrooms
by
boring
blokes
the
about
nineties
aplenty and now - it has arrived! ... OKTV is at the
[and
interactive
technology
cutting edge of
will
...
like
defunct
terms
make]
couch potato ...
as passive
become
land
in
ZAP
telly
viewers
active players
...
THAT MAGIC BUTTON! (1996: 1).
Of course, Lyons was slightly premature in heralding the arrival of

interactivity but her opening invitation to a new world of interactivity is a
careful mix of positioning the technology as radically new (terms like
`cutting edge' and `boardrooms', where big decisions are made - by men)
familiar
(couch
land
terminology
telly
within
potato,
and even `zap that
button',
magic
which appeals to a slight quaintness of innovation). This
between
familiar
the
terms of television
oscillation
spectacle and
more
for
the way in which interactive television's position
as
works
a microcosm
is played out over the course of its inception.
However, as Lisa Parks has recently noted, `the convergence of
television and computers is not just about technical mixing; it also activates
(Parks,
"passive"'
"active"
and
audiences
gendered assumptions about
users
2004: 134). Boddy's account of the development of digital and interactive
television services in the US illustrates how promotion attempted to
imagine interactivity as transforming television `from scorned and degraded
feminising
by
`pacifying,
the
to good cultural object'
even
reinventing
(in)activity of consuming television with fantasies of (masculine) agency
be
discourses
That
(2004a:
70).
traced
through
these
to
might
and power'
interfaces
UK's
interactive
the
of
actual
and
the sorts of marketing
174
television applications as a new media is not a new discovery in itself. As

Lyn Spigel's work attests, discourses of masculinity are constantly rearticulated across television's history at moments of technological change
(2001a). However, what remains important is the way in which binaries of
active and passive are navigated, re-circulated and gendered in the context
from
interactive
in
UK
its initial
the
television
the
everyday-ing
of
of
moment of spectacle.
Digital iTV in the UK was launched in 1999 with the commencement
(now
SkySportsExtra
SkySportsActive) to accompany a major Premier
of
League soccer match. Sky promoted the spectacle of interactivity as
`nothing less than a glimpse into the future -a future where you can be in
(SkyView,
control'
August 1999: Sports Supplement).
However,
to return to
Gunning's notion of spectacle, it is less usefulness that is important here

than the fact the application represents a `glimpse of the future'. The
application provided an interface that gave the viewer the ability to choose
focus
in
individual
on
an
player, change
various camera angles,
commentary
tracks, call up onscreen statistics for the live match and replay
incidents from the game (figure 4.2); c.f. Lury, 2005: 168-9). However,
degrees
hitherto
the
unknown
of control over
whilst
application promised
the television set - subjecting it to the mastery of the active user, rather
than passive viewer - the actual event of using SkySportsActive was one of
decided
delays
frustrating
time
the
to change
every
viewer
experiencing
investment
in
Whilst
there
was
substantial
a
stat.
camera angles or call up
for
bandwidth
interactive
Sky
Sports
Active
television as a
the
application,
6),
further
(discussed
in
Chapter
has
remained relatively tight
whole
lengthy
load
the
times
in
as
set-top-box
experiencing
the
viewser
resulting
different
between
jumped
transponders carrying
video streams. Thus
flohdisrupted
the
of the match or, even worse,
SkySportsActic'e actually
175
potentially lead to missing a vital moment of the match29.Nevertheless,

SkySportsActive was positioned as a new use of television that represented
What
Satellite
break
As
the
suggested, with such
past.
a radical
with
interactivity `we can now start to enjoy the kind of services that have never
been used before' (1999: 19). However, this newness in fact actually
fulfilment
of one of the earliest imaginings of television,
represented a
live
broadcasts
sports
whereby mobility and control over
were envisioned
key
f.
(c.
Urrichio, 2002).
the
as
pleasures and potentialities of
apparatus
This emphasis on control is key not only to the promotion of
interactive television as spectacle, but the address towards a male audience
evident in such materials. As with Boddy's account of the attempts to
digital
features,
I don't want to suggest that
television
through
masculinise
interactivity is inherently masculine, nor do I want to buy into gendered
binaries that suggest sport, particularly football, is an exclusively male
domain. The masculinity of address in these early promotions is therefore
football
but
interactivity
is
not simply about an association of
with
explicated
in the surrounding
promotional
materials, including
the paucity
of its representation in women's magazines compared with men's, the

development
is
the
the
television
subsequent
application
and
way
of
home30.
interactive
in
Furthermore,
the
television
the
promotion
of
viewed
in terms of spectacle evidences a concern to address the early adopters of
demonstrate
Dawson's
Max
Whilst
technologies.
studies such as
new media
29I
for
here,
deliberately
it
is
`flow'
term
suggestive of the way the
the
quite
use
liveness,
have
key
immediacy
intimacy
balance
that
tropes
the
and
of
application must
form (tropes particularly important
been associated with television's window-on-the-world
for live sports broadcasts), with iT V's metonymic calling up of digital culture and its
like
f.
(c.
interactivity,
Gere,
the
and
computing,
virtuality
related panoply of real-time
2002).
30Indeed, whilst not concerned directly with the promotion of interactive television, the
(having
business
OnDigital's
football
ITV
to
model
paid out over ;300m for
importance of
discussed,
football
As
I've
ITV/OnDigital's
the
promotion
of
matches).
rights to second-tier
football
forms
digital
linked
to
through
television
of masculinity
service therefore primarily
(played
by
bachelor
Al
Johnny
by
comedian
working-class
the
slovenly
represented
Monkey.
his
Vegas) and
companion
176
that in the United States (2007), these are overwhelmingly
white middle-
class males, as I suggested in Chapter 3 the class distinctions in the UK are

less certain. Thus it is important that the application for football viewsing
free
was
at the point of use, with revenue streams only available for the
broadcaster if viewsers were herded towards the SkyBet feature.
An address to a male audience is re-enforced by SkySportsActive's
listing
in
Sky's
promotion
magazine, SkyView, whereby the company's TV
guide informed consumers that the service would allow them to `take
control' and, `settle that argument with your mates' by calling up some vital
for
Sky's Open interactive shopping platform,
Equally
adverts
statistic.
depicted
TV
in
the
their
a male
which appeared
sports section of
guide,
lounging
looking
the
the
on
couch and
at
viewser owning
remote control,
football merchandise under the heading `The Warm Up'. In contrast to
female
for
Sky's
Open
the
shopping service,
other adverts
viewer/shopper
(for she is not afforded the control of the male viewser) here is displaced
fundamental
here
by
figure.
Of
importance
is
the
the
male
and obscured
football
by
Sky
the
rights to the
acquisition of
emphasis placed
on
digital
As
in
the
platform.
set
out
satellite
operator's
economic success of
the previous chapter, this has seen BSkyB retain its stranglehold on
broadcasting rights for the Premier League since originally outlaying
S,304million in 1992 for the rights as part of the corporation's tactic of using
`sports as a battering ram and a lead offering in our pay television
Thus
3).
1998:
(Rupert
in
Millar,
Murdoch
the
quoted
operations'
investment in SkySportsActive as the platform's first interactive offering is
bias
interactive
in
the
services.
promotion of
also suggestive of a gendered
launch,
delays
in
its
Unlike Open, which experienced numerous
bandwidth
develop
its interactive
to
SkySportsActive was given unlimited
177
(Source:
What
commodity
precious
time
application - at the
a very
Satellite, November 1999: 19).
Furthermore, subsequent development and user feedback about the
fanzone
have
focused
This
the
application's
commentary.
on
application
become
listen
in
to
to
to
and
a
chance
allows viewsers
- commentators
fans
booth
basically
in
inevitably
male,
sitting
a commentary
who are rival,
taunting and ritually abusing one another. The address to the male fan is
behaviour
"laddish"
is
in
that
tolerated and promoted
the
type
of
evident
here, as not only does the application allow viewsers to listen into such
fanzone
but
to
the
also offers a chance
commentaries,
witness
for
feature
in
Promotions
the
action.
service
commentators
a number of
from
down
this
that
their
section
show men pulling up
shirts, or
outtakes
their shorts, to bare beer bellies or naked bottoms at their erstwhile
colleagues, aggressive taunting
and gesticulation
bleeped
as well as
out
swearing.
Finally, the aesthetics of the application's interface is itself addressed

towards a masculine audience and providing control. That such interactive
texts might have a masculine address beyond their generic category relates
to how television is viewed in the home. David Morley's study of television
belong
how
has
tends
to
the
not only
remote control
and gender
suggested
to the male of the household, but has specific uses within different
hands.
`none
in
As
Morley's
the
of
suggests,
women
any
survey
gendered
[whilst]
families
they
use the automatic control regularly ...
of the
(1994:
476).
SkySportsActive's
them
obsessively'
complained of men using
is
is
the
that
obsessive
of
control
use
remote
such
aesthetic structure
rewarded
by, allowing
the viewser to play at television
producer;
by
in
and
calling
angles
up
onscreen
stats
camera
order
constantly switching
but
the
match,
one that
to not only produce a personalised experience of
178
by
broadcaster:
bettering
the
the coverage provided
offers the promise of
from
different
being
to
see something
able
a
no more complaints of not
incident.
know
In
a
specific
combination with
review
angle,
a vital stat, or
for
`state
the observation that men
a clear preference
viewing attentively, in
(ibid:
478),
football
interactive
that
texts
this
suggest
such
as
would
silence'
have a masculine address that privileges the owner of the remote control,
particularly the solo viewser.
The appeal to notions of spectacle extended beyond sports
broadcasting and informed Sky's promotion of all its new interactive
long-running
As
services.
part of a
marketing
between
strategy
2001 and
2004, Sky personified the viewser's red button as an animated character

depicted
"Little
Red".
Little
Red
as a red-haired cock-rocker,
called
was
dressed in tight leather trousers and regaling the audience with a rockfeatures
highlights
that
the
of Sky's
concert style performance
attractive
interactive portal, SkyActive. Fireworks and a stage filled with video-walls,
background
Sky's
images
in
the
of
various interactive
with
which run
interactive
the
applications as a truly
coming of
applications, announce
high
This
tech stage performance
spectacular event.
is accompanied
by
Little Red's lyrics, which personify the technology of interactivity as male

forms
in
terms that
to
an
audience
address
whilst using cock-rock's
imagined it as female. Thus, the lyrics repeat Ì'm your little red button
babe, c'mon touch my button babe', as Little Red slides across the stage
floor and seductively touches himself. The advert opens with the
is
line
`pleasuring
my creed, and when you touch me
you
suggestive
[pause] I can get what you need', which is accompanied by a cut to a
is
Whilst
there
Red's
Little
an emphasis on
pelvis.
gyrating
close-up of
servicing
the (female)
consumer's
needs, the re-imagining
of the red button
is
that
not
only
ensures
cock
rocker
a
male
sexed,
overly
active,
an
as
179
audience not alienated, but that a sense of masculine empowerment and

based
control
around sexual prowess is attached to interactivity31. However,
despite the promoted fantasy and spectacle of this interactive space, the
actual aesthetic space of SkyActive feels rather bland: corporate, functional
highly
driven
(figure
4.3).
As Daniel Chamberlain's work on
text
and
interface aesthetics elsewhere suggests (2006), the use of highly text-driven
menus set against uniform backgrounds (here royal blue) recalls Marc
Auge's discussion of "non-space", experienced as duration rather than
(1995)32
encountered space
The fantasy of male empowerment is reiterated by the men's
for
Arena's
interactivity
in
its
theme
shoot
magazine
use of
as a
a photo
October 1999 issue. The fashion shoot is entitled `Do Not Adjust Your Set'
TV.
joy
Over nine pages,
is
`homage
interactive
to
the
offered as
of
and
divided into four "episodes" the promotion is depicted from the point of
figure
lies
hotel
bed
prone on a
who
whilst semi-clad
view of a male
female models, posing as carnal incarnations of interactive television,
4.4a-d).
(figure
him
At
in
in
the narrative a
one
point
pleasure
various ways
lead
for
the
the
away,
party and
girls
only
group of police officers storm
the final episode to conclude with `the triumph of interactive TV' as the
interactive
the
to
the
of
personified
enjoy
pleasures
police officers return
television. Interestingly here interactivity, whilst aligned with a male
fantasy, also allows for the depiction of the male figure as rather passive.
However, because the female figures here are not the domestically active
figures
Spigel
Lyn
de-sexualised
the
adverts
cartoons
and
of
mother
and
31This is made more explicit in another promo in the series that advertises a Tetris game
horizontal
blocks
'get
Red
Little
to
the
the
the
Here
SkyIntei-active.
viewer
implores
on
...
do
four
friends'.
[he
it
to
be,
Yeah
best way to
and
you
can
with
up
on]
goes
...
32The aesthetics of such applications might, in turn, be related to the interactive menus of
films,
Such
to
games
on-demand
and
pornography.
order
an
chain-hotels that allow guests
Marc
Auge's
Manovich
in
LeN
theor
of
of
superutilisation
apparent
is
tpproach
.
binstitutionaliSed
'traditional
are
equally
places
replaced
nonnon-space:
and
modernity
hotel
holida
impermanence:
transit
chains
and
squats,
and
of
architect-ure
ncv\a
places,
(200h
28o).
becomes
the
norm'
new
clubs ... non-place
180
discusses in relation to 1950s television (2001a), the photo shoot plays into
fantasies of male empowerment
beck
technology
the
at
male viewsers'
for
the purpose of pleasuring him. Arguably whilst all of these
and call
be
promotions may not
exclusively addressed to a male audience, they do
privilege
the association of technological
spectacle, control and masculinity.
Interactive Television as window-on-the-world

Thus far I have been concerned with discussing the way in which
Sky and men's magazines heralded the arrival of interactive television as a
form of technological
spectacle. However,
against this grain of spectacular
interactive television offerings ran a current of promotion that represented

interactive television through the discourses of television's window-on-theworld metaphor.
Given the persistence and pervasiveness
of this metaphor,
it is hardly surprising to see its recall in the service of familiarising and

everyday-ing
interactive
television.
As I've suggested in section one,
beyond simple immediacy this metaphor arguably subsumes within it key

discourses about television that have remained prevalent across its history.
Of central importance for my concerns here is the way that live immediacy
has been tied to notions of mobility and with it, a negotiation of both
between
domestic
competing
spaces as well as
public and private,
positions
of active and passive viewing,
bringing
with them gendered
binaries". Lynn Spigel's work on television in the home is illustrative here,

its
television
that
the
to
and
representation often attempted to
way
attesting
for
desires
'negotiate the twin
participation in the public world and private
family lifestyle' (2001b: 388). Spigel suggests that television in the era of
between
kind
transportation'
these
'imaginary
spaces
of
a
scarcity offered
for
the
`fantasy
possibility
people
of antiseptic space', allowing
through the
33Of course notions of public service broadcasting and its role in configuring the national
have been pivotal in television's negotiation of public and private spaces.
181
`to travel from their homes while remaining untouched by the actual social
(Spigel,
imaginatively
1992:
111).
In so
they
to
ventured'
contexts
which
doing, she not only links television's window-on-the-world
form with
discourses of mobility, interactivity and intimacy but also a negotiation of

both public and private spaces.
This mobility negotiates not only the space between public and
barrier
(the
between
but
the
two,
a
safe
screen)
also the
private, placing
desire to be both passenger and driver. However, the mobility of
television's window in the studies of Spigel and Boddy is most commonly
has
As
Spigel's
aligned with masculinity.
shown, the television
work
depicted
demonstrates
is
Her
most commonly
as male.
work
adventurer
how the advent of portable television shifted representations of the male
from
lazy
consumer
spectator to an association with a `more active style of
from
home'
(Spigel,
`mobility
2001a:
travel
to
and
away
masculinity' related
388-96). Similarly, Boddy's detailed study of new media and popular
imagination
points to the way in which television
linked
forms
to
was
of
transport, mobility and in turn, masculinity. Boddy discusses a DuMont

for
its new television in the 1950s that promises the audience would
advert
become àn armchair Columbus on ten thousand and one thrilling voyages
here
discovery'
(Boddy,
54).
The
is
2004a:
audience
positioned as not
of
just passenger on the voyage, but rather Columbus himself, an explorer
interpolate
In
in
to
themselves, as
the
reader
asking
and
active control.
here
Columbus
is
into
the
the
of
advert
position
armchair explorers,
demonstrative of the way in which this mobility has been associated with
in
1,
I
Thus
television's
section
window always
suggested
as
masculinity.
journeys
to
the
the
and
on
offer
audience.
views
restricted
and already
The re-circulation of window-on-the-world
promotion
discourses in the
does
TA'
in
UK
button
interactive
the
therefore
not simply
of red
182
familiarise and everyday the platform. Rather, the presence of these

discourses has served to detach the promotion of interactivity from
spectacle and thus implicitly open the mobility of television's interactive
portal to a wider viewsership. However, as with the gendering of
television's association with mobility in the period of scarcity, the journeys
have
been
in
the
similarly imbued with gendered
period of excess
on offer
preconceptions.
As I go on to demonstrate,
this has occurred largely along
institutional lines. Thus although spectacle is no longer the overriding

discourse in the promotion of interactive television discussed below,
becomes
a site of tension in the way interactive television
mobility
functions as a portal to aggregate viewsers and rationalise their viewser
flows. I suggest that Sky's promotions tend to circumscribe and rationalise
the journeys on offer in a way that aligns its everyday-ing
with a negatively
feminine
domestic.
In contrast, the alignment of
the
conception of
valued,
interactive television with the everyday and the domestic in BBC
binary.
Paying attention to the
troubles
promotions
such a straightforward
BBC's applications
and promos reveals a process of everyday-ing
whereby
the astonishment invoked by the spectacular new-ness of interactive

television is gradually replaced with its position as convenient and
be
large
It
too
a claim to suggest that the
unremarkable.
would probably
everyday-ing of interactive television through more inclusive window-onthe-world discourses has been solely the work of the BBC. As Tom
Gunning argues, astonishment is an inherently unstable and temporary
benevolent
institution
the
than
of
a
result
with a
simply
experience, rather
digital
to
television's new technologies.
concern to supply universal access
Nevertheless, there is a clear division between the way in which these
window-on-the-world
discourses are mobilised by the promotional material
discussed
below.
institutions
of public service and commercial
Before I go
183
has
interactive
how
television
this process of everyday-ing
on to consider
first
demonstrate
lines,
I
to
the presence of
want
occurred along gendered
the key discourses I identify in the window-on-the-world
metaphor, namely
liveness, immediacy, hybridity, mobility, intimacy and the negotiation of

public and private spaces.
The marketing of interactive television news, and its subsequent

both
form
figures
BBC
Sky,
the
television as a
on
and
explicitly
aesthetic
window-on-the-world:
liveness,
in
intimacy, mobility
terms
promoted
of
for
hybridity.
Sky's
SkyNewsActive, the 'world's
promotional campaign
and
first interactive television news' service, ran for over two years from mid2002 until the end of 2004. The promo featured one of Sky News' most
prominent
long-serving
and
familiarity
The
Botting.
Anna
newscasters,
of
Botting's face and performance is of particular importance as the

SkyNewsActive multiscreen application, which is essentially mirrored by the
BBC's news application, is itself aesthetically quite complex. Indeed far
from being a window-on-the-world,
the application itself works effectively
hypermediated
feel
it
to
create a
as a portal:
remediates web aesthetics
through the screen's fragmentation into a series of video-windows
that the
by
is
their
to
able
select via on an onscreen cursor controlled
viewser
remote. Each window opens onto a cycled videostrearn of a particular subbusiness,
headlines,
for
sport, weather or show
example,
genre of news,
business, xvhich the viewser can then combine with text-based news stories
from any news sub-genre.
For the promo, this hypermediated aesthetic is marshalled under the
direct
Botting
Botting's
intimacy
through
tropes of
performance:
uses
aural
her
the
use of gesture and
and visual address which, coupled with
her
technolog-,
the
the
aligns
with
viewser and
using
actually
presence
(figure
4.5).
interactive
Indeed it one
television
helps to-,vards everyday-ing
184
demonstrating
leaning
be
the
on
application,
causally
point she appears to
describes
"your
the
Botting
its
application
as
the ease of
eight
use.
"whole
interactivity
to
the
a
world
of
world" providing
windows on
explore", signalling the transition of television's window to a portal in the
dialogue
Gesture
interactive
the
accompanying
guise.
at this
medium's
interactive
the
television environment as a
the
of
notion
point emphasises
her
hands
if
the
out
as
opens
revealing a globe to the
as
presenter
world,
depicts
her
looking
A
then
medium close-up
up and around the
viewser.
frame as if seeing a whole expanse of space unlocked by the application.
The call to explore Sky's interactive news application thus extends the
mobility of television's window-on-the-world
to a wider range of viewsers.
However, even here the importance of gender in the way these discourses
The
is
intimacy of Botting's address is
are mobilised
apparent.
by
her
appearance in a plunging v-line
complimented and reinforced
feminine
high
heels.
Her
overtly
coding, as with so many
sweater and
female newsreaderS34helps the application negotiate the binary of bringing

,
hard, public news into the domestic, private setting of the home. Moreover
there are subtle divisions apparent in the way she addressesthe audience.
Botting is only ever presented in the mid-close-up of television's most
familiar and intimate forms of direct address when she is discussing the
bring
demand
"soft"
the
to
application's ability
news genres: on
viewser
"hard"
In
whenever
news categories are
comparison,
showbiz, weather etc.
discussed - business, headlines, world news etc - Botting is removed to a
longer shot. This division in shot length draws attention to Botting's use of
facial gesture and vocal intonation in her introduction of 'soft' news

her
intonates
Here
raises
eyebrow
continually
and
she
with a
categories.
34For example, recent fashion features in Tbe Obsemer and the London free-sheets, Metro
focused
looks
fashions
have
Jeremy
Paxman's
Paper,
the
Ibe
London
on
and
of
and
developing retinue of supporting newscasters on the BBC's flagship NeicsVigbt
2007).
(February,
programme
185
knowing wink which, as she announces '4... and of course, all the latest
kind
intimates
a
of shared secret of a guilty
showbiz gossip and news",
6,
As
I
in
Chapter
(female)
the
argue
audience.
pleasure with the
discourses
in
these
of
window-on-the-world
relation to the
mobilisation
for
the way in
multiscreen's aesthetic structure as a portal are problematic
which we understand the public service and citizen value of television

diet'
hard
limited
'mixed
The
implicitly
of
and soft news.
news as offering a
horizons offered by Botting's address to the female audience therefore
further compound this problematic (Bennett, 2006). Thus whilst windowdiscourses
are circulated, the application works as a portal to
on-the-world
limit the way viewsers negotiate the movement between private and public
between
heavily
the
position of consumer and citizen along
spaces,
lines.
encoded gender
The aesthetic structure of the application's interface also foregrounds
the importance of liveness to the functioning of this and other interactive
television applications. In terms of liveness it is important to note that as
far,
discussed
interactive
television's interactivity
the
with all
applications
so
is always necessarily live. That is, one must be watching at the time of
transmission in order to interact with an application. Recorded applications
have their interactivity 'used up' because manipulation of the interactive
text is only possible at the point of broadcast - such as the ability to move
degree
To
therefore, interactivity reinvigorates the
an onscreen cursor.
a
live
broadcast
in
the
time
to
television
at
of
which,
an age
need
watch
becoming
is
to
time-shifting
personalised
schedules
create
where
increasingly prevalent, makes interactive television an important tactic for
front
in
in
the
television
place
one
and
of
set"
audiences
aggregating
3This is particularly evident in the use of more recent SkySpollsActitv applications that
ootball
deliver a choice of
matches occurring simultaneously, bringing a diverse audience
brand.
banner
and
channel
one
of
the
Linder
186
Liveness is of particular import here for the way in which it connects vvith
television's intimacy. Anne Freidberg's concentration on the relationship
between window, screen and architecture provides an invaluable insight

into understanding television's screen as a window. However, in important
fails
liveness
her
importance
in television's
the
to
address
of
work
ways
function. Most particularly for my purposes here, the
window-on-the-world
in
television
and
personalities
presenters
everyday-ing and
of
role
familiarising interactive television is entwined with television's liveness. As I
have argued elsewhere (Bennett and Holdsworth, 2006; Bennett, 2008)
television's ontological liveness plays a key role in authenticating the
"televisual image" of television personalities, often producing an intimate
connection. As such, thought of in relation to Horton and Wohl's
description of the kind of 'parasocial interaction' direct and intimate forms
from
television
television's
the
of address
uses, part of
mobility comes
intimacy and familiarity with particular presenters, who travel on behalf of
for
lending
their
travel
our immobility
us,
(1993). Thus, it is equally
important to understand that the performances of familiarisation by Botting

below)
(discussed
Porter
and
also work to take the imaginative journey on
behalf of the viewser.
The
metaphor
final
discourse
within
television's
to note here is the promo's
window-on-the-world
highlighting
of the ability
linking
it to other nascent telecommunication
the
personalise
service,
and thus signalling
television's
to
forms
hybrid
form.
This
is aesthetically
always
by
the presence of an onscreen cursor, which signals the viewser's
marked
hypertext
in
text
that
the
the
ways
remediate
web's
ability to navigate
forms. But it is also reinforced by an explicit connection to other media
forms that viewsers can experience Sky News on; the promo informing the
187
viewser
of their ability to receive and access Sky News through
their
mobile phone and the Internet.

The actual process of using interactive television applications
between
tension
reinforces a
window-on-the-world discourses and the
second shift aesthetic practices of portals, which is apparent around the
for
imagined
the viewser. Since 2001, the
way each call up an
mobility
major transmitters of interactive applications, the BBC, Sky, ITV and until
its withdrawal of the service Channel 4, have all introduced an in-between

interface that facilitates the movement from audience to viewser. Termed
"the bridge" by industry figures, this screen greets viewsers after they have
pressed the red-button, providing them with a range of interactive
television applications to choose from. Bridge applications have been
designed to familiarise interactive television, orientating the viewser to the
fills
that
through
their screen
content on offer
a menu screen
partially
(leaving the normal broadcast programme running behind its semitransparent interface or windowed
in the top corner of the screen). The
term bridge also calls up metaphors of transportation, suggesting a

transitory space before one reaches (travels to) their final destination. As
the BBC's explanatory literature on interactive television posits the
button
is 'to go interactive'
the
to
experience,
press
red
(www. bbc. co. uk/digitaltv
site visited 02/08/06). The connotations of
being
here
hard
'going
interactive'
the
to resist
sense of
and
mobility are
figured as a journey of sorts - leaving the main broadcast programme to
by
load
is
in
interactive
the
way
which
underscored
application access an
before
long
delays
for
the viewser
interactive applications cause
times
destination.
Interactive
final
television
therefore
clearly calls
their
reaches
However,
discourses
metaphor.
television's
Nvindow-on-the-world
of
up the
the
transporting
television
bridge
the
of
connotations
recalls
the
-hilst
N,,
188
here
journey
imaginative
is
to
the
audience
on offer
new places,
by
bridge
The
the
shift
practices
of
circumscribed
portal structures.
second
herds
interactive
the
applications and
aggregates
channel's
viewser
by
lead
that
of
choices
offering
a
variety
exploration
only
out onto the
channel's proprietary spaces or those of content affiliates. However as I go
discuss
final
below,
doesn't
in
interactive
the
to
television
section
on
but
does
so in a way that configures
simply rationalise viewser mobility,
the journeys on offer along gendered and institutional lines in important
ways.
Gendered mobility: Justpopping out to see the neighbours

As I suggested in the thesis introduction, the BBC heralded the
digital
interactive
television
television platforms as a
arrival of
on all
doing,
key
In
the
spectacular event.
so
spectacular was aligned with
discourses of mobility inherent in the window-on-the-world
metaphor.
Similarly to the DuMont television advert, the BBC's Walking witb Beasts
was positioned in terms of exploration and spectacle. The programme's
opening monologue welcomed the viewser to a new world of interactivity:
This is Walking witb Beasts interactive. Your chance to
from
fascinating
the
a time
world of mammals,
explore
the world forgot. Press the arrow keys on your remote
keys
Or
the
to
to
colour
use
control
change narrator.
delve deeper. Green calls up onscreen facts at any
time. Press yellow for evidence as told by the world's
leading scientists. And blue takes you behind the
for
the making of, Walking witb Beasts.
scenes
From a Columbus-like voyage of discovery to an exploration of the
delve
deeper
by
into
"fascinating world of mammals", which we can
calling
fantasies
behind
diving
invoked
facts
the
the
to
scenes,
and
up on-screen
have
the
interactive
television
stable
across
remained
remarkably
market
intervening 60 years. This is an extremely complicated application, which
189
Goodchild
Marc
interactive
the
as
points out,
series'
executive producer
foreground
to
the potentialities of interactivity and thus, in its own
aims
form
is
the
the
programme
right,
aesthetic structure of
a
of spectacle
(interview conducted 25/01/03)
36.
Of course in the declaration of its
form,
less
is
important than its
the
the
of
usefulness
application
spectacular
7V
Times
digital
its
to
enthused
magical properties; as
readers,
audiences
button
'press
the
red
on their remote control wand' to accessextra
could
(17-23/1
material
1/01)37
Nevertheless, the application did work to mobilise

.
discourses
forms
in
that
a way
window-on-the-world
unbound spectacular
from
interactive
television
promotion
masculine connotations. Indeed,
of
the scheduling of the programme, together with a controversy over its
for
Walking
Beasts
'wasn't
that
witb
a
meant
scientific veracity, meant
38
science audience
but was aimed at a broad family-audience (Interview
with Marc Goodchild, 25/01/03).

This detachment of spectacle from an address to a masculine
become
has
interactive
is
television
central to the way that
audience
Beasts'
Walking
Significantly,
the
witb
of
promotion
everyday-ed.
form
of spectacle replaced the emphasis on control, which
interactivity as a
discourses
it
of
attached to masculinity, with window-on-the-world
his
has
in
Shaun
Moores
However,
study of satellite
argued
as
mobility.
broadcasting,
if broadcasting is able to "transport" viewers and

listeners to previously distant or unknown sites
then
...
36This is reinforced by the introductory sequence's visuals, which depict explosions and
beasts
the
the
application's
towards
seemingly
over
and
viewer
running
prehistoric
frame"
by
"breaking
Sabretooth
the
in
tiger
slashing through the
interface to culminate
a
Brothers'
Lumi6re
the
title,
early cinematic
which calls up
programme's videographic
(France,
la
1895).
a
Ciotat
dtw
Ar7iv&
traiii
L
exploitation
37The importance of spectacle over use-ability was emphasised by the application's status
linear
for
Jonathan
BAFTA
a
media.
of
enhancement
award
as a controversial winner of a
Webh, Flextech's director of interactive media, claimed that IVWking u4tb Beasts simply
BAFTA
its
TV
the
application
received
award
and
1did not workas a piece of enhanced
before it had actLially aired on television (quoted in Broadcast, 25,11/02).
debates
falling
linked
38A categ,(--)tthe
the
is
to
itself
about
as
masculinity,
often
that
higher
in
into
attests.
education
the
sciences
number of women
190
kind
Journeys"
that are
to
the
we need
of
specify
feels
home?
Who
Who
the need to
made ...
stays at
escape the confines? " (Moores, quoted in Morley, 2004:
314).
Asking this question of the way interactive television's mobility is promoted
to a female audience by Sky is particularly revealing in this context.
Throughout
1999 and early 2000, Sky's Open campaign consisted not only
football,
discussed
but
the
male-focused promotions
of
above,
also a more
(appearing
listings
in
the
mainstream campaign
main
section of its SkyView
magazine and in satellite-television magazines) that used window-on-thediscourses
familiarise
in
interactivity.
However,
to
and
so
everyday
world
doing it reinforced a gendered distinction between the possibilities of
interactive television as a spectacular new form of technology that aligned
it with masculine interests and interactive television as part of an ordinary,
domestic, more-female-oriented
everyday.
In comparison to the male ownership of the technology and remote

discussed
in
'warm
the
above, the explanatory
control
up' advert
introductions to Open in SkyView's main section shows the remote control

daughter
father
family,
both
between
the
and
operating the
as shared
Calling
Anne
Friedberg's
in
interacting
up
experience.
a
shared
system and
(1993) figure of the flaneur with the slogan 'Window Shopping', the
beyond
discourses
begins
the male
to
of mobility
open
accompanying text
The
family
Open.
inviting
the
to
of
the
world
explore
whole
viewser,
frames
for
interacting
hypothetical
draws
that
the
reader
scenario
advert
a
here as akin to shopping - 'the year is 2001. You've got stacks of errands
buy
do,
'
to
to
the
shoes
new
xveekly shopping
to catch up on: there's
...
displaces
The
31-2).
that of
1999:
(Sk),View, April
rhetoric of convenience
hassles
female
imagined
the
to
of
reader escape
-s the
control: Open alloN-,
Similarly,
domestic
overlays
advert
a
another
picture
chores.
and
shopping
191
handbag
of a woman's
with text that emphasises a convenient mobility:
'Push your way to the front of the queue'. Television is still a winclow-on-
the-world in its interactive guise, but the possible journeys on offer through
interactivity here are turned into safer, more inclusive and less spectacular,
experiences.
This is picked up by the more recent SkyActive re-brand at the end

described
2004,
as a "video magazine" it re-imagines the corporate, nonof
familiar
interactive
television
as a cosy and
place aimed almost
space, of
female
the
market. In an interview with Sky's Head of
squarely at
interactive Development, Mirage Islam, he suggested that audience
for
female
by
had
base
heavy
Sky
user
revealed a
research conducted
interactive television. As he puts it, these viewsers are looking for "'time
day'
(Interview
in
the
the
out"
conducted 10/11/05). As such, the
middle of
2004-05 campaign addresses this audience with offerings of games, quizzes,
features
horoscopes
The
Gail Porter who,
prizes,
and shopping.
advert
famous
for
her
lad's
in
appearance
magazine FHMs stunt of
although as
body
her
her
Westminster
onto
as
presentation of
projecting
naked
lifestyle
here
is
television,
children's and
generally stripped of explicit sex
appeal. Dressed in cosy, warm clothing she welcomes the viewser to the
home
imagined
if
it
SkyActive,
is
that the
as
specifically
were a
new
which
4.6).
her
(figure
The
join
in
initial
invites
to
space viewsers
presenter
you
button
female
the
the
allows
red
are greeted with upon pressing
viewser to
but
depicted
by
favoured
be
the
address,
positively
as in control
not only
for
isn't
domestic
in
that
the
a
perhaps
always
possible
vvay
space
of a
domestic routines of the imagined house-wife; i. e. guilt free time out. As
house,
how
SkyActive has
tells
the
the
Porter ,vatks around
she
viewser
been undergoing a "bit of a makeover", signalled by the presence of a

house's
finishing
job,
the
touches
to
the
paint
which
as
workman applying
l
I
192
Porter explains has done away 'with that old blue: thank goodness!'. This,
have
be
the
space,
where
cosy
viewser can
a new
a cup
she proclaims, will
here
by
friends
Porter
the
workman
supplied
who
of coffee with
orders
39
feminine
display
in
interactive
of
control of the
a
off to make coffee
space
friends,
date
bet
"play
talk
to
your
and
gossip,
and
and
games
and
- and
favourite
do
is
thing
of
all,
which
shopping of course! ",
my
and
This promotional video is accompanied by an aesthetic design of
the application that mimics more familiar magazine format television
Buzzard
as
notes, already pre-figured the portal
which
programming,
by
acting as 'sites that meta-aggregate' content and
practices of new media
(2003:
demonstrates
how
205).
As
Porter
to
the
to use
audiences
viewser
laying
the
application, a pictoral menu
out the options on
and navigate
offer is shown. This allows SkyActive's new aesthetic to essentially resemble
lifestyle
a
programme whereby a videostream of content, which might
include a holiday-programme
style travelogue or cooking advice and
dominates
laid
the
text
recipes,
screen with a series of
and video options
for
from
(figure
4.7).
left
hand
the
the
to
out on
side
choose
viewser
BSkyB's then Head of interactive Television, Ian Shepherd described it as
'magazine-style channel that offers on-demand entertainment and
information as an alternative to conventional television' (quoted in i7V
Today Newsletter 01/05). Shepherd goes on to suggest that the viewser's
first encounter with the new service is a 'single-screen video - essentially a
television show', describing its design as a merging of traditional and
interactive television forms Obid). Difference between interactivity and
forms
kept
is
therefore
to an absolute minimum. This
traditional television
from
leaving
home
journey
the
to visit
the
on offer
one of
re-brand turns
39Similarly Proctor & Gamble noted that the use of interactive advertising for its Daz cleaning
in
it
'woman
As
Proctor
because
&
Gamble
the
put
control".
product was successful
it:
is
TV
Donnelly
because
'interactive
Roisin
positioned
a
very
powerful
medium
spokeswoman
2510/04).
Guardian,
(The
in
is
the woman
control'
193
the non-space of Sky's earlier SkyActive incarnation or a fantasy world of
leaving
football-viewing,
home
in
to
the
to encounter
one
of
control
domestic
another safe,
space.
Read in conjunction with the re-brand's advertising campaign, which
is centred around one woman's discovery that SkyActive can replace her
best friend, the mobility of television's window-on-the-world
is imagined as
highly
detailing
intimate
journey.
In
Su
Holmes'
that
a
a way
recalls
of the
(BBC,
7-be
Groves
1954
1957)
'neighbours
to
of
soap
relationship
opera
as
the nation', particularly to the female audiences of soaps, the journey on
female
here
is one of 'just popping out to see a
the
to
audience
offer
friend'
(Holmes,
familiar
2006).
As
the
neighbour or
such,
renderings of this
for
it
the viewser to explore and, most
space arguably make easier
importantly, use/pay for the new services offered by television's renewed
hybridity with nascent telecommunication
technologies: the fantasy of anti-
doubly
domestic
To
television
envisaged.
septic space and
security of
journeys
Shaun
'kinds
Moores'
the
to
of
on offer'
questioning
of
return
through television, this everyday-ing of interactive television has
horizons
the
to
of mobility on offer to the
simultaneously worked
narrow
female audience: the male adventurer is replaced by the female gossiper,
her mobility restricted to a natter over the back fence. Thus whilst window-
discourses
in
such promotions
and
recalled
are
re-circulated
on-the-world
familiarise
to
and everyday the
and applications, these effectively work
herd,
guide and restrict viewser
portal practices of new media, which
mobility and control according to gendered preconceptions.
In contrast to the highly constrained mobility of Sky's everyday-ing
discourses,
the
these
interactive
through
television
xvindoxv-on-the-vvorld
of
digital
'building
to
BBC',s public service obligations of universalism and
least
led
has
that
2006)
(DCMS,
to
extends,
or
at
Britain'
an approach
194
levels, the journeys on offer through interactive television to a much wider

audience. As I suggested in the previous chapter, the Corporation's role in
has
digital
been
Freeview
instrumental in
terrestrial
the
platform
promoting
this development. As with the current of Sky's promotion discussed above,
interactive television is largely represented as part of a domestic, everyday
mise-en-sc!ne. However, notions of gender and control are differently
discuss
here.
here
I
to
want
one
particular
enlisted
advertising campaign
focuses,
for
the Freeview platform, on the
as with all adverts
which
platform's ready availability and ease-of-use.
The advert unties digital technology from spectacle and aligns it
familiarity
by
intimacy
the
television
and
setting the advert in an
of
with
4tordinary"" family's domestic space. Moreover the advert inverts the
between
digital
by
technology
gender and
relationship
positioning the
father as a digital refusenik, who has to be badgered into going digital by
his family. The advert marked a continuation of the face-ripping campaign
discussed in the previous chapter. However, here the spectacle of this CGI
technology is further recuperated into discourses of the domestic and
have
head
Rather
than
ordinary.
one celebrity
replace the next, their
simply
image is superimposed onto the heads of the family members in the scene.
In the advertisement's pay off joke the mother's head has been replaced by
that of Amanda Holden (a well-known
television actress with a "sex-kitten"
for
kiss
herself
dad
image),
the
to
the
televisual
a
as she alluringly offers
Matcb
is
that
time
this
of
ex-footballer
and
of the
with
mask again replaced,
Day (BBCI, 1964 -) presenter Gary Lineker as the voiceover instils "... and
interactive sport for dad" (figure 4.8). Thus, through the father-figure's
depiction as a technophobe the alignment of sport xvith masculinity,

by
here
BBC
is
the
the
troubled
to
concerns
of
technology and control
40Read, white, middle-class. two children.
195
make interactive television an everyday experience and opportunity.
The
longer
lured
by
household
is
the
early-adopter,
no
spectacle,
male of the
but subject to the family dynamics that coalesce around the television set.
For the BBC the concern to 'everyday' and familiarise interactive
television has led it to position the technology as, just like television, open
to everyone. As such, the BBC's interactive television applications have
increasingly
to
resemble a continuation of the earlier, analogue
come
Teletext system: even transposing Teletext's page numbers for the
bridge.
Indeed, nearly
text
through
the
stories made available
navigation of
design
BBC's
interfaces
the
share a common aesthetic and navigation
all
logic, which is described in their BBCi brand values as 'comfortably
has
been
by
domesticity
Thus
spectacle
and a continual
replaced
exciting"'.
down
from
BBC
interactive
television
the complex,
of
pairing
applications
but spectacular Walking witb Beasts, to an approach that foregrounds
intimacy and accessibility. Thus as I go on to discuss in Chapter 7,
for
history
7-bink
Wbo
Do
You
You
Are?
such
as
applications
programmes,
(BBC; 2004 - ), are often physically 'hosted' by presenters who guide
how
to use the application.
through
viewsers
Conclusion
The promotional materials and applications discussed here engage
in a paradoxical task of proclaiming interactive television's newness, whilst
familiarity
As
its
I
the
and
safety.
of
viewser
simultaneously re-assuring
have argued.,this has been facilitated by the mobilisation of television's

Nvindow-on-the-world
long
history
Indeed,
the
of
considering
metaphor.
button
before
its
interactive
television
current red
attempts to create
incarnation, arguably domesticity and familiarity have been interactive
41As a result, applications must be designed to bring viewers closer to content they love:
(BBC,
BBC'
2004:
5).
free,
trusted
and
secure
cas\- access to the
196
television's "killer applications" - securing its longevity in contrast to the

failed
beginning
has
That
the
the
this
many
of
start-ups noted at
chapter.
lines
factor
is
that I have suggested
occurred along particularly gendered
a
landscape.
UK's
to
the
the
peculiarities of
we might relate
public service
That is, the everyday-ing of interactive television through the mobilisation
of window-on-the-world
discourses has not been simply a linear trajectory
that has seen an association of interactive television with masculinity and

familiar,
to
more
ordinary renderings. Rather, gendered
spectacle give way
have
preconceptions
remained pivotal throughout the everyday-ing of the
limited
has
become
journeys
the
medium, with more
on offer as
platform
domesticated and unbound from spectacle.

Furthermore, the different discourses and promotions discussed
despite
digital
that
the
television,
new media capacities of
above suggest
the experience and promotion of interactive television is still very much
linked to television's place in the home and its temporal rhythms. In this
debates
have
it
theories,
sense, seems old media
and metaphors still
much
to tell us about digital television. For example, we might profitably enlist
Nick Browne's conception of supertext to think about how the screen acts
not simply as a window-on-the-world,
constantly offering the viewser
broad vistas, but rather the screen of interactive television invokes the
practices and mobility of new media portals to regulate and restrict viewser
day's
institutional
to
the
the
concerns of
generic and
movement according
domestic,
(1987).
That
intimate
is,
the
whilst
miseprogrammed schedule
for
female
like
SkyActive
a
might cater
audience
en-scene of applications
looking for 'time out' in the middle of the day, sports offerings broadcast in
Z7)
in
interactive
terms
television
of control and, to a
promote
primetime still
lesser extent, spectacle that aligns the platform with masculinity. That this
lines
beyond
is
that
the
move
along
simple
programmed
rationalisation
197
concerns of portal strategies, whereby viewsers are encouraged to spend

time in proprietary content, and circumscribes viewser movement along
lines
bound
interactivity
is
intimately
the
way
gender
makes analysing
up
discourses
deployment
institutional
their
and
with window-on-the-world
all
the more important. Thus to paraphrase Victor Perkins (1993119721)we
interactive
to
the
television as television,
specificities
of
pay
attention
must
form.
than
the
to
a
radical
reconfiguration
of
medium
a
new media
rather
For the BBC the everyday-ing of interactive television has involved
tying the platform to window-on-the-world
discourses, particularly linking
it back to the way television's screen negotiates 'the twin desires for
family
lifestyle'
(Spigel,
in
1992:
the
public world and private
participation
I 11). Thus the placing of interactive television within the private, domestic
family
imaginative
journey
to
the
to public
all members of
world offers an
don't
that
simply align new technology with masculinity and
spaces
broad
BBC's
interactive
In
the
television
the
promotion of
control.
vistas of
are increasingly open to all, even when
(as
being
in
Walking
Beasts),
the
the "man
with
spectacular
case of
whilst
of the house" doesn't equate to technological competence or control (as in
the promotion of interactivity on Freeview or the gender neutral approach
to a comfortably exciting brand image). In contrast, for Sky, placing
interactive television as an everyday, domestic, ordinary experience
involves explicitly ferninising the technology - restricting the imaginative
journey to gossiping over the back fence or trips to the mall. As a result,
the everyday-ing of interactive television is not a simple dichotomy
between masculine control, spectacle and activity with feminine passivity
it
is
domesticity.
institutional
Instead,
that
to
apparent
when
related
and
discourses, the positioning of interactive television in terms of window-onbinary
Thus,
discourses
troubles
such
a
approach.
the-world
whilst
198
discourses of mobility are apparent across the spectrum of promotion and

interactive applications discussed here, the journeys differ dramatically
between those on offer from Sky and the BBC.
Despite the commitment to universalism and building digital Britain
by
interactive
BBC's
to
television, arguably many
the
approach
evinced
interface
structures still privilege the male viewser through the
applications'
have
I
that
outlined in relation to SkySponsActive
same aesthetic strategies
David
Navigation
interactive
Morley's
television
above.
of
work
and
direct
ownership of the remote control and,
applications generally requires
have
discovered,
interactive
teaching
television
other
as students of my
be
displaced
frustrated
by
lack
tend
to
their
and
of control;
spectators
To
invoked.
zapping
strategies
particularly where male viewing
of
are
a
degree, quiz-based applications like Test the Nation (BBC, 2000
-) and
Wbo Wants to be a Millionaire? (Celador/ITV, 1999 -) open this out and

demonstrate the possibility for a more collective interactive experience, but
overall interactive television applications address the owner of the remote
be
has
Morley
this
tends
to
control and as
shown,
overwhelmingly
the
household
(1994).
However, as we shall in the chapters that
the
male of
follow, the applications under discussion do deploy shifting modes of
different
that
to
address
viewsers. As such, my concern moves
speak
beyond simply how gender figures in the way interactive television offers
having
demonstrated
instead,
the
and restricts or rationalises mobility.
discourse
key
in
the promotion and aesthetic of
persistence of mobility as a
interactive applications, I am interested in how the second shift aesthetic
broadcasting
fulfil
ice
to
rationalise viewser mobility
practices of public seii,
discussion
has
Thus,
just
the
institutional
teased
as
above
aims.
generic and
from
in
interactive
how
television's
to
portal
xvinclmv
the
guise
shift
out
discussion
the
the
site
mobility
and
of
gender,
explicates a tension around
199
following
in
individual
the
of
chapters
genres and applications
demonstrates how such a tension exists in the use of interactive television
by the BBC to fulfil public service objectives.
200
Mrs
Mask
.
, r
demonstrates
for
Mack'
'Mrs
OKTV
4.1
the
Advert
platform:
Figure
interactive
OKTV's
application.
"ease" of operating
201
Figure 4.2 A YSponsActive allows the viewser to replay events, watch the
from
different
angles, call up on screen statistics and enjoy the
game
fanzone commentary.
Figure 4.3
SkjActive's bland, heavily text-driven, non-space.
202
Figure 4.4a
Figure 4.4d
Fi9 it re 4.4c
A photo shoot in men's magazine, Arena, therned as
Figure 4.4a-d
TV.
interactive
'homage
to
a
203
Anna Botting's presence in the highlighted window aims to

Figure 4.5
how
the
to
to use the multiscreen SkyNewsActive
reassure
viewsers as
application
tictive
Free
for
Lotto
It
*g4ew vow w Im
raw #,-** LOM %xiat
emc
*Utz;
1:
sawww"ic
C-
T so ask cbe M-1
SOW as quamem
VAN
L
ri
40
11,
SkjActive rebrand: The application now re-imagined as a

Figure 4.6
female
domestic
familiar
in
is
in
the
setting
which
viewser
charge.
cosy and
204
$)2I )TI$.
Figure 4.7 SkyActive's video menu, replicating a 'magazine-style channel

that offers on-demand entertainment and information' (Shepard, quoted in
iTV Today Newsletter, 01/05).
The BBC's Freeview promotion of

Figure 4.8
interactive television services inverts the relationship
between spectacle, control and masculinity.
205
Chapter 5: Viewser mobility, spectacle and the

BBC as public institution - Organising the
interactive
television
navigable space of
This chapter is primarily concerned with the use of interactivity in
history
history
being
The
dictated
choice
of
programming.
natural
natural
by
first-ever
BBC's
Walking
Beasts'
interactive
the
with
position as
not only
documentary, but also by the importance of the genre's place in public
debates
history
image
the
and
association
of
natural
with
moving
service
technologies. As Derek Bous6 has demonstrated, from Eadweard
Muybridge's and Etienne-jobs Maney's pioneering use and adaptation of
late
for
in
the
the study of animal
nineteenth century
cinematic equipment
kinetics, developments in moving image technology have often been
linked with the display, recording and study of wildlife (2000). This chapter
engages with the way in which Walking witb Beasts, as an example of a
display
history,
demands
institution's
the
public
of natural
negotiates
of the
form.
look
beyond
I
the immediate new media practices of portal
genre's
link
forms
to
the
of rationalised mobility on offer through the
structures
Walking wilb Beasts' application to a longer lineage of public institutions'
discussion
history.
displaying
Thus
in
my
of organised
concerns
natural
demonstrates
viewsing as a second shift aesthetic programming strategy
that the portal practices of rationalising user/viewser mobility are not only
being
digital
Rather,
the remediation
as well as
media.
not new practices of
of television's industrial practices., rationalising and regulating spectator
been
has
long
the concern of public
in
mobility,
spaces virtual or real,
institutions. I argue that such a histor- can profitably help us understand
how a public institution, like the BBC, can herd viewsers in the loose
206
for
forms
(rather
boundaries
digital
than
textual
public
service
media
of
commercial) purposes.
Across the chapter I investigate the aesthetic structure of Walking
history
how
Beasts'
to
they
applications
examine
witb
and other natural
negotiate the contradictory pulls of spectacle and educative aims involved
in the display of natural history. Television's position as window here
flaneur
late
to
the
the
and museum-goer of
confers a mobility akin
However,
is
twentieth
this
and
early
century.
nineteenth
re-cast in the
terms of the portal of twenty-first century new media. As a result, my
link
forms
in
is
the
to
these
chapter
predominant concern
earlier
of
interactive
that
the
cyberspaces
of
mobility
and
present
rationalised
within
television's portals. Drawing on Tony Bennett's work (1995) on the
concern of public institutions to rationalise the museum-goer's mobility as a
form of "organised walking", I suggest we can think of this digital media
form of rationality as a textuality of organised viewsing.
As with Newcomb and Hirsch's conception of viewing strip (1983),
here
how
is
to
the viewser's use of the remote control to
my concern
relate
flow
through
the
their
on offer is
navigate, select and programme
way
intimately related to institutional concerns. As Charlotte Brunsdon argues,
Hirsch and Newcomb's conception of the viewing strip 'suggests a
between
broadcast
mediation
provision and individual choice' whereby
'individual[s] negotiate their way through the "flow" on offer
thus
...
different individuals might produce very different texts or viewing strips'
(1998: 107). In the logic of interactive television, the negotiation that

Brunsdon refers to is replaced by the navigation not of the traditional
demands
The
but
flow,
"streams".
of navigation
viewser's
of
scheduled
to
the
textuality
the
control
remote
of organised
of
the
centrality
reinforce
but
just
or
surfing
changing
exploration of
channel
not
allowing
viewsing,
207
the text's boundaries. That is, whereas Newcomb and Hirsch's model
by
find
to
the
to
an audience
out and choose
channel surfing used
referred
from what's on TV, the viewsing strip of organised viewsing explains the
individual viewser's construction of a personalised text in relation to the
herd
BBC
the
to
regulate and
concerns of
viewser-flows. Thus, the second
for
model
of
organised
aesthetic
viewsing
shift
allows
an analysis of the
be
discourses
it
that
to
the
enables
placed within
application
of public
institutions, relating the application to the BBC's concern to regulate the
history
display.
navigation
of
natural
spectator's
Mobility and natural history: From Museum-goer to screen-viewser

In late 2001, the BBC re-branded its interactive services, BBC
Online, BBC Text and BBC Interactive as BBCi, bringing all these new,
digital media sites together under a single identity. The flagship television
for
this re-brand was Walking with Beasts, which the BBC
programme
heralded as launching mass-viewser interactive television as part of the
4:
discursive
Chapter
in
I
wider
moment of spectacle noted
Walking witb Beasts began on BBC One on Thursday,
bringing interactive television into digital households in
After years of false starts, interactive
the UK
...
television is starting to deliver some of the benefits its
been
(BBC
have
long
News
promising
evangelists
Online, 15/11/01).
As I have noted previously, the importance of Walking witb Beasts as the
BBC's flagship application for this re-brand was that it would be interactive
to viewsers on all three digital platforms: satellite, cable and terrestrial. The
following
in
Walking
itb
trilogy,
the
u,
series xvis the second
...
(BBC/Discovery,
Dinosam's
witb
Caveinen (BBC/Discovery,
Walking
1999) and preceding Walking witb
2003). The series' fonnat formed part of what
history
White
Ann
"un-natural"
programming, which
Karen Scott ind
call
life
(2003).
The
introduction
interactive
CGI
of
to
extinct
recreate
used
208
features, which were altered for the following Walking with Cavemen
instalment, allowed digital viewsers to accessa range of extra video, text
and aural content. This included 'Mainstream', 'Making Of', 'Evidence',
'Facts' and 'Alternate Commentary' audio-visual streams, which were
promoted in the title sequence as spaces and content that the viewser
deeper"
for
"explore"
"delve
into
and
could
more information on each
episode's
BeaStS42
The series achieved the fifth highest ratings figures for

.
2001 and, with an audience of over eight million for the first episode,
contributed to BBCI's much publicised trumping of ITVI as Britain's most
directorship.
Greg
Dyke's
popular channel under
Significantly for its interactive features, Walking witb Beasts achieved
high
level
(of
two
of use, with over
a
million viewsers
an available eight
digital
homes
television
at the time the series was aired) pressing
million
the red button during the course of the series; the interactive application
for
linear
BAFTA
'enhancement
of a
media'.
also received a
award
However the programme was also critically lambasted, most notably by
David Attenborough who dismissed it as both 'tacky' and full of the 'bells
Attenborough
CGI
As
such,
and others saw
spectacle.
and whistles' of
Walking witb Beasts as about entertainment rather than education,
discourses
down'
'dumbing
the
that were
the
of
positioning
series within
implicitly
Wheatley
Helen
the
time
shows, outside the
and, as
rife at
discourses of quality, public service broadcasting (quoted in Wheatley,
2004: 330).
I start with this short overview of the production, text and reception
has
Griffiths'
Alison
Beasts
that,
Walking
to
work
as
suggest
ivitb
of
demonstrated, the display of natural history and anthropology has always
'2 The full transcript of the narrator's introduction is reproduced in Chapter 4, which discusses
interactive
delivered
by
be
to
television.
foregrounds
tY
the
promise of mobill
how the sequence
209
between
been (and continues to be) a 'site [ofl complex negotiations
...
in
commerce
attempting to strike the
anthropology, popular culture and
balance
(2002:
47).
between
In this
spectacle
and profit'
education,
right
balance
by
I
this
trace
the
to
presence
of
precarious
chapter aim
public
institutions from the late-nineteenth century to the present day; from the
history
display
in
its
in interactive
the
to
of
natural
museum
exhibition
television. In particular, my concern is with the relationship between the
activity of the spectator, that is their perceived virtual and actual mobility,
balancing
have
demonstrated,
As
Griffiths'
Bennett's
this
act.
and
and
work
the development of the museum as a public institution led to an attempt to
display natural history that focused on the didactic aims of the museum,
differentiating itself from the 'vulgar' display of anthropology and natural
history in amusement parks, cabinets of curiosity and fairs (Bennett, 1995).
The simultaneous development of an increasingly mobile citizenry and
developments
(due
in transport technology and types of
to
gaze
nascent
describes
flaneur-ism,
Anne
Friedberg
as
public spaces available), which
by
focused
the museum to
this
on an attempt
meant
concern was often
from
distracted
differentiate
itself
the
spectatorial glance and
counteract and
behaviour of the flaneur.

Importantly, as Friedberg's work demonstrates, this mobile spectator
forms
to
a virtual gaze, which although apparent across all
Nvasconnected
dramatically
by
'produced
photography'
most
of visual representation was
"virtual"'
"mobile"
'combined
the
the
the
with
and
cinema, which
(Friedberg, 1993: 2-3). As a result, similar concerns to those of the
introduction
the
spectators' physical mobility accompanied
of moving
image technology into the museum space and the didactic aims of natural
histoi- display. The museum was therefore part of a larger cultural milieu
in which mobility intersected with various modes of spectatorship. Henry

210
Fairfield Osborne, curator of the American Museum of Natural History,
for
be
'journey
itself
thought
the
those who can
of as
stated
museum
might
(quoted
53).
Bennett
1996:
Griffiths,
in
travel'
not
positions this concern to
form
the
of organised walking,
spectator's movement as a
regulate
fair
the
the
museum,
and the permanent amusement park all
whereby
shared 'a concern to regulate the performative aspects of their visitors'
different
for
in
its
is
"organised walking"'
way,
a place
conduct ... each,
(1995:6).
As discussed in Chapter 4, the prominence of discourses of mobility
is reprised by the current development of interactive television. The
invitation for the viewser to "explore" and "delve deeper" into the
"fascinating world" of Walking witb Beasts calls up the imaginative journey
is
It
television's
of
worth recalling Jacobs' assertion
here that early television offered the audience a form of mobility through
television's association with nascent telecommunication
and transport
technologies. Through this association, television made an 'invitation to

journeyfrom
the living room with the broadcasters to distant events and
locations' (Jacobs, 2000: 25). Similarly, Walking witb Beasts' invitation to

journey into this 'world' is influenced by the aesthetic and discursive
capacities of contemporaneous telecommunications
technologies, such as
the Internet, World Wide Web and the possibilities of convergence with
have
digital
is
in
As
I
this
the
most
apparent
suggested,
other
media.
discursive
and production practices of portals, which are
aesthetic,
predominantly
concerned with rationalising the movement of user/viewser-
flows.
However, I want to concentrate more directly on the mobility
forms
here.
digital,
As
Janet
Murray's
digital
by
work on
media
offered
digital
media present environments 'with 'space that
interactiVe texts argues,
211
As
Murray's
89,
(1997:
mine).
and work
emphasis
we can move tbrougb'
demonstrates,
(2007)
digital
Zapp's
(2001)
Manovich's
media
and
such as
forms often present imaginary places that attempt to constitute the
immersed
Their
within
navigable
spaces.
and
spectator as mobile, active
it
is
in
implicitly
through
the
that
control
of
a
character
suggests
a
work
is
As
Manovich
immersion
that
this
achieved.
argues, in games
narrative
itself
'narrative
Doom
Myst
time
and
are equated with
and
such as
(2001:
3D
145).
interactive
in
through
television
contrast,
space'
movement
applications generally present the viewser with a range of content to
form
from
laid
has
largely
This
is
that
taken
the
spatially
out.
of
choose
laid
is
in
content
spatially
out
a series of video
structures,
whereby
portal
windows that allow viewsers to navigate across a choice of video streams,
BBC
Sky
SkySponsActive
the
the
the
and
and
news applications of
such as
discussed in the preceding chapter. As a result, the movement here is
essentially planimetric: the viewser scrolls across a two-dimensional
X- and
Y-axis of the application's portal or menu screen. However this movement,

by
limited
is
in
Walking
Beasts,
the
witb
supplemented
particularly
introduction of what Jeremy Butler usefully terms a third, Z-axis, which
'pokes out at the viewer [sic] or recedes into the background' (2001: 325).
This Z-axis is essentially a psychological movement that relates to the sense
that using interactive applications involves a journeying (for those who
broadcast
from
the
travel):
programme to the
channel's scheduled
cannot
"behind"
interactive
igable
transmitted
the
the
application
nax,
space of
broadcast flow"'
Discussing why and how he became interested in developing the
Gibson
William
recalls watching youths at a video
notion of cyberspace,
43,As I suggestedin the previous Chapter, this is aptly connoted by the term 'the bridge' used by
interface
in-between
button.
that
describe
the
the
greets
viewsers
industry
on
to
pressing
red
the
212
in
believed
kids
these
the
'these
space
games projected.
arcade:
clearly
Everyone who works with computers seems to develop an intuitive faith
behind
(quoted
kind
in Lury,
the
that there's some
screen'
of actual space
2001: 17). Such a view is evident in the grandiloquence of Walking witb
Beasts' introductory sequence, which attempts to inscribe a sense of a
by
behind
deeper"
"delve
the
the
to
encouraging
screen
viewser
space
and
"explore" the interactive spaces of the programme by pressing the red
button. The application's interface then demands the viewser navigates the
different streams of content, reinforcing this sense of movement as viewsers

find
between
different
in
to
out what's going on
streams
areas switch
4what is the evidence for this?', 'how did they make thaff. As viewsers
between
in
streams
search of answers to these questions or simply
switch
in
the
the
the mainstream, which
exploring
application,
narrative continues
below,
back
in on narrative
I'll
to
the
to
check
as
come
requires
viewser
by
The
sense of movement connoted
switching
moments sporadically.
between streams is further signalled by a slight delay as data-streams are
jumped between. By requiring a relatively high degree of perceptual,
demands
of the television viewser therefore, the
cognitive and motor
Walking
the
of
witb
videostreams
experience of accessing and navigating
Beasts seeks to create what Geoffrey King and Tania Krzywinska describe
into
is
in
'immersive
the
the
absorbed
viewser
which
effect'
as an
illusion
the
to
of a quasi-physical sensory
establish
application, attempting
least
in
in,
the
control of, the onscreen world
or
at
viewser
presence of
(2006: 28). This sense of movement makes the text non-linear and, in the
liberatory thinking of some cyber-theorists (and more importantly its
by
industry),
to
their
the
own version
create
the
viewser
allows
promotion
be
indeed
Murray
However,
correct about
may
whilst
of the programme.
immersive.
digital
to
navigable
technologies
create
the ability of
213
bear
Caldwell's
in
important
it
is
to
mind
assertion that such
environments,
by
those who author
and
constrained
spaces are, nevertheless, rationalised
has
framed
Thus
them.
television's
always
the
window
constantly
whilst
interactive
it
television's portal structures and
the
world offers,
view onto
rationalises the viewser's movements within that world.
This is recognised by Manovich who, drawing on de Certeau,
by
demands
is
this
that
the
exploration of
world
regulated
suggests
of
narrative: 'in Greek, narration is called "diagesis": it establishes an itinerary
(it guides) and it passes through (it "transgresses")' (2001: 245-6). However,
Manovich adopts contradictory positions. On the one hand he suggests that
narrative provides constraints on the user's movements, on the other hand
he finds that discussions and theorisations of the mobility of digital media
flaneur
because
figure's
too
the
this
often
positions
users
user as
of
inattentiveness. He suggests that for 'the virtual flaneur, such operations as
hyperlinking,
search, segmentation,
data
mining are more
visualisation and
satisfying than just navigating through a simulation of a physical space'.

Manovich's characterisation of the spaces of the computer therefore
linking
figure
in
the
to
the
of the computer user
continues
control,
put
user
Obid:
literature
268-73). Whilst Manovich's
American
the
with
explorer of
have
kind
he
here
I
is
that
to
the
suggested
of criticism
work
susceptible
here
demonstrates
for
(c.
f.
it
2),
interests
Chapter
the
my
generally eschews
flaneur
the
the
continued use of
as
persistence and problernatics of
digital
for
the
user or viewser.
metaphor
As I have suggested above, this figure has been of particular
importance to debates about the display of natural history and
dismisses
Thus
Manovich
in
the
the
whilst
museum.
anthroPology
for
because
inattentiveness,
flaneur
its
perceived
of
my
relex-mice of the
discussion of the display of natural history in interactive television it is
214
to
the
second shift
attention
this
paying
precisely
concern that makes
That
is,
important.
as with the concern of the
rationalities of the application
display
from
differentiate
itself
the
of anthropology and
vulgar
museum to
fairs,
history
in
the
of
curiosity
and
natural
amusement parks, cabinets
distracted attention of the interactive viewser must be marshalled for the

didactic aims of the BBC as a public institution (Bennett, 1995). Essentially
the interactive structure of Walking witb Beasts can be considered, rather
than simply an individually
navigated and programmed experience, a
'organised
the
museum's
walking': organised viewsing,
remediation of
for
the
the
museum-goer's physical mobility
which swaps a concern with
portal practices of new media that regulate and rationalise the virtual
discuss,
As
I
to
the
the
go on
application's viewser-flows.
mobility of
distracted
to
gaze is not simply a technologically
regulate a
concern
determined distinction between the active computer user and passive

television audience, but is rather intimately related to the generic and
institutional concerns of natural history display. Before going on to
consider the public service second shift aesthetics of Walking witb Beasts, I
first
to
want
examine the notions of spectacle and education, which
distraction
between
in
the
the
tension
the
terms
and
attention
of
establish
display of natural history.
Balancing spectacle and education: Mobility and the aims of

display
history
natural
The primacy of the visual as a conduit of scientific
knowledge, the emphasis on spectator mobility, both
didactic
the
consumerism
values of
real and virtual and
linked the nineteetith century experiences of the
department store shopper, the natural history museumfilm
Midway
spectator
gawker and early
goer,
(Griffiths, 2002: 84).
215
The tropes of spectacle within natural history display might be

broadly broken into three categories, which have remained remarkably
history
its
Firstly,
there is the
the
sites
of
exhibition.
and
across
consistent
in
that
the aesthetic of the sublime
awe
nature
and
sense of wonderment
by
framing,
the
staging or production of those
can evoke, often aided
involved in its display. These "generic" moments of natural history
be,
framed
(in
Classical
invisibly
Hollywood
to
attempt
a
spectacle are, or
sense) - whether in cinema, television or museum - and the spectacle is of

for
life
itself;
"natural"
taxidermy
example, a
moment, object or specimen
a
display
hind
legs.
Grizzly
Bear,
Within
the cinematic
a
of
reared
on
group
display
history
this is most often the moment of
televisual
of natural
and
(or
lesson)
in
is
the
this
the
case,
educational
predation, where
narrative
for
dramatic
be
in
to
order
a
moment
played out, usually to the
suspended
its
that
accompaniment of a score
reinforces
visually arresting and visceral
''.
nature Secondly, there is the spectacle of verisimilitude: recognising that
display
Scott
is
For
is
and White, this spectacle
on
man-made nature.
what
takes form in Bolter and Grusin's terms of immediacy, achieved through
the claims to life-likeness by digital technologies' CGI rendering of
dinosaurs.
beasts
in
Walking witb Dinosaurs
Most
notably,
prehistoric
and
this is achieved in the series' sixth episode when 'as the camera moves in
for an extreme close-up, the roaring tyrannosaurus seems to shower it with
(2003:
lens'
323).
Griffiths'
As
the
work attests
saliva, which again obscures
in relation to the balance of spectacle and education, because attempts to

imitate nature have always been aligned with the spectacular in natural
44Indeed, programmes such as Builtfor the Kill (Discovery/Granada Wild, 2000 -) are premised
As
the
display
these
programme's pressreleasepromised:
moments.
spectacular
the
of
entirely on
deconstructs
Kill
Builtfor
in
the
the
2400
programme.
minutes and seconds
each
edits
'With over
in
light'
(National
Geographic
kill,
these
predation
a
acts
of
whole
new
leading up to a
revealing
th
2003).
November
25
Release,
Press
Channel
216
history display, some museum curators advocated the use of anti-realist

'the
impression
in
to
peclagogic
retain
order
representational strategies
[rather] than a totalising verisimilitude' (Griffiths, 1996: 72).

The third form of spectacle foregrounds the display apparatus itself.
We might most easily align this to Tom Gunning's work on the early
becomes
the
narrative or content
cinema of attractions, whereby
secondary
demonstration
his
'frame
in
to
string a
words, a
upon which
of the
or,
65).
(Gunning,
discussed
1986:
As
in the
magical possibilities of cinema'
heralded
interactive
the
television
arrival of
was widely
previous chapter,
by
industry
the
television
as
a
moment
of
spectacle
and
promoted
and
be
by
That
Walking witb Beasts'
this
trope
promoted
audience alike.
will
foregrounded
by
interactive
is
television
to
the
the series'
audience
use of
title sequence, which culminates in a close-up of Sabretooth Tiger who
break
frame
its
to
the
sabres
and rip apart the
roars and reaches out with
logo
(figure
forms
discussed
here
5.1)45
The
title
three
of
spectacle
series'
.
often coalesce, importantly and intimately connected across the various
technologies of display to the mobility of the spectator in the balancing of
from
As
to
the
this
section
opening quote
spectacle and education.
Griffiths' attests, it is the primacy of the visual and its relationship to
different
history
links
these
that
experiences of natural
spectator mobility
and is most evident in this negotiation of spectacle.

Bennett's discussion of organised walking suggests that the
arrangement of exhibits across the architectural space of the museum is
designed to use sequential locomotion to present the visitor with an

itinerary that reveals an evolutionary order of things. As Bennett suggests,
flaneur,
by
Midway
'enjoined
the
gav\,per and
the museum,
contrast with
the visitor to comply with a programme of organised walking which
45This moment recalls MGM's famous growling lion logo that accompaniedits cinema releases.
217
directed
highly
into
and sequentialised
transformed any tendency to gaze
a
Griffiths
implicitly
However,
looking'
(1995:
186).
as
argues,
practice of
forms
Bennett's
of
a
guiding
principle
under
much
which
spectacle often
as
She
is
out.
played
argues that:
notion of organised walking
the spaces between the museum life groups
by
be
the
museum-goer can ...
experienced
read as
largely
they
consisted of
anticipatory, since
failed
that
to attract the
supplementary materials
in
the compelling manner of the
spectator's attention
life group tableaux (Griffiths, 1996: 61).
That these life groups, through their visually arresting presence in size and
form
borne
by
is
Donna
of spectacle
out
verisimilitude, acted as a
Haraway's work on the visceral experience of the American Museum of
Natural History. Haraway describes the layout of the American Museum of
Natural History's Akeley Hall of African Mammals as dominated by the
display of African Elephants, standing in the centre of the room 'like a high
(1989:
in
29). She implicitly realises
the
the
great cathedral'
altar
nave of
their awe-inspiring size and verisimilitude as a form of spectacle, positing
that they stand so large and life-like that a moment's fantasy would see
them awaken from their dream-like stasis (ibid). in a fashion akin to the
life-sized replica of the Blue Whale in the British Museum of Natural
History, the display of African Elephants dominates not only the entire
floor
floor
but
is
terraced around
third
the
as
well,
which
second
gallery,
the exhibit to allow a bird's eye and/or close up view of the spectacles.
The positioning of this display as a "must see" spectacle is confirmed by
displays
by
floor
that
the museum's
of spectacle
specifically pick out
plans
illustration
of the exhibit, rather than simply naming
providing a shadowed
floor
(figure
5.2).
Such
(as
is
plans organise
the gallery
generally the case)
distract
their
the
to
attention within
trip
and
yet
museum
visitors' overall
life
by
domination
such
groups
of space
the individual gallery: the
218
privileges the moment of spectacle and encourages the visitor to stop in

focus
Visitors
through
the
the
gallery
pass
awe of
with a
exhibit.
on one
by
little
is
very
explanatory text, by-passing
exhibit, which
accompanied
dioramas
and explanations of natural history. The
many other exhibits,
presence of other spectacular exhibits, marked on the floor plans, then

distraction
this
pattern
of
organised
continues
walking and
as visitors
organise their time around the must-see exhibits; thus perennial favourites
dinosaurs
form
floor
both
in
iconic
the
similarly appear
such as
on
plans of
museums.
Griffiths' work demonstrates that the scale and verisimilitude of the
'life group' often served to stupefy and entertain, rather than educate the
museum-goer.
For Franz Boas, the American Museum of Natural History's
during
from
danger
life
1905,
the
the
the
curator
mid-1890s until
of
group
distract
from
that
their
the
the
was
realism would
spectator's attention
intended scientific aims, displacing the anthropological
object-lesson 'in
favour of a fascination with the technical means of the human facsimile'
(Griffiths, 1996: 71). In a similar vein, the mimetic properties of film and
the predominance of the "big hunt" films at the turn of the century caused
film
display
in
the
the
museum's
a similar anxiety about
of natural
use of
history (c. f. Bouse, 2000). Haraway demonstrates that these debates
film
development
its
technology
the
and
of
use to counter
coincided with
hoax activity regarding "wildest Africa" in anthropology and natural history.

On the one hand filmmakers such as Osa Johnson proclaimed that the
4camera cannot be deceived', yet on the other, aligned this truth-telling
function with discourses of spectacle and profit, proclaiming that 'this Big
Feature is going to be the biggest money maker ever placed on the market
danger
film
be
be
there
it Nvill
that
of another
no
of
will
spectaculaiso
...
like nature competing with it' (quoted in Haraway, 1989: 45, emphasis
219
mine). Thus as Griffiths argues, cinema was perceived as a threat to the

didactic
newly established
regime of the rest of the museum environment.
The eventual introduction of film to the museum space was on condition
that it be accompanied by a lecture, whereby its meaning could be
lecturer
(c.
f.
in
Griffiths,
the
the
authority
scientific
vested
via
mediated
1998). Thus despite the invention of the kinetoscope in 1893 the adoption
by the American Museum of Natural History (one of the first museums to
film)
did
fifteen
later.
To this end,
not occur until
years
experiment with
the introduction of moving image technology added greater tension to the
balancing act of education and spectacle: cinema's capacity for visual
splenclour was thought to inherently invoke irrational, emotional responses
that the museum sought to contain. As Friedberg's work on the flaneur and
immobility
is
the
the
of
cinema spectator
compensated, or
cinema suggests,
fixity
by,
(1993:
2-3).
imaginary
the
that
such
provided
mobilities
rewarded
As we shall see in the discussion below, a concern to regulate this
imaginative mobility for the purposes of the public institution's didactic
in
image
technology in
the
of
moving
aims remains a central concern
use
the display of natural history.
To complete this trajectory of balancing spectacle and education in
the display of natural history it is worth briefly situating television's
debates
history
the
to
these
and
place and style of natural
relationship
discussion
7-be
Blue
Planet
Wheatley's
Whilst
of
programming.
(BBC/Discovery, 2001) is not concerned with discourses of mobility, her
demonstrates
debates
history
the
continuing relevance of
work on natural
display
in
its
balancing
on
of spectacle and entertainment
about the
for
in
BBC
the museum as public institution.
standing
television, with the
history
Often marketed as "event television", natural
programming has
debates
broadcasting
held
in
be
as an example
public service
up
tended to
220
fulfils
because
it
the traditional edict of
ostensibly
of quality programming
doing
in
informing
so
a visually spectacular way that
educating and
whilst
large
does
Drawing
but
in
numbers.
so
not only entertains,
on Charlotte
Brunsclon's work on quality television drama, Wheatley repurposes
Brunsdon's categories of quality for natural history television as 'Proven
facV,
'best
British
'export
of
presenting',
value' and expensive
scientific
(Wheatley,
'upper-middle-class
2004:
to
taste
according
codes'
production
328-9). Wheatley's detailed textual analysis of the BBC's flagship natural
history programme of 2001, its status sitting in contrast to Walking witb
Beasts' position as flag-bearer for digital television, convincingly positions
Tbe Blue Planet as an example of quality television. Here Tbe Blue Planet's
balancing
its
is
television
to
careful
owed
of
status as quality, public service
lead
display
that
to
spectacle and education
a
of "visual pleasure" in
accordance with upper-middle
class taste codes. That is, whilst the
by
the
the
aims
of
educative
programme were somewhat subverted
display,
the series' use of a specially commissioned
emphasis on visual
film
languid
lighting,
stock and
editing pace all
orchestral score, cinematic
served to place a primacy on visual pleasure, rather than the raw, visceral
based
that
are usually
on moments of predation.
moments of spectacle
As Wheatley's discussion elucidates, by conforming to such notions
functioned
7-be
Planet
Blue
of quality,
as a piece of event television that
licence
fee.
BBC's
As I
the
to
on
served
rebuke a sustained period of attack
suggested in Chapters 2 and 3, this arose out of prominent arguments in
favour of de-regulation of the television market in favour of consumer
choice that x\-erecoupled with television's move to the period of excess.

Similarly to Wheatley's argument regarding Tbe Blue Planet, Walking witb
Beasts can be read as a form of event television that sought to assert the
face
brought
in
BBC
the
criticism,
which
of sustained
relevance of the
221
by
'into
broadcasting
industry regulators,
question
notions of public service
(ibid:
327). However,
media professionals and television viewers alike'
Tbe
Blue Planet conformed to well-established taste codes and
whilst
Beasts'
Walking
witb
status as event television relied on
of
quality,
notions
its spectacular status as the harbinger of interactive television, re-imagining
television's window as a new media portal. As a result, the application
balancing
have
to
the
manage
of education and spectacle with a
would
introducing
of
viewser
movement,
new concerns in the way we
regulation
judge public service value in the digital age by returning us to a concern
discussion
below
Thus
the
with spectator mobility.
attests to the way in
which the primacy of the visual and its relationship to perceived and actual
spectator mobility echoes throughout the halls of natural history display.
Spectacle andpublic institution: From the museum to the BBC

The broadcast version of Walking witb Beasts - which was available
to watch as a straight-forward linear programme throughout the interactive
transmission via the main feature video stream (hereinafter the

4mainstream') - mimicked the natural history genre by narrating the lifehabitat.
beasts
The narrative
CGI
in
their
stories of various
un-natural
followed an invented life-story of various beasts that saw them experience
the traditional trials of life, such as birth, mating and, of course, moments
of predation. The interactive application provided the viewser with much
four
by
detail
information
the
supplementing
mainstream with
more
and
being
in
turn,
able to
giving a sense of
alternative video and audio streams;
'inove around' and explore the programme (and by implication the
'fascinating world of Beasts'). The application consisted of two
Of',
Tvidence'
'Making
and
an additional audio
videostreams entitled,
222
commentary and 'Facts' stream, which consisted of a series of pop-up text
boxes that gave information on climate, biology and the beasts themselves.
Before going on to discuss the aesthetic structure of this application,
digital
broadcast
difference
between
the
and
versions of the programme is
here.
discussing
briefly
In particular, the presence of a more inworth
depth additional audio commentary raises important issues in relation to
broadcast
Whilst
the
and
service
provision
universalism.
public
by
Kenneth Brannagh, viewsers of
narrated
programme's mainstream was
the digital transmission application had the choice to accessan alternative,

by
Dilly Barlow (who was a prominent
more scientific, commentary voiced
flagship
BBC's
the
current affairs programme, Horizon (BBC,
reporter on
1964- ). It would be an easy, and to a degree accurate, argument to make

at this point that the provision of this alternative commentary, together with
the four other videostrearns of content that seek to explain, elucidate and
interrogate the spectacular image track, reinforces a digital divide between
the have and have-nots of digital television. However as my discussion in
Chapter 3 suggests, digital television has not always been so straightforwardly linked to wealth and class as might be expected in relation to
digital
information
the
technologies
of
other
revolution and its subsequent
division of the information rich and poor that is inextricably linked to
wealth.
Indeed, although Walking witb Beasts' interactive application was
the first to be available across all digital television platforms, the carriage
digital
both
terrestrial severely restricted the number
cable and
capacity of
in
"transport
information
the
transmitted
application's
of videostreams and
digital
As
terrestrial the application
a result, on
stream" on these platforms.
beasts
fact-boxes
limited
the
to
viewser could call up on
within
Nvas
individual episodes (repurposed from the 'Beast fact-files' available on the
223
discuss
below
I
was only
programme)s website), whilst the version
being
(cable
Sky's
viewsers
able to access an
available on
satellite service
between
lay
Linked
these
two
to
positions).
that
application
somewhere
in
discussion
the pervious chapter, therefore, the
platforms
my
of class and
detailed
Sky's
the
to
application
was
available
of
more
version
most
household,
who are predominantly
working-class
figured on the opposite
find
divide
here.
digital
However in
they
themselves
the
on
side of
interviews with the series interactive executive producer, Marc Goodchild,

he noted that the use of Brannagh had polarised responses, positioning the
debates
dumbing
down.
the
then
still current
about
programme within
Equally, from the BBC's perspective, the scheduling of the programme on
BBC1 was 'meant to show Walking witb Beasts wasn't meant for a science
for
So
interactive
the
the core audience by
audience.
application catered
by
Dilly Barlow's 'trusted
offering something more substantial', signalled
Thus,
Goodchild
it
interest,
that
argues
voice'.
was
rather than issues of
differentiated
from
its
the
class or wealth, which
programme's viewsers
he
(Interview
25/01/03).
is still careful to
Nevertheless,
conducted
tudience
suggest that the two commentaries were not poles apart, noting that the
two were written and recorded simultaneously with changes in one script
be
being
in
it
included
Whilst
the
other.
would
na*fveto
affecting and
did
interactive
that
the
not raise issues related to a
accept
application
digital divide, as I'll go on to show in my discussion of the application's
balancing
its
of spectacle and educative aims, it
aesthetic organisation and
is doubtftil that viewsers were privileged by the excess of videostreams and

audio-commentaries on offer.
Returning to the aesthetic structure of the interactive application,
figure 5.3 displays the application's use of the BBC's more widely
224
here
indicate
The
titles
the
i-bar'6.
colour-coded
circulated onscreen
between
streams via the use of their
planimetric movement available
for
five
The
the
to
streams
viewser
explore.
control:
out
remote
setting
sense of movement, as the viewser chose to switch streams, was reinforced
by the series' attempt to mimic the replacement aesthetic of computing
Thus
the chosen
or
slide
one
stream
would
wipe
across
another.
whereby
dominate
to
the screen, whilst the
stream's window would move
(figure
5.4).
is
into
When viewsers chose to
tiled
the
top
corner
mainstream
brief
in
jumped
there
transmission
they
streams,
a
pause
was
as
change
between streams to access new content, further underlining the sense of
(Interview
involved
in
the
text
exploring
mobility
application's navigable
Goodchild,
25/01/03).
Consequently,
interactive
Mark
the
conducted
with
form
had
in
its
to negotiate, and
of spectacle
own right application - as a
be sure not to undermine, the twin forms of spectacle already apparent:
CGI verisimilitude and the generic moments of predation written into the
had
As
Beasts
Walking
to perform a
witb
a result,
programme's narratives.
double balancing act, weighing spectacle against educative aims whilst
forms
different
of spectacle against one another.
simultaneously pitting
The two 'Evidence' and 'Making of' videostreams were formatted
into short segments, such as an interview with a scientific expert or series
fairly
intervals.
Importantly,
at the end
regular
producer, which occurred at
of each segment, the viewser was provided with an aural prompt regarding
for
in
the
the
the narrative events
mainstream's story, which acted as cues
These
to
the
to
cues effectively provided a
mainstream.
\,iewser
return
between
for
the
streams, ensuring
viewser's movement
means
organising
" Until the bridge was re-designed so as to always be the viewser's first encounterwith the
BBC's interactive application and, in turn, to mimic the more familiar systemof page numbers
for
i-bar
had
been
BBC
the
Teletext.
by
the
aesthetic
predominant
structure
navigating
established
interactive applications. The i-bar effectively showed the viewser. through an onscreen
buttons
their
the
how
the
colour
on
to
application
via
remote
control.
navigate
representation.
225
they were presented with a text that was more coherent - as to watch one
happening
on another, most
stream of content was to miss what was
problematically, this included the mainstream's narrative and moments of
Sabretooth,
in
For
the
the narrative
entitled
episode
example,
spectacle.
follows the life story of the CGI Smillodon character Half-Tooth, which
includes various moments of predation and conflict with fellow Smillodons.

For the viewser watching these subsidiary videostreams, the balancing of
by
is
timing the running of
spectacle and educative aims performed
data
interviews
to end when particularly
and scientific
segments with
due
be
to
played out on the mainstream. As in
spectacular moments are
figure 5.4, at these moments the small video window of the mainstream is
tiled back to dominate the viewser's screen, accompanied by an aural
do
battle
"watch
Half-Tooth
to
to
the
to
return
rejoinder
narrative
Such
timings and reminders acted as a form of regulation on the viewser's

exploration of the text's navigable space so as to ensure the viewser on any
dual
both
is
involving
to
this
stream able
enjoy
moment of spectacle,
predation and a high degree of verisimilitude
fight.
Smilloclons
the
as
The use of spectacle as an organising principle is most apparent in

the episode Land of Giants, where a chase between two beasts is slowed
into bullet-time, the camera rotating around the adversaries as they slip in
the wet conditions. Not only is this moment presented as spectacle in the
(both
by
mainstream completely suspending narrative and educative aims
but
during
'Evidence'
the
timing
the
the
of
chase) commentaries pause
stream's segmented content coincides to allow the viewser to return to this

(again,
so as to ensure the action can
visceral encounter on the mainstream
be watched in the glory of a full-screen screen image, rather than in a
devoted
Of'
is
'Making
Finally,
the
to
stream
an
reduced x-ideo-window).
be
how
the
to
allowing
spectacle
this
moment was achieved,
account of
226
(figure
both
in
5.5).
Thus
this
screen
present
as
stream's
well
windows on
the organised viewsing experience of Walking witb Beasts ensured that
those viewsers who responded to the accompanying map or guide were
lost
in the technical wizardry of interactivity or the (comparatively) vast
not
digital
but
content,
similarly to the shaded icons on the museum's
spaces of
floor plan, were guided through their journey via the prominence of
spectacular moments and images"
The timing and interrelationship
of Walking witb Beasts' many
demonstrates
that the application was not simply an amorphous
streams
digital
but
The
to
of
content
explore,
was
rather
a
rationalised
space.
world
imaginative journey through television's window was therefore restricted to
a portal that organised and regulated viewser-flows to showcase the series'
high production values and moments of spectacle. Ostensibly a spectacular
transformation of television's window into a new media form, the

application's concern to regulate viewser-flows remains remarkably similar
to the concern to regulate spectator mobility in the display and
in
the museum.
space
organisation of exhibition
However, as a public institution the BBC's organisation of the text's
for
navigable spaces around principles of spectacle remains problematic
the question of balancing education and spectacle. David Attenborough's
denouncement of the programme's showcasing of "whistles and bells"
technology indicates that the programme's need to balance forms of
spectacle against one another undermined the negotiation of spectacle and
form
interactivity
Furthermore,
the
as a
of
promotion of
educative aims.
beasts
CGI
its
the
to
in
recreate
use of
own right, combined with
spectacle
(whose verisimilitude
blockbuster
be
judged
the
graphics of
against
-,vas to
" This fear of conftision can perhapsbe more appropriately thought of as the paranoia of
have I missedjust now"'.
227
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)), meant the programme failed to conform to

the middle-class taste codes that Brunsdon (1997) and Wheatley (2004)
be
to
show
so crucial in the category of quality television. Whilst the
application's interactive structure sought to organise the space of natural
history's display, the desire to promote the programme and application as
for
digital
BBC's
interactive service
the
new
spectacular advertisements
denunciation.
in
the
programme's
resulted
This criticism arguably reverberates with those anxieties that
surrounded the introduction
of cinema into the museum space around the
turn of the twentieth century: in the present case fed by broader anxieties
digital
introduction
imaging technologies, largely in the
the
of new
over
form of CGI, into the didactic regime of the BBC as public institution. just
film's
display
history
in
the
place
of natural
and anthropology met with
as
fears of hoax features on wildest Africa, the use of CGI technology has
(it
is notable
the
accuracy of such programming
provoked concerns over
that CGI-based natural history programmes have, thus far, not been
but
by
by
BBC
BBC's
Natural
History
Unit
the
rather
produced
renowned
Science). Although the use of CGI largely stands in for the place of cinema
historical
in
this
trajectory, arguably the
the
technology
as
of anxiety
interactive
television caused similar consternations
position and use of
broadcaster
in
BBC's
the
an onservice
as
a
public
about what
role
demand, personalised, digital environment might be. Arguably, the desire
to showcase the BBC's leading and innovating role in this area led to
Walking 111ilbBeasts being far too complex and difficult to use for the
(British
BAFTA
Academy
Film
Indeed
the
of
and
application's
viewser.
Television Arts) award was the subject of some debate, as industry
'controversial
the
the
Broadc(ist
a
series
winner'
of
A-as
reported,
magazine
linear
before
(having
for
the
BAFTA
media
won
a,vard
enhancement of a
228
the series even aired). Jonathan Webb, Flextech's director of interactive

Beasts
'did
Walking
that
simply
witb
not work as a piece of
media, claimed
(quoted
25/11/02,
in
Broadcast,
TV'
site accessed 09/04/03).
enhanced
indeed, Mark Goodchild admitted the series was 'too ambitious', as it did
for
the viewser. Returning to the
not produce a coherent narrative
importance of the commentary track discussed earlier, Goodchild notes that
the use of Dilly Barlow was not only about signalling more serious
her
but
'trusted
through
voice',
was also a necessary
scientific content
decision
between
to
aide viewser navigation
streams: an earlier
aesthetic
trial using two male voices failed to clearly indicate the shift when viewsers
he
However,
to
change streams.
opted
argued that
many of the problems with interactive applications will
be solved by an on-demand version of television
[which]
to
would
allow
a
more
coherent
narrative
...
be followed by returning to the point where one left
the mainstream to explore the subsidiary ones
(Interview conducted on 25/01/03).
Such an on-demand vision of interactive television posits a truly postbroadcast landscape as the goal, where television's liveness is increasingly
for
by
However,
the
the
supplemented
real-time ontologies of computing.
moment we must still consider interactive applications in relation to
liveness and the way in which they master the metric of (viewser) time.
To a degree, the problems experienced by Walking witb Beasts
digital
divide.
the
that
programme created a
undermine any accusations
Similarly to the contemporary museum, which as Ann Witcomb's work
demonstrates has increasingly turned to interactivity as a means of both
Walking
Beasts
witb
evidences a
enticing entrants and organising material,
foreground
its
by
BBC
to
use of new media
the
experiment and
concern
increasingly
institutions
landscape
in
are
where such public
capacities a
forced to justify their existence and state fundiiip, 'with visitor numbers
229
(Witcomb, 2003). For the BBC, the primacy placed on innovation, and the
form
in
it
draw
the
of spectacle, obscured the
need to
attention to
large
degree.
Nevertheless,
Walking witb
to
a
aims
programme's educative
Beastsdoes stands as a stark reminder for the potential for a digital division
to occur, during not only the switchover period to the UK's full
digitalisation (which in 2001 left over half the population without the
interactive add-ons), but also beyond this into the next period of television
differences
between
technological
platforms will continue to see a
when
large differentiation between the kinds of applications Freeview and the
handle.
As I noted in Chapter 3, there is some concern
other platforms can
that if HDTV continues to be pushed as an industry standard, the limited
bandwidth available on the Freeview platform will severely restrict the
large
to
transmit
platform's ability
a
number of channels in HDTV signals.
Similarly, the limited carriage capacity of the platform will necessarily limit
the development of interactive applications for Freeview viewsers, creating
divide
between
them and their Sky and possibly cable viewsers (as
a
discussed in earlier chapters, cable is currently the least supported platform
for interactive applications, although its position in delivering Internet
Protocol Television will radically alter this in the near future).
Whilst Goodchild might contend that on-demand interactivity might
soh,e some of the complex navigational problems of Walking witb Beasts,
this is not something that has developed at the time of writing but is
increasingly achieved through the penetration of DVR Harddrive recorders
like Sky+, which allow the audience to programme their own flow of
be
(if
interactive
applications) and might
profitably thought of,
not
sliows
discuss,
in terms of the viewsing strip
I
together NvIth other applications
focus
here.
However,
I
to
I'm
want
retain mon natural
proposing
model
history here by closing this discussion with an examination of

230
developments in interactive application in two subsequent BBC natural

history programmes: Walking witb Cavemen and 7-beLife ofMammals.
These programmes continued to rehearse debates that I have outlined

balancing
but
in
do so in
to
the
of
spectacle
and education,
above relation
had
learnt
BBC
interactive
from
television
where
producers
a context
Walking witb Beasts' mistakes. As Tom Williams (BBC's Creative Director of
Interactive Television) expressed in an interview conducted in 2004, the
BBC's interactive production design works under a rationale of simplicity:
'if one menu is bad [in that it requires viewser to understand and navigate
it], two menus is even worse' (Interview conducted on 26/08/04).
Walking witb Cavemen's premise was to send presenter, Professor
Robert Winston, back in time for a closer look at our evolutionary
(resulting
in the series being populated by a large number of
ancestors
in
ape-suits, who would make appropriate "ooh ooh" noises and
extras
clamber enthusiastically across the set). The use of Winston is interesting
here, although a professor in fertility and genetics, Winston's expertise does
4'
his
history
to
and
presence across a raft of BBC
not extend
natural
his
information
is
to
scientific programming
on
ability
make
and
predicated
complex ideas accessible. Arguably the value of this televisual-image
extends to interactive television, as with the place of Gail Porter in my
discussion of promotional materials in Chapter 3, reassuring viewsers new
familiar,
by
his
digital
interactive
the
television
to the
presence of
spaces of
from
face
interactive
UK's
Presenters
the
television
trusted,
and
and voice.
industry at the American Film Institute's 2003 conference on interactive
'8Evidenced by the woeful narration and narrative that at one point has Winston collecting the
broken body of episode I Is central character 'Lucy', which he solemnly lays by a riverbed,
is
in
in
Lucy
his
brow
then
hat
the
his
of
sorrow.
recalled
a
gesture
wiping
and
removing
interactive schedule near-video-on-demandadd-on to the series.which investigates some of the
first
homo-habilis
fossil
discovered:
be
depth.
in
the
to
as
ever
revealed
programme's claims more
Diamonds'
Sky
'LLICN'in
Beatles'
The
the
from
the
the
Lucy
with
playing
on
song
radio
at
named
time of discovery.
231
importance
the
03',
'Interaction
television,
of television
underlined
interactivity
Marc
to
the
to
audience.
selling
personalities and presenters
Goodchild argued that the BBC emphasise presenter endorsements to let
know
David
interactive
Attenborough's
applications,
with
audiences
about
44callto action" in 7-beLife ofMammals
(discussed below) being particularly
for
Dan
Campbell
7-be
MTV's
Real World 'we
that
noted
whilst
successful,
had Angelina Jolie who told people to press their red button and a lot of
did!
(speech
'
given to American Film Institute Media Conference,
people
2003).
The organised viewsing of Walking witb Beasts arranged around
the principle of spectacle was followed by Walking with Cavemen, which
from
level
back
the
of interactivity and its
although representing a pull
hyping as a form of spectacle in its own right, nevertheless was largely
forms
display
history's
the
of natural
other
of spectacle,
predicated on
outweighing the programme's educational aims. As with the other Walking
beasts
instalments,
these
trilogy's
recreated
were given narratives,
witb ...
personalities and spectacular encounters, such as inter-ape-clan wars and
being chased by a variety of predators. The series' interactivity came in the
form of "pop-up" text boxes and the transmission of a Schedule Busters
Near-Video-On-Demand
behind the scenes, evidence programme at the
feature's
Both
the
of these sought to provide the
schedule-slot.
end of
main
degree
of scientific veracity than the presenter,
x,lewser with a greater
Robert Winston's, rather whimsical presentation and commentary. Thus the
simplification
by
disappearance
is
interactivity
the
the
represented
of
of
by
initial
the
streams,
replaced
viewser's
audio
and
multiple video
looking,
barring
logo
interactive
BBCi
in
the
the
application
encounter with
The
to
the
similar
mainstream
remarkably
version.
the top right corner,
pop
divided
be
firstly,
into
labels,
boxes,
two
categories:
those
can
or
text
up
232
that are automatic and similar to the 'Fact' stream in Walking with Beasts,
(in
figures
bottom
in
the
third
of
viewser's screen
a
which occupy a section
5.3 and 5.6); and secondly, a series of more in-depth "Fact-files" (figure
5.7), which the viewser could choose to call up or ignore at particular
labelling
The
in-depth
in
the
more
programme.
moments
practices depicted
in figure 5.7 obscure almost the entire screen, leaving the viewser with an
impression of what the visual content might be, but retaining the audiofeature.
boxes,
These
in relation to the
the
text
main
pop-up
stream of
links I wish to make with the museum, can arguably be considered as
labels for exhibition artefacts. As a result, the purpose of labels in the
for
its
academic consideration provide useful approaches
museum and
labels
function
how
in the public service rhetoric of
these
considering
history
natural
programming.
Bennett shows how the evolutionary museum, distancing itself from
the cabinet of curiosity and the enlightenment museum, developed a
for
first
labelling
that
the
time, explanatory. Written in
system of
was,
English, labelling as conceived for the 'new museum idea' by George
Brown Goode of the Smithsonian institute, was intimately related to the
fixed
display
liberalism
that
the
twentieth
century museum
new
of early
museum's position as a public educator. Prior to written English
had
labelling
the
practices
served the
accompanying
artefact, museum
display
by,
the
objects on
purpose of reinforcing the visual spectacular of
in the cabinets of curiosity, operating 'on the same plane rather than
being
by
'sources
key
ing
themselves,
to
their
of visual
meaning'
serN, as a
delight' in display (Jardine quoted in Bennett, 2004: 168). Or, alternatively,

in the enlightenment museum they acted acting as an index of material,
Latin
the
in
that
object's visual appeal and allmving
privileged
written
(Bennett
if
2004,168).
knowledge
of
a
certain
class
one
was
only
access to
233
Thought of in this way, labelling in public service broadcasting natural

history programming should continue the course of public education display
in
is
that
the
on
a
object
way
accessible
elucidating and explaining
digital
it
is
Leaving
the
to all.
of
access,
clear that the
question
aside
labelling of Walking witb Cavemen is informed by museum practice - its
like
functioning
label
labelling
immediate
in the museum,
an
object
pop-up
fact
files
be
detailed
can
read as summative museum
whilst the more
displays, explaining where the viewser/visitor
display's overall meaning/evolution
is at in relation to the
or purpose. However similarly to
Walking witb Beasts, the timing of the interactive application's elements in

feature
to
the
main
are of paramount importance in understanding
relation
the balance of spectacle and education; again, the interactive application is
disrupt
tend
to
the primacy of
carefully structured so such elements
not
spectacle in the mainstream's visual imagery.
Whilst the automatic pop-up labels may appear at virtually any time,
because
in
is
the
the
this
regardless of
presence of spectacle
mainstream,
they are both relatively unobtrusive and uninformative.
So during episode
two of the series, a group of Homo Habilis ape-men work together to drive
food.
footage
lion
from
The
in
to
off a
order
obtain
amounts to
a carcass
one of the series' more obvious attempts at spectacle, ape-men and women
clambering over rocks, whooping and charging with a series of quick edits
feeling
framing
the
scene a
of pace and
and mobile camera
giving
driving-off
lion,
build
Habilis'
During
to
the
the
the
of
up
excitement.
distract
but
do
labels
or obscure the narrative
not
appear
automatic pop-up
because
labelling
In
the
surnmative
of the
and visual spectacle. contrast,
file
fact
image,
the
the opportunity
obscLires
visual
actively called up
for
limited
is
to moments where the main
these
the viewser to explore
feature's visual splendour and spectacle are at a minimum. Thus it is not
234
fact
file
by
Homo
Habilis
driven
that
the
lion
has
been
a
off
until the
becomes accessible. The emphasis on spectacle is further reinforced by the
for
itself
to
Winston's
allowing
spectacle
again
speak
narration,
absence of
in
the viewser's organised traversing of the
and remain a guiding principle
programme)s interactive elements.
However, leaving aside the question of a digital divide, the
introduction of pop-up labelling practices serves important public service
labelling
in
to
the
technology
that
the early
of
relate
use
goals
educative
twentieth century new museum idea. George Brown Goode's account of
labelling
displays
be
digital
to
this
museum
can easily
applied
principles of
by
'formerly
to
the
accessible only
wealthy, and seen
a very small
address:
[through
labelling
clear
practices] are
number of people each year, exhibits
held
by
hundreds
in
common ownership and enjoyed
of thousands'
now
(Goode quoted in Bennett, 2004: 169). Placing the BBC as public institution
in this discourse of accessibility, Goode's ideas relate specifically to
television's ability to pervade the everyday and reach people from all walks
labelling
be
life.
Cavemen's
Walking
witb
practices can
subsumed within
of
the BBC's category of Engaging Enhancement interactive applications,
history
have
been
the
natural
genre to
which
used extensively outside of
accompany the BBC's coverage of cultural events, such as the Last Night of
the Proms (BBCi, 2003 - ), or Shakespeare at the Globe (BBCi, 2004 - ).
These applications are introduced by Alan Titchmarsh and Andrew Marr
button'
'pressing
that
the
to
the
audience
red
respectively, who point out
"Cliff
interpret,
Notes"
that
of
explain and
will call up a useful series
familiar
Thus
interactivity
the
promotion of
via
enhance the performance.
Titchmarsh,
Winston,
Marr
as
and
such
ensures that
and trusted presenters,
BBC's
interactive
didactic
programmes are made as
elements of
the tiew
detail
in
As
I
in
Chapter
7,
to
on
explore
go
more
accessible as possible.
235
their calls to action promote digital television through an emphasis on

interactivity, demonstrating the technology's importance to the BBC's remit
driving
digital
Britain.
of
Ultimately the attempt to balance spectacle and education in the use
for
display
history
has
led
interactive
the
television
to a return
of
natural
of
to the anxieties that accompanied the introduction
of moving image
technology into the museum. Building on the promotion of interactivity

through the use of a presenter in Walking with Cavemen, the 2002-03
The
Life of the Mammals employed the reassuring presence of David
series
Attenborough to introduce and guide the viewser through the interactive
both
Tbe
As
Life ofMammals
visually
and
aurally.
such,
application,
film
introduction
into museums whereby the technology's
the
of
replicates
potential to stupefy was mediated via scientific authority vested in the
lecturer: here represented by Attenborough's appearance in a cinema-
come-lecture theatre to inform the audience of the chance to take the

(figure
5.8).
7-be
interactive
Life ofMammals,
series'
challenge
unlike the
by
Walking with
the BBC's Natural History Unit
series,
was
produced
...
details
her
Wheatley
in
the
trappings
that
and contained all
of quality
discussion of The Blue Planet: a specially commissioned score, David
Attenborough's presentation and the restrained sense of money spent
according to upper-middle-class
taste codes (best encapsulated by the
depicted
in
title
mammals
slow motion,
various
series'
sequence, which
by
the
a
golden-tinge of a setting sun and accompanied
often shot against
Similarly,
interactive
the
application was
grandiloquent orchestral score).
duration
but
the
the
of
programme,
rather
not available throughout
(arguably as a mark of respect for the quality of the main feature) only
final
(an
BBC's
'nearthe
the
minutes
example
of
programme's
appeared at
format).
buster
At
David
this
application'
schedule
point,
video-on-demand
236
Attenborough introduced the interactive supplement and invited the

button
test
their
"fascinating
the
to
the
and
skills
against
audience
press
red
he
multiple choice quiz that viewsers then accessed
world of mammals".
form
Walking
to
the
witb
applications,
structured
was, similarly
as
a
of
...
by
interactive
the
that
viewsing
rationalised
space
organised
allowing
determined
heard
the
that
saw
what
viewser
and
choices
next (figure 5-9).
However, by structuring these choices around an educational quiz and
footage
than that
rewarding correct answers with more spectacular
accessed if the viewser answered incorrectly, the programme effectively
display
history
balance
both
the
organised
of natural
around a careful
of
education and spectacle.

By organising 7-beLife qfMammals'
interactive elements to be
by
figure
both
David
BBC
Attenborough,
the
accompanied
enlisted a
who
represented the 'best of British presenting' and someone vested with
cproven scientific' knowledge. In so doing, the BBC utilised interactivity to
fitted
both
discourses
that
the
produce programming
of public
within
broadcasting
service
and quality television. In particular, the use of
interactivity at the programme's conclusion ensured that the spectacle of
technology did not usurp the upper-middle
class taste codes of visual
feature
that
the
pleasure
strove to present. This, combined with the
main
both
is
the
the
offered
suggestive
restricted mobility
programme
viewser,
of
how digital spaces are rationalised and how debates about quality
television and digitalisation, in the display of natural history at least, are
intimately related to longer histories of visual culture.
It is significant that it is the most recent natural history programme
to have an interactive application attached which most comfortably

history
display.
Tbe
Life
goals
of
natural
the
service
to
public
of
conforms
fitted
interactive
increasing
application
an
emphasis
simplified
j11(mmuds'
237
on simplicity and useabilty as markers of quality within the BBC's

interactive production culture. In 2004, Tom Williams (BBC Creative
Director of Interactive Television) outlined that the approach to quality
interactive applications was threefold, requiring originality, but also quality
of execution and a robustness of application that ensure it is '100% useable'

(Interview conducted 1/09/04). The latter two of these criteria refer to the
aesthetic and technological structure of the interactive application in
by
both
Marked
to
the
the aesthetics and rhetoric of
content.
relation
(Attenborough
informs the viewser, "the decisions you
choice and control
determine
make using your remote control will
what you see next"), the
balanced
didactic
is
to
the
also carefully
application
ensure
aims of the
("you
find
human,
how
will
out
genres are met
match up against
you, as a
some other extraordinary mammals"). The application clearly marks a
for
interactive
the
concern with marshalling
viewser-flows of
spaces
public
keeping
just
them
service purposes: not
aggregating an audience and
for
longer
the
engaged with
content
periods of time - as Caldwell suggests
but
the
are
also
primary aims of commercial second shift aesthetics by
display
difficult
balancing
the
the
act required
educative
meeting
of
history.
7-be
Thus,
Bennett's
Life of
organised walking,
natural
as with
Mammals' organised viewsing presents an itinerary that is focused on the
educative aims of the public institution.
Conclusion
The above discussion has established a link between the mobility of
history
different
the
across
the audience and
organisation of natural
hand,
between
display:
the museurnthe
one
on
technologies and sites of
Griffith's
Friedberg's
Bennett's,
flaneur
the
work,
and
on
and
of
goer and
'cyberspaces'.
This
interactive
television's
nexv
other that of the viewser of
71138
link demonstrates the continued importance of the forms of rationality built

into these spaces of display, which as Lev Manovich's account of Vertov's
be
films
posited as standing
suggests, might
early
halfway between Baudelaire's flaneur and today's
longer
just a pedestrian walking
computer user: no
down a street, but not yet Gibson's data cowboy who
data
data-mining
through
armed
zooms
pure
with
(2001:
xxx).
algorithms
Similarly the viewser's activity in the applications discussed above is still
limited
between
data-streams.
to
a choice
pre-selected
rather constrained,
As such, the user-flows of Caldwell's second shift aesthetics involved here
be
form
largely
perceived as a
can
of viewsers programming their own
flow, creating a viewsing strip from the pre-determined choices on offer.
By paying attention to the second shift aesthetic structures of these
forms
the
applications we can understand
of rationality they impose on the
doing,
In
viewser's movement.
so
we are able to retain a notion of the text
for
locus
investigating
industry,
issues
study
of
aesthetics and
as a
of
for
here
Thus
interactive
journey
the
audiences.
applications
offer up a
those who cannot travel along public service lines, rather than the simple
This
imperatives
Internet
offer of a journey
commercial
of
portal practices.
demonstrates the way in which interactive applications continue to call-up
the mobility offered by television's window.
Walking witb Beasts
announced the new period of excess' reconfiguration

(re)mobilising
'spectacularly'
portal,
of that window as a
the audience of television as interactive
vieNvsersand then working to constrain, rationalise and regulate this

links
discussion
in
to
As
this
pre-existing
concerns
mobility's
of
my
mobility.
display
how
interactive
in
attests,
museum
regulating spectator movement
discourses
entrenched within
television recalls, remediates and re-circulates
fundamental
is
of
television's position as a winclow-on-the-world
importance in understanding the second shift aesthetic practices of public
239
is
broadcasting.
this
Over
the
chapters
mobility
next
placed within
service
the discourses of choice, engagement and the public service remits of the
BBC that show a continuation of the attempt to re-imagine television's
between
As
tension
the
a
emerges
a result,
window as a portal.
individualisation and personalisation of the interactive television experience

broadcasting's
address to a universal, national, view(s)ing
and public service
collective of citizens.
240
Append& of imagesfor Chapter 5
Figure 5.1
Walking witb Beasts'title sequence
'41
Second
Floor
AMWO
Oft
4WOW
16.0-6
wem
400"
ONOMAMWIft
-,
-,
am
1-10
no
=-!,
I" *IVW
woo*~
-0*4t-40
p, 04
ow
FirstFloor
"a
ON, OF
W&, P
mom
Now~
Oft
0*
".. -Vt
0
0,oa
'OVO
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*-
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ow
-I
~-*dm
UP,
0 MININ
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loweell
mollum
amok"
w1h W PIPIW&Oft
owmpw
OV-41mom, loo
ON%NW
dam. %
00%
OAW-4~
Figure 5.2
Floor plan of the American Museum of Natural History with
'must see' spectacular exhibits depicted prominently in iconic form on the
dia(-Yrams(circled in red here)
Z-I
242
Walking witb Beasts' four video streams, plus the choice

Figure 5.3
between commentaries, laid out as a series of planimetric movements that
invite the viewser to 'jump' between streams.
243
Frame 1:
Frame
Frame 2
Frame 4
Frame 6
Frame 5
Figure 5.4
The tiling of one stream to replace another (here from Mainstream to
Evidence and back again) clearly marks out the segmented form of each individual
videostream. In turn, this structure organises the time viewsers spend on each
individual stream, prompting them to return to the mainstream - thus allowing the
image to fill the viewser's screen, rather than appearing in a video window - for
dramatic sequences, Such as the battle developing in frame 4-6 (and previewed by the
text that accompanies the segment: 'Battle Scars: Smillodon fossils show that the sabretooths fought with each other').
244
Frame 1: Mainstream - Two beasts are frozen, mid-chase, in a moment

forms
three
the
of svectacle coalesce.
series'
where
Frame 2: Evidence - The stream's segment run-times are arranged so

is
the
tiled to occupy the main
to
of
spectacle
as
ensure
moment
\Vifld(
)\V.
Frame 3: Making of - the spectacle doubly-envisaged

Figure 5.5
Spectacle in the Land of Giants, doubly envisaged
245
4w
MMM
11
-11
11
The type of 'pop up' labelling that punctuates Walking witb

Figure 5.6
Cavemen appears at the bottom of the screen and simply labels the display
that is on screen: species, time of life and other basic facts.
Figure 5.7
The more in-depth fact files of Walking witb Cavemen were
called up by the viewser in a NVOD model, which indicated to the viewser
fact
files
these
when
were available.
246
Attenborough's placement in a cinema -cum-lecture theatre in

Figure 5.8
Tbe Life of Mammals' application recalls the position of the lecturer used to
introduce the use of cinema in the museum at the turn of the twentieth
century.
Viewsers answers to 7-beLife of Mammals' application's

hear
dictated
they
saw and
next: a
what
multiple choice questions
by
from
Attenborough
some rewarding
accompanied
congratulatory note
from
image,
or a commiseratory and explanatory commentary
spectacular
Attenborough explaining where the viewser went wrong with footage to
z--)
Figure
5.9
demonstrate.
247
Chapter 6: Fragment - The public service

interactive
in
value of choice
applications
flicked
between
I
Wednesday
on
evening
all
eight
...
European Champions League matches. Calling the
from
the sofa - in a way previously restricted to
shots
has
been the
in
the
specialist vision-mixers
studio TV experience of this summer. For the first time, the
BBC's Wimbledon and Olympic coverage allowed
digital and satellite viewers to watch full matches and
events which would once have been reduced to a
from
the presenter of the
one-line summary
controller's scheduled coverage on the main channel
(Mark Lawson, 7-beGuardian, 18/09/04)
Mark Lawson goes on to describe the introduction of these

interactive television applications as 'significant a shift in the consumption
of television as the arrival of colour, video-recording
or satellite
being
least
increasingly
the illusion of selfviewers[sic] are
offered at
control, self-scheduling'. Lawson's comments on the viewsing experience
demonstrates
how
has
interactive
these
television
the, at
of
applications
least rhetorical, capacity to offer a far wider amount of information,
broadcast
to
the
than
television. The primacy
coverage and choice
viewser
discourses
is
in
these
the
placed on choice
applications
unsurprising given
liberalisation
I traced in Chapter 1 as occurring concurrently with
of market
the development of digital television in the UK. Furthermore, freedom of
for
depicted
interactive
Grail"
"Holy
television
the
choice was
of
early
as
interactive TV producers (van Dijk and Vos, 2001). This chapter engages
with the xN-ayin which this promotion of choice and, as a presumed
has
in
out
some of these most
played
necessary corollary control,
Thus,
in
UK.
if
interactive
the
television
applications
organised
prominent
highly
interactive
textuality,
rationalised
structured
a
of
speaks
viewsing
different
linear
to
that
access
choices
allow viewsers
around a series of
248
flows, then the textuality discussed in this chapter, fragment, is defined by

higher degrees of choice and looser textual boundaries.
The genres of news and sport make particularly compelling cases
for analysing both the textual form of fragment and the public service
implications of interactivity. Both genres have had extensive interactive
high
degree
developments,
in
the
a
of
crossover
with
application
both
but
BBC,
the
of
applications,
not
only
contexts
within
production
between the BBC and Sky as well". interviews with the BBC's Nick Cohen
(Assistant Editor, News Interactive) and Patrick Dalzell (BBC's Senior
Executive Producer of Interactive Sport) reveal how the BBC's Wimbledon
(2000
between
to
application
choose
- ongoing), which allowed viewsers
by
presenting them in a video menu,
simultaneously occurring matches
for
design
the
acted as something of a catalyst
aesthetic
of SkyNews'
development
interactive
In
turn,
the
of news and
multiscreen
service.
heavy
been
by
both
have
the
result of a
sports applications
corporations
between
'borrow',
'compete'
4steal'
the two corporations:
culture of
and
Sky's development of an eight-windowed
interactive news application was
then adopted by the BBC, who replaced an early text-driven application
6.1).
(figure
with a six-windowed multiscreen news application
Furthermore, as I pointed out in previous chapters, the acquisition of sports
digital
landscape
has
been
in
the
the
which, with
shaping of
pivotal
rights
has
by
football
Setanta
Sports,
ITV
FA
the capture of
and
rights
cup
2007.
in
key
battle
be
the
time
to
to
of
writing
ground right up
continued
a
The importance of sports for the BBC's use of interactive television to fulfil
49As Marc Goodchild (Senior Executive Producer of Interactive Factual Programming) points
building
long
'can
time
the
service/application and
spend
a
one
applications
out, with sporting
its
thus
it
ensuring robustness,ubiquit,.v and
then tweaking over a season,or over many seasons',
is
fi7om
25/01/05).
It
(Interview
to
easy
extrapolate
conducted
on
perhaps quality or refinement
Goodchild's words that similar conditions exist with the development of interactive news
by
further
the
their
the
inference
similarity
and
aesthetic
use
of
same
reinforced
applications, an
technological "blue print".
249
by
broadcasting
is
the recent Creative
public service
remits evidenced
Futures document, which argues that 'sport touches many people. It drives
interactivity, broadband and online activity' (2006b).

More particularly for my purposes here, as I go on to discuss below
the fulfilment of the traditional public service remits of news and sports
has
been
by
the rhetoric of choice. It is upon
supplemented
programming
this dialectic, between the rhetoric of choice and the public service remits
building,
civic value and education that I want to
of universalism, nation
focus. As such, this dialectic returns me to my interest in television's
competing positions of window-on-the-world
and portal. This tension is
by
the aesthetic structures of the applications themselves,
made explicit
which use video windows to represent the industrial strategy of the portal.
That is, each application resembles the webportals of Buzzard's (2003) and
Burnett and Marshall's (2003) description through its aggregation of a
from.
for
Lawson's
in
to
turn,
select
as
viewsers
variety of content
description of the sports applications above suggests, these applications
different
interests
in
the
games,
events
or
one place.
aggregate
viewsers of
In so doing, their portal structure calls up television window-on-the-world
in two important ways. Firstly, as I have suggested above and in my
discussion of Sky's promo for its SkyNewsActive service in Chapter 4, the
applications are themselves explicitly windowed recalling, through
remediation, television's window-on-the-world.

Secondly, each video window opens onto content that is implicitly
imbued with the discourses of television's window-on-the-world: the

if
ideologically,
not al\\-aN-sontologically,
genres of news and sport remain
imbued with li'eness and both genres remain pivotal to the x\'ay in -,vhich
binaries
the
of public and private spaces.
television's window negotiates
bring
ideologically
the
to
hand
to
the
'world
sen-es
On the one
news
250
broadcasting
key
fulfilling
in
the
of
public
service
roles
viewser,
of
one
Fiske's
As
John
informed
and others' works suggests
addressing an
citizen.
(1987; Hartley, 1982), the power of television news' claim to objectivity
goes 'hand in glove' with the authenticity and immediacy supplied by
television's live relay function. On the other, sporting events like the
Olympics serve to bring the viewser to the world, which through
television's liveness allow us to travel to distant locales as a collective, an

has
been
have
I
already suggested
consistently articulated with
experience
the national and public service broadcasting remits (c.f. Chapter 1).
In this context, how the portal structures the choices on offer and
how viewser mobility is rationalised and regulated is of fundamental

importance in understanding the success of the public service second shift
As
I
these
such,
aim to problematise the promise
of
applications.
strategies
direct
response to the threatened position of public service
of choice as a
broadcasting in the digital landscape. As a necessary corollary, I question
how the BBC should fulfil its obligation of 'binding the nation' (BBC, 2004)
final
further
(discussed
These
large
in
the
together
chapter).
or
audiences
two aims focus the following discussion's analysis on two areas of public
been
has
BBC
traditionally
the
charged with, recently
service provision
debates
BBC's
Charter
by
latest
the
renewal:
around
policy
reinforced
been
has
articulated as the requirement to
namely, universalism and what
'Sustain citizenship and civil society'; and 'Promote education and learning'
in the government's Wbite Paper (DCMS, 2006). in the first section of this
in
I
the
recent policy
particular provisions
chapter, therefore set out
documents that relate to the generic and institutional concerns of the case
is
the
here.
The
then
articulating
with
concerned
section
second
studies
for
implications
I
fragment.
Finally,
this
textuality
the
of
set out
textuality of
251
the way in which such forms of interactive television fulfil the BBC's public
service remits.
Whilst the preceding chapters in section two have been concerned
to position interactive television within longer histories of television and
the BBC as a public institution, the textuality of fragment discussed below
is one that more explicitly places television at the intersection of old and
new media scholarship, theories and textualities. As such the discussion of
fragment draws on John Ellis' notion of segment, placing this in relation to
hypertext.
the
theory
critical
surrounding
new media scholarship and
Fragment is itself a term that is widely used in discussion of hypertext and
for
discusses
Lev
'fractal
Manovich
the
media;
example,
structure of
new
(Manovich,
2001:
30),
whilst Luis Arata raises the concern that
new media'
interactivity as much as liberating can lead to 'sudden conflicts,
disintegration, fragmentation and other unpleasant surprises' (Arata, 2004:
222) and Martin Lister suggests 'fragmentation, non-linearity, intertextuality
both
literary
been
have
"death
theory
the
the
cited as
all
of
author"
and
fragmentation
(2003:
is
hypertext
28).
However,
also a major
and
reality'
BBC.
As
industry,
the
the
television
part of the
particularly
concern of
BBC's submissions prior to the publication of the government White Paper
broadcasting,
BBC
future
the
the
argued that:
on
of public service
The explosion of new technologies will fragment
audiences across an ever wider range of services ...
But while audiences and channels fragment, the media
industry itself consolidates and the powerful become
BSkyB,
to take one example, now
more powerfi-il:
UK's
the
two-thirds
pay-TV market
of
controls over
(2004: 10).
These are all connotations that my explication of the interactive television
form
its
draws
fragment
aesthetic
upon, referencing not only
textuality of
focusing
how
By
implications.
industrial
but also its public service and
on
fragment
to
us
understand
not
only
allovvs
the
-ser,
viev,
text
the
addresses
I
252
the second shift aesthetic practices of public service broadcasting of these

types of interactive application, but also to deal with the problems they
by
linearity
to
the
previous models of the television text. In
pose
assumed
doing,
between
it
the
tension
explicates
so
window-on-the-world and
level
industrial
that
in the way
textual
as
one
operates
at
a
portal
and
second shift practices structure viewser choices.
The public service landscape: Fragmenting footholds

As has been highlighted by the recent Charter renewal process,
both sports and news genres are highly regarded by the public in terms of
listed
Sport
public service value.
was
as second only to news when the
from
they
the point of view
public were asked which genres
most valued
(BBC,
2004: 33). In this section I briefly outline some of the
of society
have
been
in
which news and sport
positioned within contemporary
ways
debates about public service broadcasting, dealing firstly with news
before
discussion
of sports. As I noted above,
programming
moving onto a
both genres have been important in fulfilling the role of the BBC as a site
for imagining, debating and securing the national - either as informed
den
Bulck's
Hilde
However
as
van
work
citizenry, or national collective.
formation
been
having
in
instrumental
the
of the nation-state suggests,
Benedict
Anderson's
'imagined
impersonal
the
community'
mass of
making
knowable to one another - the mass media's role is now fundamentally in
be
identity"
is
"national
idea
'...
to
the
considered
and practice of
question:
from
identity
threat
globalization
constructions under
one of the collective
den
(van
2001:
53-4).
fragmentation
Bulck,
In
particular,
and postmodern
fragmentation
have
Wessels
Harrison
the
argued,
and
of
'is studies such as
that
transcend
platforms
and
of
channels
a
range
across
media audiences
drives
'a
is
boundaries
which
process
a
viewers
as
understood
national
25 3
(2005:
from
835).
broadcasters'
As
such, outside of the
away
public service
immediate development of digital television in the UK, the current global
television landscape is one that already calls into question the way in
BBC
the
which
mobilises the genres of news and sport as demonstrating
their fulfilment of public service value. These challenges require a complex
demonstrate
to
the continued relevance and role of
and robust response
broadcasting,
something the applications under discussion
public service
below manage to varying degrees of success.
News has been pivotal in the perception of television in the role of
informed
making an
citizenry. John Corner's work on television as a form
of "public address" suggests that this positioning connotes two meanings:
'both an idea of television as a kind of public address system and an idea

of it as routinely addressing itself to matters of public concern and public
(1991:
[of
1).
In
Michael
Schudson
4most
turn,
value'
as
notes,
studies
begin
the
they
take,
news], regardless of
approach
with a normative
assumption that the news media should serve society by informing the
for
(2005:
in
that
them
general population
ways
arm
vigilant citizenship'
191). The key news value of impartiality is therefore doubly important to
the BBC, which as Jackie Harrison notes, is 'at the heart of all the BBC's
programming, as it reflects two public service principles: servicing all
interests and ensuring that minority interests are represented' (2001: 118).
Whilst the discussion below is not concerned with a content analysis of
determine
impartiality,
their
to
the
objectivity
and
particular news stories
both
impartial
informative
is
inextricably
television
and
as
news
position of
linked with my concern with both the ability of television to define the
its
position as a winclow-on-the-world.
of
national and
The BBC's Building
Public I'(due demonstrates the continued public service value placed on

democratic
in
terms
the
of
value
and
couched
ability
remains
N-hich
neN,,
-,,;,,
254
to define and bring the nation together. The BBC includes news as part of
fulfilling
first
five
BBC's
the
public value, stated as
core ways of
of the
democratic value:
the BBC supports civic life and national debate by
impartial
trusted
and
news and information
providing
that helps citizens make sense of the world and
(BBC,
it
2004: 30).
them
to
engage with
encourages
Conversely to its position in academic study, where its objectivity, potential
for bias and news-making ability is continually brought into question,
have
consistently seen it as a genre that
popular perceptions of news
facility.
Justin Lewis
television's
embodies
window-on-the-world
his
introduction
Television
'Studying
News' in Glen
to
commences
Creeber's Television Genre Book by suggesting 'television news generally
presents itself as a "window-on-the-world",
in which the events of the day
for
(2001:
below,
108).
As
I
transparently
to
the
are
all
revealed
see'
argue
position of television news as a window-on-the-world
is problematically
by
the aesthetic structures of interactive television news in a way
reinforced
that belies its portal function.
The relationship between the news' potential for democratic value
best
journalists'
is
to
the
shape
news
perhaps
summed up in
and
ability
terms of their perceived role as gatekeepers. Corner's work above and
later, in his 2001 Critical Ideas in Television Studies, evidences a number of
the field's concerns with the broadcast news institutions of television as

iggatekeepers". However as Corner's and Schudson's work attests, the
function
has
become
journalist's
the
news
simple notion of gatekeeping as
increasingly complicated, not only in relation to the ideal of singular
journalists selecting the day's news, but more particularly in relation to the
(including
blog-oin
the
the
online news world
growing clamour of voices
'term
"gatekeeper"
Schudson
Michael
the
Thus
suggests,
as
sphere).
255
for
handy
the
to
of
news
organisations
relation
news
provides a
metaphor
leaves
"information"
it
But
products.
surprisingly,
or "news" untouched'
(2005: 174). Despite this, there remains a persistent concern with the types
by
knowledge,
information
to
television
and access sources provided
of
discussion
in
like
interactivity
Whilst
the
the
news
of
of
study
news.
will,
leave
Schudson
information and news untouched,
those
criticises,
many of
it will consider how interactive applications work as a portal that has
debate.
Like
the
the news organisation's
gatekeeping
with
continuities
position as gatekeeper, the interactive application structures our access to
does
but
degree
in
it
that
so
a way
promises a greater
news,
of control and
choice than previous articulations of the television news view(s)ing
famous
That
is,
David
Manning-White's
1950 study
experience.
whilst
applied the term gatekeeper to journalism practice that chooses one story
burden
interactive
television
the
over another,
shifts
of choice onto the
(quoted
in Lewis, 2001: 114).
viewser
I want to turn now to my interest in the public service role of sports
detailed
in section one, the ownership of sports rights
As
I
programming.
have been pivotal in shaping the UK's digital landscape. Sports rights were
between
to
pivotal not simply
competition
commercial players', such as
that between platform operators BSkyB and ITV/OnDigital,
but also to the
BBC's jockeying for position as digital TV emerged. Georgina Born's study

details that under Greg Dyke sport became a key battleground for
(2004).
Following
BBC's
the
the
public service credentials
establishing
importance of sporting rights, particularly football, in the establishment of
Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB platform detailed in Chapters 2 and 3, Greg Dyke
broadcasting.
declining
investment
in
Sport
Birt's
top
John
sports
reversed
then figured prominently
in Dyke's 'commitment to broadcasting as a
force
He
that
the
sports
understood
are
a
critical
part
of
unifying
socially
...
256
licence fee settlement' (Born, 2004: 472)'0. This investment is evidenced in

free-to-air
the
BBC's
of
acquisition
primary
the
expenditure not only on
broadcasting rights to the highlights of Premiership football (re-captured
from ITV after their digital platform's failure), but also more significantly in
the BBC's innovation and development of a range of applications for their
sporting events coverage.
However, it has not simply been the growth and strength of
has
been
BSkyB,
which
responsible
commercial competitors, particularly
for the loss of sporting rights by the BBC. Arguably the fragmentation and
has
difficult
for
it
increasingly
the
the BBC to
nation
made
segmentation of
justify large outlays on the rights to sporting events whose importance has
traditionally been defined in terms of the national". In an environment
by
increased
identities
in
the
movement of
are
play, caused
where complex
forces
local
brought
by
the
of globalisation and other
about
many
peoples
be
broadcasting
longer
be
BBC
to the
the
to
can no
assumed
conditions,
The
'one
in
Reithian
the
era.
need to address a
man' as
nation as
fragmented audience is set out in the obligations listed in the recent Wbite
Paper as:
Making us aware of different cultures and alternative
lives
the
through
that
of
reflects
content
viewpoints
UK
the
communities
ititbin
otberpeople and other
(2006: 18, emphasis mine).
This obligation sets out a need to address a diverse audience, rather than
Reith's imagining of the 'nation as one man'. However, it is important to
here
language
that
the
problematically
note
suggests a continued
distinction between "us" and "them", between "we the nation" and "them
50Indeed, such has been the importance of maintaining an investment in sport at the BBC that in
following
heavy
from
Sport
BBC
the
Head
and sustainedcriticism
April 2000 the
resigned
of
key
including
Test
loss
to
BBC's
a
sporting
events,
nurnber
of
cricket and
rights
of
media over the
boat race.
Oxford-Cambridge
famously,
the
most
51Indeed the BBC's loss of the rights to broadcastFA Cup gamesnoted above can be seenas the
result of such pressures.
257
the others". This is a problematic I explore elsewhere and, as my

discussion of fragment in relation to the BBC's coverage of the Olympics
by
BBC
is
inexorably
is
that
repeated
suggests, not one
programming
fragment
(c.
f.
Thus,
Bennett,
2006).
whilst
evidences a
strategies
between
tension
window and portal in relation to news, its
problematic
more judicious use in coverage of the Olympics allows the BBC to address
fragmenting
body
binaries
transcend
national
and
segmented,
such
a
stark
"ite
in
the
out
as set
Paper.
That interactive television has provided a strategy for dealing with

this fragmentation is borne out in the regulatory discourses surrounding the
BBC's future and debates about new media forms. As Francoise Sabbah
noted in 1985, the

determine
[audience]
new media
a segmented
...
because of the multiplicity of messagesand sources,
the audience becomes more selective ... deepening its
[and]
segmentation
enhancing the individual
between
(quoted
in
relationship
sender and receiver
Castells, 2000: 368).
Sabbah's notion of an 'enhanced relationship' between sender and receiver
has found its articulation in the requirement for the BBC to engage
audiences/viewsers and measure programming's impact through a
continued, individual and personalised relationship with them. The Wbite
Paper obliges any new BBC service to meet this criterion of engagement.
This is used throughout the document to suggest both a bringing of
for
BBC
them to
to
the
as well as providing opportunities
audiences closer
Corporation.
This
interpretation
the
their
not
personalise
relationship with
by
fulfil
BBC
this
to
the
producing applications that
remit
only allows
(c.
f.
interactive
fantasies
Jensen
television
two-way
television
to
of
conform
forms
button
1999)
the
Toscan,
of red
predominant
as well as
and
degree
larger
for
facilitate
the
of
choice
and
interactivity, which
a
control
258
viewser. Most notably, the requirement to engage the audience includes

providing 'audiences with a gateway to cultural experiences and path"-ays
to further exploration' and 'in sport, promote interest and participation in
the smaller, minority-interest
less
that
sports
are
well covered by
(2006:
This
16).
suggests that the BBC must offer
commercial networks'
itself as both a portal to personalised content, as well as use that portal to
fulfil window-on-the-world obligations of opening new vistas of cultural

experience.
Terms such as choice, engagement and control are also an everpresent terminology in the interviews on interactive television I have
hyped
BBC
Here
interactivity
is
conducted with
staff.
as a new way of
engaging audiences as newly 'active' and simultaneously the simultaneous
'fulfilment' of one of the new public service criteria. For example, Marc
Goodchild argued that 'television is traditionally a passive medium for
inspiring and activating people. The advantage of interactivity is that it can
take this a step further' (Interview conducted 25/01/05). Goodchild goes on
to argue that the applications for the BBC's Wimbledon and Olympics
coverage were 'the epitome of quality interactive applications, because they
deliver choice and have been refined and refined, making them quite
both
Gbid).
Cohen
Similarly,
Nick
that
robust'
suggests
quality and public
be
defined
in terms of choice: 'it
interactive
television
service value of
can
is the control and choice of getting what you want' (Interview conducted
1/11/05). 1 will return to the issue of quality and public service

broadcasting at the end of this chapter, as it is this promise of choice and
forms
interactive
in
is
those
television
new
particularly evident
control that
form.
how
Thus
it
is
fragmentarthe portal practices
textual
that take a
here,
whereby news and sports content and viewsers are
evident
259
by
privileging choice that is of
aggregated, structure the viewser-flows
fragment
below.
in
primary concern
my analysis of
Textualforms
Fragment
interactive
television:
of
Before going on to explicate the textuality of fragment, I want to

first briefly describe the structure of the news and sports applications in
industrial
the
to
context within which they emerged. Former news
relation
journalist Barbie Zelizer argues, 'critical incidents' act as a discourse about
for
issue
journalism, and thus tend to play out
topics
at
more general
debates about form, style and other aspects of news coverage. Importantly
for my purposes here, Zelizer demonstrates that such 'critical incidents' are
by
discourse
features:
two
technology and
about
generally shaped
figures
(Zelizer,
has
had
developments
This
1992).
two
archetypal
related
for digital news: the reassertion of liveness as an aesthetic, analytical,
textual and news value (which I deal with below) and the emergent
primacy of the news multiscreen as a way of presenting interactive
television news.
As Emily Bell reported, 'during the opening stages of the Iraq war,
SkyNews outscored the BBC's rolling service by three to one viewers in
(Bell,
homes'.
2003). This success saw the channel often top
multichannel
the BBC's coverage and, through its slightly longer history, emerge as a
digital
leader
in
As
24-hour
in
the
era.
a result up until
news
market
rolling
2004, when the channel was re-launched after the Lambert Repon, the BBC
had largely been chasing SkyNews' coverage, technologies and ratings
(Wells, 2004). Sky's leadership was enhanced by its use of interactive
full
launched
2000
18
in
June
it
the
ahead
months
of
services, which
-a
BBC. The interactive news application immediately created an impact by
day.
SkyNlews'
the
to
of
stories
on
news
vote
offering viewsers a chance
260
first such poll registered 90 000 votes on the question as to whether 'the
UK should join the US air strikes in Iraq' (March 2001) (Source: Evening
Standard, 21/11/01). As the industry magazine Broadcast reported in May
2003, the coverage of Gulf War 11was profoundly impacted upon by the
increased presence of interactive media:

Broadcasters are increasingly looking to a blend of
TV coverage and digital technologies such as
interactive TV, the Internet and mobile devices as a
keeping
[sic].
The
viewers
means of attracting and
devices
became
interactive
more widespread
use of
than ever during the Iraq (8/05/03, site accessed
20/12/05)
Thus by the middle of 2003, the BBC had moved from its heavily textbased news application (figure 6.2), whereby viewsers could only see one
designated
by
time,
the selection made on the page's
videostream at a
format),
left
hand
(which
in
text
to a
the
the
of
screen
menu
appeared on
basic copy of the SkyNews multiscreen homepage. As frames 2 and 3 in
figure 6.1 denote, apart from the obvious branding differences marked by
difference
layout,
is
idents
the
and screen
most obvious
colour, channel
that the BBC's homepage is somewhat stripped back: aesthetically it is less
busy and comprises only six video windows compared to SkyNews' eight.
The applications here remediate both the aesthetic influences of
television and the web to create its own televisual form of hypertext, that
logic
Bolter
Grusin
fragment.
in
the
the
and
see at
of
necessary reversal
of
'web
in
CNN's
the
editors ... clearly want their
where
work
website,
(1999:
better"'
Cohen
9),
Nick
be
"television
technology to
sPeaks of
only
the BBC's news application as delivering 'the power and reliability of the
delivery
television
it
televisual
with
web
service
a
web and making
...
form
(Interview
In
1/11,,
'05).
the
this
of
interface is the goal'
sense,
fragment discussed below conforms to Bolter and Grusin's notion of
by
form
is
the
the
still
marked
new
whereby
aggressive remediation,
261
presence of the older media and 'therefore maintaining a sense of

multiplicity
(47).
hypermediacy'
or
The news multiscreen application presents the viewser with a series

laid
horizontally,
to choose from. Each
our
of equally sized video windows,
labelled
loop
is
as
containing
a streamed
window
of stories from a
headlines,
particular subgenre of news:
weather, sport, entertainment, etc.
The viewser navigates the multiscreen's windows via an onscreen cursor
by
their remote control's directional buttons, selecting an
manipulated
individual stream of content to watch that then takes them from the
multiscreen to an individual window, tiled into the top left of the viewser's
screen with the rest of the space given over to text-based stories that the
from
loop
The
viewser can call up
any subgenre of news.
video
retains the
form
discusses
John
Ellis
television
that
segmented
of
as consisting of
'small sequential unities of images and sounds whose maximum duration
be
to
seems
about 5 minutes' (Ellis, 1992[19821: 112). Whilst the
loops
is generally much shorter than 5 minutes, with
these
segmentation of
the entire video stream likely to last between 3 and 5 minutes, Ellis' idea of
for
the way it structures the individual
segmentation remains relevant
Bolter
Grusin
As
the
nodes of
and
argue in relation to
multiscreen.
forms,
the news multiscreen application 'becomes a
aggressive remediation
mosaic in which we are simultaneously aware of the individual pieces and

their new, inappropriate setting. in this kind of remediation, the older
discontinuities
in
a space whose
media are presented
are
clearly
visible'
...
(1999: 47).
The text-based stories that occupy the remainder of the viewser's
by
using the
screen are accessed via scrolling across on-screen options or
link
buttons
to
to
the
a
particular
set of stories
control
remote
on
number
from one subgenre; an aesthetic decision based on the earlier Teletext and
262
Ceefax systems, which used the remote control's colour keys to jump to
This
structure allows the viewser to
particular pages of text-driven content.
watch any one particular subgenre of news, whilst calling up text-based
from
for
example, I can watch today's headlines whilst
stories
any other;
surfing through a series of text stories on sport or weather. Because of the
24-hour availability of the service, more striking and problematic
juxtapositions between text and video can be created, especially when a

being
for
is
covered;
example, calling up text stories of sport
singular event
live
or entertainment news whilst watching
video of the war on Iraq. This
has
for
how
important
implications
obviously
news stories are received and
below.
I
For now it is worth closing
to,
to
which will come
paid attention
this description by noting that the BBC retained its two video-stream
limited
the
carriage capacity of the Freeview platform. The
application on
development of this application was part of the BBC's response to the
Lambert Reporf s criticisms and recommendations for the BBC's news
services. This recognised that whilst the BBC's 24-hour news and
interactive services played an important part in public service broadcasting,
they should be made more widely available to avoid a digital divide (2004).
The Athens Olympics application represented the development of
the BBC's Wimbledon application, which had been the first to allow for the
development
its
to the
coverage of simultaneously occurring matches.
more clearly windowed
form of the Olympics application owes much to
discussed
development
the
above and the success
the
news application
of
football
The
Olympics
SkySportsActive's
application took a
application.
of
being
form
the
to the news multiscreen with
viewser's screen
similar
6-3).
(figure
However these
divided into a series of smaller video windows
windows
dominated
laid
that
the
a
main
winclow
so
viewser's
out
A-crc
being
broadcast
know
letting
the
event
covered
them
which
was
on
screen,
263
the
arranged
were
vertically
on
windows
three
smaller
programme, whilst
hand
right
side of the screen, each allowing the viewser to select a
different Olympic event that was occurring co-temporally. Occasionally one
highlights
but
to
stream
a
generally viewsers
window was given over
selected which event to watch and could then call up a range of text
day's
including
tables
the
and
a
summary
medals
of
events, via the
stories,
keys
The
their
remote
control.
on
viewser's navigation of the
colour
by
The
EPG,
aided
an
events
on
offer
was
onscreen
as
well as
various
Radio Times' first ever listings for content available interactively (figure 6.4).
The arrangement of these applications, particularly through the
(as
less
to
the
the
opposed
obtrusive
use of
presence of an onscreen cursor
i-bar to map the use of the viewser's colour keys in Walking witb Beasts),
hyperlinks
the
on the Internet and it would tempting to
usage of
resembles
form
be
that
their
textual
explained
organisation and
can
simply suggest
by
hypertext
theory. Unlike organised viewsing or the texts
completely
discussed in Chapter 7, fragment is clearly a hypertextual system. The
individual streams of content accessedthrough the various video windows

lexias
of the news application's multiscreen portal
represent nodes or
hyperlinks
by
Similarly,
text
selected
an
stories are accessed via
structure.
onscreen cursor, which allows the viewser to explore the mass of

first
branching
This
the
screen of the
structure allows
aggregated content.
4customize
have
to
to
acting
structure,
webportal
an explicit
application
[sic] the user's relationship to information with an organized homepage
91).
2003:
As
(Burnett
Marshall,
the
such
applications act as
and
structure'
'organized access points that allow the user to move outward' and explore,
find
home
in
to
to
to
order
one's
return
whilst also offering a place
Gbid).
Indeed, both the BBC and
bearings and move to other content
with a shortcut
SkyNews's news multiscreen applications provide N-iev\-sers
264
key on the remote control to enable them to return quickly back to this
homepage, no matter how far down their individualised path they wander.
A similar shortcut is available to viewsers of the Olympics application,
[sic]
'never
Dalzell's
Patrick
take
the
to
mantra:
viewer
which conforms
from
king'
(Interview
is
the
than
event: content
one click away
more
have
22/03/04).
Nevertheless,
I
as
suggested in Chapter 2a
conducted
hypertext
features
interactive
theory
to
the
of
of
wholesale application
digital television would be problematic, and I want to briefly revisit some
here
before
how
theoretical
the
to
this
problems
going on
examine
of
impacts on considering the public service value of these texts.
In contrast to my explication of organised viewsing, fragment's
textual form is characterised by a finer balance between, and negotiation
liveness
and real-time. Whilst the non-linear structure of Walking witb
of,
Beasts could not escape the problems of liveness, the viewser never able to
left
flow,
its
to
the
the
they
the news multiscreen
point
return
narrative at
(and to a lesser degree the Olympics application) aesthetically mimics the
database form of the computer, which calls-up information. Thus the
but
linear
sequence,
rather
multiscreen of each application appears not as a
'can
items'
'collection
individual
the
perform
viewser
as a
of
upon which
(Manovich,
2001:
'view'
'navigate'
in
this
and
case,
-,irious operations'218-20). As such, these applications evidence the shift towards postbroadcast television I detailed in Chapter 2, whereby database ontologies
by
interactive
in
increasingly
the
on
choice
placed
primacy
are
apparent
television. However, through their generic identity, the content and
imbued
individual
the
with
remains
node of
multiscreen
structure of each
Furthermore,
liveness
television's
ideological
of
the
xvind ow-on-the -world.
database
the
structures
might
remediate
computing's
the
applications
whilst
by
importantly
"live"
the
remains
content
restricted
viewsers access
NN-Iy
265
transmission of each individual stream of content. As a result, vie'wsers

but
must enter any particular
cannot call up material precisely on-demand,
loop
in
the
the
point
streamed
node of
multiscreen at whatever
of content
is being transmitted live at that moment.
Thus despite the importance of hypertext to the structuring of such
here
term
the
stream
connotes the continual importance of
applications,
Williams' ideas of flow to the structure of the television text, with each
individual stream still emanating live from the broadcaster. As such liveness
limits
the ability of the viewser to totally personalise or control the
not only
but
text,
also circumscribes the size of the application to the
navigable
hard
database,
least
it
is
it
in
to
conceive of as an environment or
point
at
the terms of hypertext and new media theory. As Cohen explains,
'bandwidth keeps it [size] tight now, so we can't archive stories for
interactive television. You've only got today's info and this limits the size of
the application ... which is fine, as television is essentially live anyway'
(Interview conducted 1/11/05). The interactive news application might
display
links
hypermedia
the
the
the
through
of
aesthetic of
web
remediate
and the cursor's ability to access individual nodes. However such a
hypermedia aesthetic simply masks the live immediacy of television, which
latent
in the way viewser-flows must navigate the audiovisual
remains
Olympics
the
through
multiscreens' video
or
either
news
streams on offer
by
further
ideological
liveness
This
is
the
status of
reinforced
windows.
direct
tactics
televisual
such as
aural and
each genre, whilst the presence of
immediacy
is
intimate
help
that
the
text
the
of
a
sense
retain
visual address,
liveness.
hallmark
the
of television's winclow-on-the-world
Nevertheless it is important to note that the applications under
finer
involve
here,
discussion
a
particularly that of the news multiscreen,
balance between, and negotiation of, liveness and real-time. As I suggested
266
in Chapter 2, producers of interactive television often recognise the
influence of web aesthetics, but see their inclusion in interactive TV

balancing
involving
act
paying careful attention to
applications as a
television's aesthetic and cultural forms. Thus whilst the post-broadcast
forms of these applications metonymically
call up the database aesthetic of
balancing
between
to
the
tensions
must
pay
attention
we
of
computing,
this form and those of television. As I suggested in Chapter 2, Lev
Manovich's work points to a central tension here between database and

(2001).
However, as I suggested there, it is not just the difference
narrative
between liveness and real-time that generates such tensions but the
forms,
requirements and experiences of individual genres. As
particular
does,
database
Manovich
than
that
simply asserting, as
such, rather
and
(the
former
list
'natural
enemies'
simply presenting a
of items
narrative are
that it 'refuses to order'), we must pay attention to how this tension plays
demands
Thus
in the
in
to
the
out
of news and sports respectively.
relation
following sections I deal with the public service second shift aesthetics that
between
database
this
tension
and narrative, portal and window,
structure
firstly in relation to news before concluding with a discussion of the BBC's
4L)
Athens Olympics application.
Interactive news: universalism, civic value and education

choice?
importantly,
interactive
in
television news'
the
which
way
part of
database aesthetic is rendered a familiar experience is via the re-circulation

of xx-indow-on-the-world
discourses. As I suggested in Chapter 4, this is
its
Sky's
in
multiscreen news application, 'which
promotion of
made explicit
belonging
to
the
first
more
obviously
instance,
complex
quite
appears
at
-
This
that
television.
the
promo
reminds
viewsers
than
computer screen
267
even in interactive form, the news will remain a window-on-the-world to

the important information about today's events, but offered in a
form:
personalised
SkyNewsActive, the world's first interactive television
news service is now offering even more choice. Simply
button
the
to
the
enter
press
red
world
of
...
interactive television. Eight screen SkyNewsActive, your
eight windows on the world. When the news changes,
they change. Choose the headlines, or the latest
latest
forecast
business
headlines,
the
weather
plus
...
a round up of all the showbiz stories. Watch the
(Ana
it
top
current
video story when you want
...
Botting's voiceover).
The promo is demonstrative of the way in which the news multiscreen
level
dialectic
between
of
portal and window-on-the-world.
operates at a
On the one hand, television is still a window-on-the-world in its interactive

live
the
and,
as
such,
news
application
guise
will remain
and up-to-date
("when the news changes, they change"). On the other, the window is now
different
("your
the
a personalised portal
eight windows"): aggregating
forms of television news (headlines, business, showbiz) and offering them
lifestyle
interests
individual
to
the
and
as a series of choices
suit
viewser's
("when you want it"). The need to distinguish such interactive applications'
textual form from a simple transposition of hypertext theory to the
television apparatus becomes clearer when we consider the public service
implications of how this portal configuration regulates and structures these
4,
Chapter
in
As
I
the position of television as window
choices.
suggested
facilitates
how
key
it
in
is
the negotiation of the
or portal
understanding
between
between
the position of
private and public spaces,
movement
consumer and citizen.
That these portal discourses, of choice and control, are part of the
interactive
the
the
in
of
public
service
value
way
which we understand
by
is
the
they
are marshalled within
v\-a)evidenced
ne-,N-,
s multiscreen
268
interviews with BBC producers of interactive television and the BBC's
documentation.
In an interview with
surrounding press releases and policy
Tom Williams he argued that: 'The public service aims of interactive
television are to provide choice and develop applications on a case-by-case
(Interview
measure'
conducted 26/08/04). Most significantly the idea of
is
idea
'empowering'
to
the
the audience. In 2004
attached
of
choice
Michael Grade outlined that 'one of the BBC's current slogans is
Information, Education, Entertainment, Interaction, wherever, whenever,
however you want it' before going on to suggest that 'the red button
empowers our audiences, giving them the chance to tailor our output to
their needs' (Grade, 2004). Similarly, Helen Thomas (Executive Editor, BBC
Hull) positioned the BBC's localised interactive services as providing 'our
[with]
how
viewers
unprecedented choice and control over
and when they
decided
TV
it
jukebox
the
think
watch
news of as a
news
where viewers
the playlist' (BBC Press Release, 08/10/03).
From the broadcaster's perspective, this empowerment and viewser
choice comes with the significant advantage of not having to sacrifice
for
its channel or the particular programme on air as, ratingsratings either
least,
the viewser remains on the same channel and ostensibly
wise at
discuss
below,
As
I
to
this is most
the
on
watching
go
same programme.
for
the coverage of major sporting events.
obviously a strategy valuable
However, it is equally apparent in the way news applications are
(as
Botting
in
terms
suggests, "when
positioned
of choice and convenience
for
in
2004
BBC
Sky
Both
their
ran advertising campaigns
and
you want").
interactive news services that emphasised the empowerment of the
by
suggesting the application provided news at the viewser's
audience
busy
image
Both
the
of a
corporations used
single-mother
convenience.
finally
finds
flop
down
by
in
hassled
time
to
chores,
and
children
N-vho,
269
front of the TV and is able to call up the news services to meet her
schedule.
This choice and convenience places the viewser in control of
bulletin.
the
the
ordered
segments
of
sequentially
news
ordering
previously
As a result the interactive news viewser, as hypertext theory suggests is
in
the
total
this case the ordered
the
of
author,
authority
usurps
possible,
flow of news items. Television news programmes' syntagmatic combination
international
traditionally
commences
with
stories
and national
of news
news, moving through to the sport and weather, possibly via a short
deviation into business and/or financial news, rounding off with human
interest or show business. An audience, in truth, always watched this
linear
different
interests and
the
segmentation of
news with
previously
household
for
in
'hard'
that
the
tuned
meant some occupants of
modalities
have
humaninterest
in
taken
more
news and sport, whilst others may
interest stories, local news etc. However, whilst ethnographic studies have
demonstrated how the always interactive audience has compensated for
this by watching intently at times, distractedly at others (timing tasks to be
involved when items of interest are on display etc), the linear form of news
items
to
the
the
of
news
of the
mix
meant
audience was always exposed
programmed
flOW52
The multiscreen as a portal structuring of news

.
therefore simply facilitates the individual interests that were previously

subsumed within the seemingly undifferentiated
category of the news
The
audience.
multiscreen aggregates all news sub-genres and, as a
in
together
the
audiences/viewsers
one place.
many news
consequence, all
Thus it allows the viexvser to choose only the segments of interest, rather
flow
broadcast
bulletin.
linear
1--)y
bound
being
the
of a news
than
52See for example, len Ang's study of television's place in domestic routines or, more recently,
Helen Wood's work on the way audiencesselect and use television programming on hard drive
Wood,
2007).
(An-g.
1996;
domestic
fit
their
milieu
recorders to
270
The multiscreen arguably therefore addresses an audience whose

fragmented
but
holistic,
discrete
identity is not
rather
and
and
in
it
terms,
As
positive
provides a public service
such,
compartmentalised.
forms
identity
identification
I
to
that
the
and
of
new
suggested in
response
Chapter 2 were part of the larger cultural milieu of a globalised world
forms
digital
As
Jim
Collins
television's
take
shape.
which
within
argues in
landscape,
both
increasingly
television
to
multichannel
an
relation
audiences and programmers recognise that audiences are comprised of
4specific, generational, racial and gendered perspectives', which do not
4coalesceinto one big picture, but [are] rather a composite of overlapping
life
in reference to its
that
the
terrain
of contemPorary
views
visualise
(Collins,
breaks
Thus,
1992:
340).
the
the wider
multiscreen
specific uses'
down
into the individual news viewser,
category of news audience
bricoleur.
the
addressing
news viewser as a
In this sense, we might think of the multiscreen as a bricolage: a
fragmented
television
combination of
segments,
and treated as malleable
hypermedia forms that can be extracted and arranged into a single text to
by
Collins
'only
interests.
As
individual
Jim
the
suit
argues,
viewser's
bricolage
interdependency
this
of
and eclecticism can we
recognising
appreciate the profound changes in the relationship of reception and
(Collins,
338).
1992:
As
Landow
in
production
postmodern cultures'
fact
in
appear inevitable in
suggests, collage, or collage-like effects,
hypertext environments (1994: 37-38). Consequently, viewsers approach
('what
in
Derby
bricolage
in
the
the
the
was
score
mind
with specific uses
has
happened
for
be
';
'What
';
the
'What
weekend?
will the weather
game?
to Brad & Jen's marriage? ' etc), creating their own news narrative. This
by
is
the
thus
ordered
viewser's own personal
combination
syntagmatic
hierarchical ranking of the various news sub-genres on offer. This affects
271
both how the viewser navigates the multiscreen spatially, perhaps

before
business
returning to the main
news
commencing with the
headlines and so on, as well as temporally, their interest in the sub-genre
duration
dictating
item
the
which they spend on an individual
or particular
stream.
At first instance this may appear of great public service value: the
news multiscreen's portal structure aggregates content in a way that
addressesa wide variety of news audiences, now recast as viewsers able to

44cherrypick" the segments and sub-genres of news that most interest them.
Arguably this might make the news text more appealing to viewsers, in
turn making it more accessible to a wider audience. Indeed this seems to
be the case as the BBC's monitoring of use by viewsers suggests that it has,
been
most successful with groups traditionally not perceived
surprisingly,
as news audiences. As Cohen reveals,
Subsequent to the launch of the multiscreen, we found

that it reached a different demographic: in crude
demographic.
This
C2
D/E
terms,
the
was
marketing
involved
in
traditionally
news and wasn't
a group not
for
example, the news online
what we expected;
service maintains a more professional, A/B
demographic audience (Interview conducted
30/11/05).
However, it is the appropriateness of positing choice here as a
becomes
that
questionable in relation to the public service,
public value
fulfil.
John
Hartley
is
to
suggests
supposed
civic role, news programming
that there are "'rules" of combination that tell us which paradigmatic

because
items
'
the
together
of
news
understanding
elements can go
...
by
(as
in
items
be
influenced
to
their
the
positioning
other
tends to
relation
has
demonstrated
(Hartley,
Group
Media
to
Glasgow
good effect)
work of
'news
Hartley
to
As
32).
1982:
argue,
is competing with the
goes on
Gbid:
it'
item,
the
47)
that
and
seriousness
surrounds
of
an
semiotic context
272
by
impacted
inevitably
is
Iraq,
the
on
such as coverage of the war on
ability to watch this report on an application that allows a serniotic context
that can include text-based stories on sporting endeavours or celebrity

lifestyle etc. Indeed, returning to the issue of excess raised in Chapter 2 in
defining the current epoch of television, John Langer argues that bad news
is defined by excess:
What may distinguish unworthy news is its excesses,
The unworthy news may
its flamboyant gestures
...
bad
because
its
get
name not
of its popularity or its
bulletins,
but
because
in
it is
shameless persistence
flaunting
unruly, more openly acknowledging and
devices and constructions which the serious news
hides
(1992:
128).
suppresses and
Arguably therefore, the application's semiotic excess flaunts the
handing
the responsibility of organising this
constructed-ness of news,
unruly text over to the viewser. Thus, if the problems with the rationalised
organised viewsing experience of Walking witb Beasts were related to the
failure
balance
to
the competing aims of the genre,
application's
adequately
the difficulty here is one of failing to provide a more rationalised and
organised viewsing encounter: that is a public service structuring of
be
interested in providing a semiotic context in which
viewser-flows should
the viewser is more likely to experience a mixed diet of sub-news genres.
As Lev Manovich notes in relation to the variability inherent in new
forms,
4by passing on these choices to the user, the author also
media
human
the
the
to
world and
represent
passes on the responsibility
44).
is
(Manovich,
Manovich
2001:
in
it'
ambivalent about this
condition
"freedom" provided by the data structures and human-computer
interfaces
he
'making
Grahame
Weinbren,
Drawing
that
suggests
a
on
of tiew media.
freedoms
ha-e
These
involves
a negative
a moral responsibility'.
choice
in
customer
service
systems,
or
phone-based
webthe
automated
parallel
but
"choice"
in
'-freedom"'
'turn
the
and
to
of
name
vdiicli companies
273
from
the
labour
to
the
'passed
is
company's
employees
the
actually
her
has
time
to
own
and energy navigating
spend
customer ... now she
".
Obid)
through numerous menus'
If Manovich thinks this is an unfair balance of labour in the
transaction of a consumer good through new media systems, how do we
in
them
relation to a public service transaction, where news is
view
Are
to
civic
with
value?
we all, as viewsers, ready and
provide us
supposed
decisions
by
fragmented
the
the
textual
to
asked of us
moral
make
able
form of interactive news to remain informed of world events or events

outside our immediate areas of interest? Mark Lawson's ruminations on the
interactive applications discussed here are illuminating and worth quoting
length:
at some
Some digital news channels already allow us to
bulletin:
drop
heavy
light
headlines
in
the
or
choose
the Euro, go with the dead donkey. And this raises
the biggest risk of interactive viewing: that selfdrop
to
our standards. As
control encourages us
buy
has
to
tried
a child an ice-cream is
anyone who
aware, choice can encourage greed and confusion.
The mere knowledge that seven other games were
available on Wednesday encouraged me to sample
flash-points from all of them rather than appreciate
I
If
this
will end up
continues,
one match properly.
This
knowing a lot less about a lot more football
...
trick can be dismissed as paternalist, but the spread
for
it
an
of red-button television makes easier
individual to turn the experience of television into a
broadcasting
The
to the
trivia.
opening of
river of
But
eight
viewing.
audience may encourage shallow
televised games still feels a kind of paradise
(18/09/04, online).
As Laxvson acknowledges, the questions I pose here suggest that the BBC
diet
Auntie,
of programming
choosing our
should occupy a paternal role:
5', This is recognised by Lury"s discussion of interactivity where, discussingBig Brother's

interactive application, she suggeststhat the surveillance aestheticplaces 'the viewer in an
for
but
in
just
they
the
choosing
what
are
seeing
also
implicit position of responsibility. not
...
for
(2005:
169).
doesn't
Whilst
Lury
being
they
see'
being
what
responsible
a witness. of
senseof
hallmarks
John
Ellis'
has
theorisation
the
television
it,
of
of
as
this
Clearly
argument
acknowledge
deal
in
I
Chapter
1.
(2000),
the
with
which
xvith
problems
a form of -witness'
274
for us. However, whilst I have sympathy with such a viewpoint in relation
is
by
interactivity,
this
to the problems posed
not the summation of my
for
here.
the
Rather
than
suggest
simply
need
a more
argument
dialectic
between
is
BBC,
the
with
my concern
choice and
paternalistic
is
that
problematic.
obligations
service
public
On the one hand, the window-on-the-world metaphor and aesthetic

is mobilised to guarantee the civic value of the news application, bringing
the important news of the day to the citizen. On the other, this is then
freedom,
the
to
application's portal structure
married with
promote
control
digital
landscape.
BBC's
in
As Karen Lury
the
the
as
part
of
and choice
role
suggests, interactive news applications now realise the 'spatial ambitions of
news programming', its window-on-the-world
from
"anywhere-at-once-now"',
of news
function of offering a 'sense
through offering such choices
(2005: 167). However, this actually reduces the BBC's ability (and
fulfil
to
the new edicts of 'sustain[ing] citizenship and civil
obligation)
learning';
'promot[ing]
society';
education and
and 'bringing the world to
the UK' because it relies on the individual viewser performing the labour of
this task: something, in effect, audiences and viewsers pay the licence fee
for. Indeed, returning to the gatekeeper function of news journalists
discussed above, whilst this metaphor has come under criticism for its
failure to grasp the 'the complex news-constitutive character of
foregrounded
have
broadcast
journalism',
such criticisms
contemporary
how much professional work goes into making the news: work now
(Corner,
This
2001:
is
75).
the
not to say that
unskilled viewser
passed onto
hard
in
news programming public service value only resides world, or
demonstrates
fallibility
lifestyle
the
Moseley's Nvork on
programming
of
balance
but
here
is
(2000)
there
that
a
question
of
at
stake
such thinking
be
As
taken
itself
the
a
public
service
as
value.
a
result,
cannot
and choice
275
already problematic ideological implications of such window-on-the-world

rhetoric are transposed onto a windowed aesthetic that actually reduces the
bowl
is a more
to
or
perhaps
goldfish
a personal portal window
help
ingrain
that
can
metaphor
narrow-visioned
appropriate
-
personal
for
particular news subgenres.
preferences
Furthermore, even where a mixed-diet is self-programmed the
largely
reduces the news to a sound bite". Jackie Harrison's
multiscreen
2000 study of terrestrial television news in Britain posited that as rolling-24hour news channels became increasingly prominent, a reduction in
gappointment news' would result, leaving audiences 'restricted to unedited
blizzard of information, or short, uninformative news bulletins' (2000: 12).
The multiscreen application can be read in such terms, forming part of a
wider television industry practice of "unbundling".
As Max Dawson
forms
explains, unbundling
part of a wider 'itemised economy' in which
'the primary unit of exchange is no longer the compact disc, the
but
the
television
newspaper or magazine, or
series,
rather the track, the
(Dawson,
2007). News, already produced
the
the
article,
episode, or
scene'
digital
devices,
is particularly
storage
as segments on videotape or
driven,
is
image
'news
this
to
sound-bite and
making it
susceptible
practice:
far more suited to [unbundling]' (Caldwell, quoted in ibid).

Whilst this practice does not inherently reduce news to the sound-
bite, the problem becomes more acute in the interactive news application
At
it
the
present, ratings technologies
and
measures use and ratings.
way
interactive
deal
text, only
the
the
to
nuances
of
with
are not able
has
As
the
as
application
a
whole.
a
that
accessed
a viewser
registering
how
the
of
segments
news
many
and
which
of
result, regardless
5' As I have argued elsewhere,the BBC's axing of its nightly bulletin on BBC3 (a channel aimed
its
literally
60second
has
the
to
demographic)
content
on
channel
20-35
news
reduced
y.o.
at the
distinctive
features
to
the
that
the
tone
make
the
service
was
bites
of
central
undermining
sound
(Bennett, 2006).
276
included
they
to
are
all
watch,
within a
multiscreen the viewser chooses
becomes
figure
for
This
"news".
more apparent when one
problem
ratings
length
time
is
the
that
the
of
viewsers
spend
on
average
service
considers
between one and three minutes (source: Nick Cohen interview 30/11/05).
As a result, although a larger or new audience might watch the interactive
if
text,
viewsers only watch the sport, or the entertainment news, or
news
the business news or a short combination of each, there is a question as to
the public service value of what they are watching.
in this sense, what Landow describes as Lyotard's confusion that

digitized information is something equivalent to a sound-bite, its textuality
tyrannically controlled by a programmer, becomes a reality (albeit in the
largely
benevolent
(Landow,
BBC
1991:
the
tyrant
a
programmer)
case of
32). So the term fragment has a final meaning, related to its grammatical
fracturing
indicates
incomplete
the
sentence;
of the news
an
usage, which
into individual nodes undermines the cumulative organisation and structure

that Ellis perceives in his theorisation of television's segmented form
(1992[19821). Therefore as with my discussion in Chapter 5, it is important
to recognise that the freedom, control and choices made available by
interactivity can be rationalised by second shift programming strategies,
interactive
in
the
news applications need to re-strike the
case
of
which
balance between personalisation and provision of a mixed diet of news

BBC
'might
Paper
Wbite
importantly,
Most
the
the
chastised,
as
sub-genres.
decide that one of its objectives should be to explain issues behind the
(2006:
broadcaster'
To
it
is
12).
better
this
end
a
than
any other
news
Ten
its
Extra
Yeiis
BBC
sen-ice, which provided
at
the
pulled
shame that
Corporation's
in-depth
the
of
main evening
coverage
viewsers with more
due
few
2005
in
just
to
bulletin,
consistently poor
months
a
after
news
interactive
despite
the
to
Thus,
mobilise
potentialities
of
an attempt
ratings.
277
television to fulfil the criteria of engagement set out in the Green and Wbite
Paper, choice has problematically remained the predominant value in
defining such application's second shift public service strategies.
Interactive sports applications: Fragmenting the nation

So far I have been concerned to interrogate and question the way
has
BBC
the
promoted choice as a public service value in relation to news
itself
is
However
choice
not inherently problematic, as the
programming.
use of interactivity in the coverage of the Athens Olympics suggests. This
highest
BBC's
the
profile and most used interactive
application was one of
60%
6million
in
2004,
its
of
viewsers staying on the
with nearly
services
for
longer
(Timms,
2004).
By
15
minutes
or
streaming co-temporal
service
boasted
1000
BBC
it
'over
the
that
making
was
events simultaneously,
hours of extra footage available to the digital viewer' (Salmon, quoted in
Gibson, 2004). As Owen Gibson outlines, this has allowed the BBC to
'carefully cultivate an image as the place where the nation comes together
for the one-off events' Gbid). Obviously, this recalls the BBC's traditional
do
but
defining
in
it
the
a way that moves
so
must
national,
remit of
beyond the now outmoded Reithian edict of 'making the nation as one
following
In
the
man'.
discussion I am interested in how the Olympics
large
in
desire
to
one place,
this
audiences
aggregate
application negotiates
whilst also promoting choice as a public service value.
key
featured
As with the news application, choice and control
as
discourses in promoting the Olympics application. As Andrew Thompson
News)
Sports
Media
the
New
Development,
argued,
Head
and
(BBC
of
Wimbledon application 'empowers our viewers and allo,vsthem to take

24/0605)Office,
Press
'
(BBC
to
they
see ...
want
matches
what
of
control
In a similar vein, Patrick Dalzell argued that
278
for
is
[public
For sports it
value
money.
service value]
for
fee
licence
As a
coverage of an
payer, you pay
is
interactive
Adding
services
minuscule ... For
event.
be
interactivity
should
television as a whole,
more
integrated and about choice (Interview conducted
22/03/04).
Dalzell's comments implicitly point to some of the tensions that the
Olympics application had to negotiate. On the one hand, the application
invoked portal strategies in order to represent value for money: aggregating
content in one place and giving viewsers as much choice of coverage as
discuss,
doing
As
in
I
to
this provided the BBC with an
go on
so
possible.
different
to
engage viewsers with
opportunity
sporting and national
hand,
had
On
it
the
to act as a window-on-the-world,
other
allegiances.
'bringing the world to the UK and the UK to the world' through the live
coverage of a world event.
However, events such as the Olympics problematically invoke
television's liveness, and its antecedent connotations of collective viewing,

for public service broadcasters. As Rod Brookes' analysis of the Olympics
suggests, the BBC's public service obligations require the Corporation to
for
live.
Firstly,
is
However,
this
two
reasons.
problematic
screen events
BBC
the
must act as a
with multiple events occurring simultaneously,
location
broadcast.
Secondly,
in
the
to
as
gatekeeper
selecting which sports
broadcaster
its
in
Olympics
is
the
time
the
the
zone
and
as
same
of
rarely
for
inconvenient
times
that
aggregating
are
audiences, events often occur at
Brookes
As
explains, the requirement to screen events
a mass audience.
lix,e can mean 'losing the many potential viewers who were asleep or at
in
USA,
In
during
the
stations
commercial
the screening'-'.
contrast
work
instead
live
to
generate
NBC,
preferring
'withheld
coverage,
such as
highlights
by
from
time
screening
prime
advertisers'
reVenLie
maximum
55After a successfulsmaller trial for the 2004 Olympics, the BBC rolled out full coverageof the
it
the
to
Cup
office-bound audience.
capture
World
allowing
2006
online.
279
BBC
By
(Brookes,
32).
the
2002:
to screen multiple
allowing
packages
highlights
Olympics
the
stream,
available
events and create an always
likely
live,
but
to
the
of
people
number
watch
application maximised
also
for
day's
to
the
the
catch
viewsers
up on
capacity
action.
provided
Furthermore, as Dalzell points out, for the BBC this not only enables
have
for,
but also the coverage
better
the
they
to
them
paid
exploit
rights
they are already obliged to provide. As with Wimbledon, the BBC's
large
footage
from the
to
sporting events are
capture
commitments at such
large
is
industrial
there
already a
action of various games; as a result,
infrastructure of cameras, sound equipment, editors and commentators at
such events. However, previously the audience was receiving relatively
little value from their licence fee money in this area, as the many hours of
footage recorded were edited into short highlights package. As a result, the
for
boast
the BBC's interactive Olympics coverage of over
promotional
1000 hours of extra content, was in fact simply giving the viewer access to
for
filmed,
have
been
in
in
effect paid
and
already
content which would
their licence fee.

Whilst the application clearly provided some value in the way
liveness
did
in
the
that
of
negotiated
a way
so
choice was promoted, and
window-on-the-world
obligations, the application's portal structure
inevitably leads to some cherry picking. As Rod Brookes points out, the
been
has
Olympics
to place smaller
always
coverage
public service role of
(2002).
That
in
the application might undermine
the
shop window
sports
Sport),
(BBC
Director
by
Salmon
Peter
function
is
of
this
acknowledged
'provided
Olympics
BBC's
applications
and
coverage
the
who posited that
drives
in
to
of
people
millions
that
and
people
sucks
a comprehensiveness
discussion
Similarly
the
multiscreen
to
the
news
of
sports'.
quite specialist
bodies
labour
the
to
the
transaction
sports
the
of
Salmon
shifts
above,
280
themselves who he maintains must keep 'their side of the bargain to

by
Olympics'
(quoted in 7-be
the
the
capitalise on
offered
show window
Guardian, 09/08/04). In turn, of course, these bodies must rely on the

BBC's viewser performing the task of navigating away from the main
content, as minority sports always occupied the smaller windows on the
periphery of the main video window in the Olympic application's structure.
Nevertheless the ability to choose between events, where different
have
different
interests
in
nations and viewsers
vested
sports, is suggestive
fulfilling
of a new way of
public service obligations. Through the
application the BBC was able to cater both for individual identities that
have
might
complex national allegiances (as in my own case, being
Australian and reluctantly British), whilst in some sense still bringing the
'100 tribes' of Britain together for the kind of shared experience that has
traditionally defined concepts of broadcast television. Such an approach
seems particularly apt in a period where the idea of one unified,
identifiable nation is thrown into question by so many factors external to
television. Whilst David Docherty, writing about choice and BBCi services,
because
be
is
in
'the
social glue argument
pernicious
surmising
may
correct
it leads to ratings chasing' and it 'certainly should not form any criteria with
judgement
BBCi',
judge
this
to
a
we should make according
seems
which
to individual Programming or genres rather than the BBCi service as a
for
large
(Docherty,
The
2003).
the
to
audience
amass a
ability
whole
Olympics and offer choice at the same time appears a predominantly useful
service.
The BBC's argument for its ability to bring people together for
in
is
Public
I
in
Building
this
as
regard,
alue
significant
occasions
sporting
it attempts to define such occasions in terms that are not exclusively of the
national:
281
The BBC will offer an exciting range of sporting and

help
bring
to
that
other national events
people
together across the UK. The BBC has a greater
capacity than any other organisation to bring large
numbers of people together, acting as a source of
social capital in an increasingly fragmented age (2004:
79).
This ideal coincides with a desire of the BBC to respond to a changing
country that is 'an increasingly diverse and fragmented society,
economically, socially, demographically
and culturally' (2004: 76). Read in
find
these
conjunction,
commitments
a successful articulation in the way
the Olympics mobilises the discourses of choice, control and arguably
those subsumed within the window-on-the-world
liveness,
the
metaphor -
national, immediacy and the broad vistas of public service broadcasting.

Such a balancing act suggests a valuable role for the Corporation to play
landscape
digital
the
television. As Harrison and
within
changing
of
Wessels suggest,
forms
new
of audience engagement exist, which
should not be viewed as audience fragmentation but
discernment
audience
constituted through an
environment which is pluralistic, engaging, associative
helps
itself
that
to
and critical: an environment
defined
by the
the
stimulate
expression of a pluralism
diverse
individuals and groups within their
activities of
different social, cultural and political experiences and
settings. These expressions, we argue, mark the
form
in
continuation of public service values
a new
of
(2005:
837).
public service communication
Fragment, as constituted by the Olympics application, represents just such
have
demonstrates
BBC
the
to
that
a modality and
can continue
a valuable
broadcaster.
Thus,
important
the
the
and
nation's
public
service
role as
fragmentary
the
the
portal practices of a
public service value of
way
textuality function to privilege choice is intimately related to genre.
Conclusion
282
fragmenting audience is an inevitable result of a developing
increasing
in
of
globalisation, and the
a period
multichannel environment
for
The
in
this
caters
are
provider
problematic.
service
which a public
ways
BBC must provide for people in their various audience and viewsing
fragmented
like
in
textuality
the
that
applications
use of a
modalities, and
for the Olympics seems an important way of dealing with some aspects of
this. However, whilst the move in the Wlbite Paper to untie public service
be
from
it
is
television
genres
should
welcomed,
specific
unlikely to
value
diminish the prominence of news or sports in fulfilling public service
This
is particularly true of the news' place in satisfying the
obligations.
diminishing public service obligations of the other terrestrial channels. As
different
discussion
interactivity
the
applications
attests,
provides
of
my
both great potential for public service programming to meet these
challenges as well as representing another element of the tightrope act the
BBC must forever perform.
In conclusion, the problems posed by hypertext for literary theory
for
Espen
be
in
issues
television
the
studies.
at
stake
can
reconfigured
Aarseth argues that for literary theory, 'the absent structure of narrative is
determinate
key
'in
that
the
cybertext the absent
problem', suggesting
for
(1994:
74).
In
is
television's new
the
contrast,
plot'
structure
hypertextual interactive forms, the absent structure is that of flow - in this
instance that across the normally linear segments of the news. Instead, flow
is replaced by choice. In the second shift terms I proposed to analyse these
services in, the transferral of the paradigmatic process of selection and

items
the
to
vie,vser suggests a new
of
news
syntagmatic combination
by
BBC
the
television
text.,
the
as
marketed
modality of experiencing
its
but
traditional
public service
without
perhaps
empowerment
forms
in
the
NvIiiist
news
there
of
rationality
programmed
are
responsibility.
283
application's textuality, at present this privileges choice to the extent that a

by
bite-sized
diet
fragments.
flow
by
is
a menu of
mixed
replaced
supplied
The challenge for the BBC is to find the public service structuring logics of
for
such applications with greater consistency.
second shift aesthetics
For Georgina Born, the Ofcom statement that in 'a fully digital world
have
begs
to
the 'crucial
access
much
greater
will
choice'
consumers
how
broadcasting
defined
just
"choice"
in
is
question
of
and opaque
or
475).
(2004:
has
This
taken this criterion as its
chapter
even measured'
broadcasting
debates
its
in
is
concern,
suggesting
role
public
service
central
indicative of the tension evident between television's changing position as
window-on-the-world
have
demonstrated
importantly,
Most
I
and portal.
as
above choice is clearly not a catch-all value to append to all BBC activities,
but must be investigated in relation to specific generic concerns and against
the longer positioning of television as a window-on-the-world.
Whilst
personalising services through the choices on offer in interactive

applications is not inherently antithetical to public service provision, to
future
digital
Barry
Cox's
the
television
to
as a virtual
vision of
return
discussed
introduction,
in
thesis'
the
shopping mall
choice privileges the
positioning of the audience as consumer rather than citizen. As I go on to

discuss in the final chapter, the shift of television's window to a portal need
but
the
can
viewser as consumer,
not simply privilege choice and address
work to address the viewser as citizen, structuring their viewser-flows to
drive them online as part of a national, collective experience.
284
Appendix of imagesfor Chapter 6
Frame 1: The original BBC Wimbledon application

the
offering
viewser a
between
five, predominantly live, videostreams.
choice
If
fr.
I
-0
1 14%
att ef If aq fm *4 two
&A*s an
--%us
roodwim
-f ar. 90
Frame 2: Sky's interactive news application - the eight videostreams are

live
made Lip of a mixture of
and pre-recorded material, which in
large
database of text-based stories, provide the viewser with
conjunction with a
a "world" to explore.
285
Frame 3: The BBC's interactive news application - utilising only six

by
BBC's
is
the
application
predominated
pre-recorded
videostreams,
live
feeds
for
'breaking stories' of major significance.
material, with
reserved
The three applications displayed in frames 1-3 all borrow
Figure 6.1
from each other's application structure (or software blue-Print). Whilst all
focuses
different
different
and options, all use
and provide
are aesthetically
the interactive television platform to transmit a menu-based application
from which viewser can select individual videostreams or text-based
stories.
286
The BBC switched from this text-driven news application to

Figure 6.2
the multiscreen above following the success of Sky's application and its
Gulf
War 11coverage.
their
ratings-winning
association with
The Athens Olympics application evidences the production

Figure 6.3
heritage from the Wimbledon and news applications above.
287
The onscreen EPG for the BBC's Athens Olympics

Figure 6.4
application allowed viewsers to plan ahead.
Chapter 7: Interfacing
Digital Brita 0
the UK - Building
2004 heralded an important series of events concerning the BBC's

digital
landscape.
increasingly
The
in
television
the
place
start of the year
digital
by
television take-up reaching tipping-point,
was marked
with over
50% of the population reported by Ofcom to own at least one digital

(Ofcom,
2004c: 2). Whilst there had been significant growth
television set
in the proportion of homes accessing digital television by the BBC-led
Freeview platform, digital television uptake was largely dictated by Sky's
be
At
2004,
Ofcom
the
there
to
start of
subscription rates.
estimated
digital
7.2million
Sky's
to
subscribers
approximately
satellite service,
compared to Freeview's 2.9million and cable's 2.3million. Despite Freeview
being widely described as a success by the Blair Government, the BBC and
the industry alike in saving the digital terrestrial platform after the
ITV/OnDigital
debacle, the BBC's place in the digital television future was
fire
have
2004.
As
in
I
the
the thesis
suggested
under
at
start of
introduction, the fallout of the Hutton Repon left the Corporation
licence-renewal.
leading
This was to
in
to
the
rudderless
crucial period
up
begin in earnest with the BBC's first submission to the Government,
Building Public Value, due in mid-2004. This report came on the back of
increased pressure on the BBC's place in the digital age following Ofcom's
broadcasting
future
the
two earlier reports on the
most
of public service
funding
investigate
had
BBC
the
subscription
recommend
recent of which
be
established as a new way of
and that a public service publisher
56
delivering public service television in the digital age
5' Furthermore, Ofcom had supportedthe call by independentproducersto increasethe BBC" s

(Bom,
2004:
from
50%
499).
independents
250
by
to
o
quota of programming supplied
289
However by the end of the year, the BBC's place in this digital
landscape looked increasingly secure: digital uptake had grown to over
60% of homes and had largely been driven by Freeview, which was by
then delivering digital television to over 5million homes, closing the gap to
Sky's subscription-based digital satellite platform to just over 2million. In
addition, the appointments of Dyke's and Davies' successors, Mark
Thompson and Michael Grade respectively, had been met with widespread
document,
During
BBC
in Building
this
the
period
approval.
produced a
Public Value, which envisioned a role for the Corporation that intertwined
the promise of choice in the digital age, with notions of a public sphere
that sought to retain the importance of the concept of the national. As
Wheatley has demonstrated, an important tactic for countering such
has
been
BBC
the
the use of event television
sustained periods of attack on
(2004).
7-be
just
Walking
Beasts
Blue Planet
as
witb
programming
and
formed part of the Corporation's robust response to such criticism at the
digitalisation,
discussion
here
television's
the
start of
applications under
history
to
a series of
programmes, which in commemorating
were attached
the end of World War Two as a 'shared moment that can bring the UK
together around those things that bind us' functioned as an important form
demonstrate
As
they
to
the BBC's
television.
aimed
of event
such,
digital
landscape
(BBC,
2004:
in
76).
the
continuing value and relevance
Thus as a necessary corollary to the discussion of fragment as a textuality
that responds, with varying degrees of success, to the viewser's desire to
forms
be
interactive
in
the
of
control of content,
choose, navigate and
desire
bring
by
here
discussed
to
a
viewsers
television
are characterised
together into one space and engage and participate with the programme or
BBC.
In
I
the
particular,
am
crucially,
application, each other and,
between
White
these
the
applications
the
and
relationship
concerned with
290
Papei's requirement for the BBC to build digital Britain and 'represent the
UK, its Nations, regions and communities'. I argue that by linking
digital
ideal
Britain,
fulfilment
the
the
the
of
with
conceptions of
national
of
both these purposes is inextricably entwined and articulated with the
(DCMS,
'sustain
2006).
to
citizenship
and
civil
society'
requirement
The applications under discussion here fit well with my concern to
demonstrate that interactive television does not simply remediate web and
but
does
so in a way that is entwined with
new media portal practices,
television's position as a winclow-on-the-world.
As Lisa Parks has argued,
digital
industrial
television encourage
textual
and
practices of
emergent
democratic
'to
television
the
screen as a
reimagine
audiences and viewsers
Internet portal that gives everyone equal access to knowledge about
(2004:
143). As Parks' statement
technologies
and cyberculture'
computer
for
fundamental
importance
the BBC's status as a public
suggests, of
broadcaster
digital
landscape
is
in
it
in
the
the
strives to
way
which
service
here
Of
'everyone
are those groups
give
equal access'.
particular concern
being
left
have
been
defined
to
on the wrong side of
as vulnerable
who
the digital divide, most notably the elderly whom Rupert Murdoch dubbed
the "digital immigrants" of his generation (c. f. BBC, 2004; Ofcom, 2004a,
2006b)". For such viewsers, the BBC had articulated 'a special
digital
final
for
bringing
into
television
the
the
cohorts
responsibility
'less
by
to
trusted
older
viewsers
who
were
guide
acting as a
universe'
(2004:
behind'
left
This
11).
digitally adept
one
gets
no
ensuring
...
has
interactive
have
television
Ofcom
an
recognised, that
suggests, as
be
digital
in
defining
in
the
important role
age and might
citizenship
form
'social
that
televisual
can
represent
positioned alongside news as a
57'1 wasn't weaned on the web, nor coddled on a computer... My two young daughters,on the
Murdoch,
(Rupert
digital
be
available
at
speech
hand,
natives'
will
other
html).
247.
http://www. newscorp.com/news/news
291
documentation
(supporting
democracy'
Pbase
I
'informed
to
value' or
Review of Public Service Television Broadcasting, 2004).
Equally, Parks' use of the term portal is suggestive of the way in
discussion
here
both
the
offered
applications under
which
an imaginative
journey, as well as worked as a second shift practice of aggregating
As
Mark
Goodchild
described7
and
users.
the
audiences,
viewsers
content,
history
the
commemorative
applications associated with
programming
[providing] all the information the viewer needed
'emerged as a portal
...
to know about the BBC's coverage: the programmes, the schedule, the web
how
(Interview
information
to
on
participate'
conducted on
content and
09/06/05)58 As Goodchild goes on to suggest, the applications' second shift
.
by
function
this
strategy of aggregating content was complemented
portal
offering viewsers a journey: the 'portal ... act[ed] as a catalyst to send
people to the web', specifically the associated People's War website'9. As I
demonstrate,
to
the applications' simplification of choices will go on
database
the
whereby
of computing's portals, unlike the news multiscreen,
is only apparent at an aesthetic level - worked to drive viewsers online
through the rationalised and personalised journeys of television's
democratic portal in ways that strongly re-articulated television's,
broadcasting's,
window-on-the-world
particularly public service
function:
bringing viewsers together and then sending them to spaces under the
(to
digital
for
immigrant
the
whom these
rubric of the national; and,
58Goodchild acted as the senior executive producer on all of the history programming
below.
discussed
applications
59It is important to recall at this point that, as I noted in Chapter 2, whilst the BBC announceda
develop
'projects'
for
that
degreee
360
content
multi-platform
commissioning
policy of
interactive
TV,
the
none
of
other
platforms,
television,
and
online
simultaneously across
interactive
Goodchild's
Thus
the
this
positioning
of
strategy.
applications are the specific result of
TV applications as portals describesnot only their relationship with the audienceand viewsers of
interactive
drove
team
the
the
BBC's
often
but
whereby
the
context
production
television,
also
interviews
first,
testimony
and
the
eye-witness
collecting
applications
process- commissioning
branding
acrossplatforms.
ensuring a consistent
lt
292
broad
the
applications are addressed), opening onto
new vistas of digital
spaces.
It is worth briefly engaging with Will Brooker's concept of
44overflow" here in relation to the way I'm positioning these interactive
drove
that
viewser-flows to the web. Brooker's work
applications as portals
is a useful starting point for thinking about the changing relationship
between television and the web. As I have suggested in Chapter 3, as a
(1992,2002)
Henry
Jenkins'
to
overly optimistic view of cultural
corrective
fans'
Brooker's
interaction
ethnographic
study
of
convergence,
with the
(2001).
important
However, as production
television
remains
overflow of
ecologies continue to exploit convergence and, indeed, they themselves
converge as cultural sites, Brooker's treatment of the television text as the
further
isolated,
'for
than
as
an
self-contained
point
activity
rather
starting
his
is
In
through
assertion that the
particular,
cultural artefact'
problematic.
individual episode functions as the reference point that fans 'must return
for
Brooker
text
to',
of affiliated websites are
argues that the content and
461-69).
(2001:
That
Brooker
is,
ancillary and subsidiary material: overflow
for
between
filling
the
these
audiences who are
episodes
gaps
sees
sites as
keen to remain immersed in the diegetic world of the programme, which
key
has
is
site
a
already acknowledged
work on the soap opera audience
of pleasure in the audience's experience of, and participation with, the
television text (c.f. Allen, 1994).

However Niki Strange's work on the 360 degree commissioning
in
this
BBC
television
assertion,
the
of
centrality
the
challenges
policy of
different
dominates
TV
commissioning strategies,
often
noting that xhilst
dispersed
in
formations
television's
multiplatform
persist
textual
texts
(Strange, 2007). Drawing on John Caldwell's work on "critical industrial

Z
in
Strange's
the
must
we
(2006).
which
articulates
way
work
practice"
293
digital
dispersed
television as the
texts of multiplatform,
conceive of the
products of changing production and commissioning strategies and their
relationship to aesthetics and audiences, rather than simply as a site of
television overflow.
Similarly, the programmes under discussion here are demonstrative
of the way in which television isn't the always already positioned starting
dispersed
for
television's
texts. For Dunkirk and D-Day
experiencing
point
interactive
application acted as an extension of the text or
nor
neither web
but
functioned
in a more complex relationship that
a site of overflow,
fulfilling
broadcasting
Thus
it's
towards
wider public service
aimed
aims.
important to note that with Dunkirk
and D-Day it was the interactive
drove
team
the production process.
who
application's production
Interviews with production personnel revealed how it was the interactive
team who first decided on how to cover the commemoration events with a
for
importantly
interactive
Most
the
television,
and web effort.
collaborative
here,
it
interactive
I
team who
the
that
to
argument
make
was
want
Second
War
World
the
the
testimony
of
commissioned and collected
drove
it
As
I'll
the
then
this
testimony
to
which
show,
was
veterans.
go on
content and experience of the interactive application, the television
To
I
this
the
end,
want to position my understanding
programme and
web.
history
debates
in
to
programming,
about
relation
of these texts as portals
its aims and problematics.

for
fertile
locus
History programming provides a particularly
a
discussion of interactive television and the national for the way in ,\-hich
Jon
'Wilson
As
argues,
to
the genre often aims
create a sense of community.
(2003:
181),
'bring
history
the
which
to
alive'
past
aims
programming
good
,n
kind
being
'freedom,
interprets
empathy and
of
Simon Schama
a
about
as
by
from
'separated
links
to
us
others
experiences
that
our
commuiiity'
294
time'. Schama goes on to suggest that history programming can facilitate

the feeling of community by helping to recognise connections, working
towards 'the demystification of perpetual difference' and developing a
histories
(2004:
22-23).
In this regard, my understanding of
of
shared
sense
the role history programming plays in the citizen formation of digital
Britain relies on joke Hermes' work on "cultural citizenship". Drawing on
John Hartley's suggestion that 'television taught us to understand
"difference"
(quoted in Hermes, 2005: 301),

as
well
as
neighbourliness'
...
Hermes argues for a broad understanding of cultural citizenship that sees it

debated,
a process of 'public opinion and the building of shared
as
identities among audiences' (2005: 302-3). As Graeme Turner has argued in
for
Australian
identity,
to
the BBC this involves
national
relation
representing British-ness as 'among other things ... plural: identities rather
than identity' (Turner 1994: 123).
2004 provides a useful underpinning
for the selection of these texts
in relation to these concerns as it marked the 60"' anniversary of the end of

the Second World War and, as a consequence, a host of event
programming to commemorate the occasion. Indeed as Laurence Rees, the
following
(BBC2,2005)
Auschwitz
the
noted
year, these
producer of
be
held
last
the
to
with survivors of the
commemorations were probably
(After
BBC4:
itself
Auschwitz,
Nvar
2005)60.
Mark Goodchild elaborates the
importance of this event for the BBC:

The BBC always knew that whatever it did, D-Day and
Dunkirk would be huge. Although the Ministry of
Defence did try and play-down the celebrations, the BBC
felt it had to cover the event and commissioned the
drama about two years before the day (Interviex\09/06/05).
on
conducted
60As discussedbelow, this , Ives a primacy to the place of testimony in the programmesand
here.
applications examined
295
The ambivalence of the Ministry of Defence and the Government in

marking this occasion arguably signals an uneasiness with how such events
sit within a representation of modern, multicultural Britain. That is, as I
discussion
in
below
the
preceding
chapter,
my
suggested
pays attention to
how making such events constitutive of national identity problematicall-
body
distinction
between 'gus"and
that
continues a
enshrines a national
"them", between "we the nation" and "them the others". Whilst the BBC's
coverage of memorial events such as D-Day and Dunkirk is clearly
function
bringing
'the UK together around those
the
of
mobilised under
bind
don't
that
they
us',
arguably
moments
engage with the requirement to
provide programming 'that reflects the range of cultures and communities
(DCMS,
Thus,
2006:
UK'
19).
the
across
as I will come to in my concluding
discussion of Wbo Do You 7-bink You Are?, difference and the conception
is
importance
in
as
plural
of
central
of audiences
understanding not only
the contemporary cultural notions of citizenship in digital Britain, but also
the BBC's role in addressing the digital immigrant as an expansive
category.
As with my analysis in previous chapters, the discussion below pays
belong.
the
to
the
the
applications
genre
which
specificities of
attention to
As such, I relate my understanding of the democratic portal function of the
both
44
in
they
the
to
as authenticating
work
which
way
applications
history
for
dramatic
the
concerns of
reconstructions, as well as
strategies"
here
life.
I
As
bring
to
to
am
concerned
the
to
a
result,
past
programmes
first relate the applications' aesthetic and public service form to new media
in
Habermassian
turn,
sphere.
public
the
a
of
possibilities
scholarship on
ideals
the
the
is
to
these
of
conceptions
to
relay
my second concern
both
history
bound
intimately
of
questions
with
up
that
are
national
I
broadcasting.
In
to
aim
pick
particular,
service
public
programming and
296
out two trends evident in the prograMming I discuss here that extend
different
in
the
conceptions of
ways. I argue that on the one hand,
national
those programmes and applications centred on the commemoration events
Two
World
War
of
are concerned with extending the opportunities and
digital
digital
immigrants. However, this group is
to
spaces
of
media
virtual
already secured in its place within the national -a predominantly white,
fought
for
Queen and country". Thus on the
that
often male, conception
hand,
has
history
BBC
the
other
used
programming like Wbo Do You 7-bink
You Are? to extend the opportunities of digital media to both digital
immigrants as well as viewsers who have more complex relationships to
the national: often immigrants or second generation Britons themselves. As
a result, the applications for history programmes not only seek to 'bring the
but
further,
look
to the past as a way of striding into the
past alive',
actively
digital future.
Remediating the nation: (Inter)active audiences, the public sphere

digital
divide
the
and
As discussed in Chapter 3, new media theory often posits that the
'interactivity' of digital technologies heralds a potential to create 'virtual'
fulfil
Habermassian ideals of a public sphere. As
that
to
worlds
are able
Terry Flew comments, such arguments picture technologies as offering 'the
possibility of a reinvigorated sense of community-building
and citizen
life'
(Flew,
2002: 26). Whilst not always, or indeed
in
participation
public
for
BBC
in
to
the
the
the national
national,
often, conceived of
relation
Given
important
the
participation.
site of activating such
remains an
digital
in
BBC's
2004,
it is
the
the
the
at
position
age
start
of
uncertainty of
filled
Building
Public
is
I
that
alite
vvith references to
perhaps unsurprising
61For a discussion of the hegemonic representationof British national identity as white, see
Higson, 1995. Malik, 2002.
297
the ability of the BBC to bring together the nation in a way that no other
broadcaster
Indeed,
service
media
the BBC placed
can.
new
or
commercial
for
bring
the
the ability to
together
nation
shared experiences whilst
diverse
its
make-up as one of the central public
simultaneously recognising
fulfil
digital
in
it
the
to
age:
values would seek
The BBC has a deep commitment to
the
reflect
...
diversity of the country, foster a sense of belonging
has
The
BBC
participation.
and encourage
also
a
for
UK
to
the
particular responsibility
as a whole bringing people together to share events of national
importance (2004: 36).
The BBC's position is therefore to bring together the nation for collective
but
facilitate
simultaneously recognise, represent and
experience
a
diverse
but
how
imagining
As
the
multicultural
of
nation as
unified.
such,
fulfilling
BBC
the
this role is a question not simply of
we understand
as
but
for
Most
also one of participation.
particularly
my
representation,
concerns in analysing the texts of interactive television, it is a question of
how
participation:
the interactive applications structure
representing
Ximagined
journey
to
the
making
viewser-flows
encourage participation,
through interactive television's portal as citizens who, at the journey's end
defining
involved
in
the national.
point, are
John Street provides a useful overview of the debates about the

democracy,
technology
community and participation
and
relationship of
that I outlined in Chapter 3 (1997). Importantly, Street recognizes that these
dystopian
both
responses to
utopian and
approaches can produce
technologies' facilitation of forms of democracy and participation. Thus,
discussed
Chapter
2
in
I
theory
the
might often
new media
whilst some of
fall into the former category, Sonia Livingstone characterises the political
Livingstone
that
pessimistic.
suggests
as
media
new
of
economy view
to
that
new
media
concede
approaches
much
economist
although political
298
little
is
they
there
is
consider
evidence
political activity conducted online,
that political activity is thereby increased or improved (2005). Moreover,
theorists such as Graeme Murdock and Peter Golding argue that the "virtual
inclusive,
interactive
is
insufficiently
political sphere"
or consequential and
digital
divide
leaves individualisation and
that the persistence of a
disenfranchisement as the likely outcome of net politics (quoted in
Livingstone, 2005: 19).

I will return to this issue of unequal access and disenfranchisement
below; for now I want to concentrate on how we might understand

interactive television as part of the BBC's role of encouraging participation
in a national public sphere. As I suggested in Chapter 2, the positing of
new media technologies as capable of activating the audience, invoking
participation in communities and democracy relies on wrongly
characterising old technologies, particularly television, as passive. My
discourses
television's
there and in
argument about
window-on-the-world
Chapter 4 suggested that such a view creates a false dichotomy 'between
between
determinism,
choice and
activism and passivism' whereby
television's cligitalisation presents a fundamental rupture with its old media
formations (Street, 1997: 37). Instead, we are better off considering how
these window-on-the-world
discourses are constantly re-called and re-
interactive
in
television's
the
of
and
activities
choices
circulated
structuring
historically
Street
As
and culturally grounded
portals.
suggests, such a
different
in
'the
involves
media systems
which
way
considering
approach
different
for
different
political engagement and
construct
opportunities
levels of thought', particularly through their different 'forms of address'

(1997: 37).
Academic discussions of interactive television's form of
focused
have
on its provision of voting options that
'participatol-" address
299
less
However.
decide
game
reality
shows.
the outcome of
allow viewsers to
discuss
forms
below,
interactive
I
is
television
that
the
of
work
apparent on
basis
do
the
of a simple commercial transaction or
which
not operate on
but
designed
to encourage viewsers to see themselves as
rather are
voting,
digital
Tim
Nightingale
Britain.
Dwyer's
Virginia
and
of
part
argument
interactive
television voting
the
nature
commercial
of
regarding
discussion
how
this
to
these texts address the
applications extends
both
They
in
the
terms
that
the production
of
national.
suggest
audience
involved
individual
the
and
Programme presenter's call to
companies
like
'repeatedly
"democratic" or references to national
attach words
action
identity to the voting outcomes' (2006: 30). However for Nightingale and
Dwyer, 'ultimately [this] is a strategy designed to undermine the integrity of
the nation state and to replace it with unprecedented dependence by the
40).
(2006:
because
This
is
public on user-pay entertainment and services'
the programmes, by charging premium dial-up rates to 'interact' with
blur
have
that
to
the
programmes
only
entertainment value, work
distinction between consumer and citizen, negatively impacting on the
democratic responsibilities and opportunities of the latter.
Whilst Nightingale and Dwyer's analysis might be overly pessimistic,
invited
Su
Holmes'
the
of
and
complex
modes
resistance
on
as
work
has
demonstrated,
like
by
Stars
Pop
Pop
Idol
and
reinforced
programmes
the address to the national by interactive television remains a compelling
(2004a,
is
2004b).
In
there
a need to
particular,
and multifaceted question
by
different
different
into
the
providers and
take
address made
account
forms of interactivity. That is, not only do we need to explore how the
different
BBC
the
to
mode of address
serve create a
public service remits of
in their aPPlications, but we must also take into account the fact that it is
that
can
encourage
participation and
applications
voting
only
not
)00
formats
like
Big
Thus
of
programmes
the
voting
engagement.
unlike
Brother, the texts below do not work on a rudimentary, return-path form of
interactivity that is based on a commercial transaction. Instead they work in
firstly
by
two mutually reinforcing ways,
validating the viewsers' experience
digital
future)
(and
its
through representational
the
national
as part of
by
simultaneously acting as a portal to drive
strategies, and secondly
viewsers to online spaces - structuring their viewser-flows as a mobilised
citizenry.
Of relevance here then is the BBC's explicit engagement with issues
divide
by
digital
its
through
the
a
of
re-assertion
position as a
raised
Interestingly
is
this
universal
provider.
achieved through an
national,
digital
The
immigrant.
BBC's
towards
the
a
audience:
very specific
address
by
both
to
this
to
their
audience aims
encourage
participation
address
simplifying the structures and aesthetics of interactive applications, making
them use-able, as well as informing the digital immigrant that their stories
and experiences are valuable - thus tying this address to the goals of
history programming to 'bring the past alive'. In such a way, the
digital
Britain,
including
the
to
the
national as
applications work
re-imagine
'less digitally confident' within the new media "'information
society"'
The address to older viewsers is made explicit by Building Public

I alite, which depicted the People's War website as 'specifically designed to
62).
60
(2004:
Furthermore,
Jana
Internet'
try
the
to
attract people over
Bennett's discussion of the kinds of pop-up text-boxes that characterise the
below
discussed
that
suggests
the
programming
memorial
applications of
for
Detailing
tailored
a similar
an older audience.
these Nvere specifically
for
Mozart's
a
season
of
work
to
analyse
and
explain
used
application
Bennett
2004,
in
that
suggested
the
composer
programming on
301
Some of the biggest takers for this have been late

lovers
digital,
the
older classical music
adopters to
like my mum and my in-laws, who all told me they
had pushed their red buttons to devour what was on
have
digital
A
thought
they
would
of
offer. year ago
as
the face of their alarm clock (Speech given to MiPTV
and Milia, 30/04/04).
The implication of Bennett's speech is that because these applications are
both unobtrusive and explanatory, their value is immediately apparent to
digital
to
technologies. Furthermore, these
audience's unaccustomed
little
in
the way of either actual interaction, or the
require
very
applications
forms of choices that I have suggested characterise interactive television. As
high
degree
in
to
the
contrast
of perceptual, cognitive and motor
a result,
demands an application like Walking witb Beasts demands of its viewsers
in creating an immersive experience, the applications here demand little in
terms of the viewser's adeptness with digital technologies: they are useable
to the widest possible range of viewsers. As I suggest below, their function
drives
as an authenticating strategy also
viewsers to stay on the application
for the additional 'Eyewitness Stories' element which, in turn, acted as a
by
Thus
BBC's
the
to
the
online content.
unlike
mobility conferred
portal
Walking witb Beasts, the journeys on offer here are more discursive, asking
the viewser to take the imaginative passage to become Internet users as
digital
Britain.
part of
This address to the digital immigrant evinces a concern to address
becomes
divide
digital
television
as
worries over the emergence of a
increasingly convergent with other digital media. As I suggested in Chapter
2, interactive television has been positioned as offering access to and
digital
by
However,
technologies.
participation within the spaces of new
linking this purpose with both the traditional public service concerns of
defining the national and sustaining citizenship, as well as the aesthetic
liveness
(which
below),
I
to
immediacy,
and
come
authenticity
tropes of
302
interactive television's portal to digital spaces has been framed within

discourses.
familiar
By
television's
using interactive
window-on-the-world
television as a portal to encourage participation amongst viewsers with the
BBC and, importantly, across different new media technologies, the BBC's
fulfilling
in
Habermassian
notions of a national public sphere is linked
role
to its position as a trusted guide to new digital technologies. This was
by
DCMS's
Wlbite Paper, which posited that
the
recognised
Since its establishment the BBC has taken a leading
benefits
in
the
role
opening up
of new technologies to
mass audiences ... it is seen as a "trusted guide" to
new technology and the new experiences that come
(DCMS,
2006:
it
11-12).
with
However, in bridging the digital divide the BBC must also deal with the
inevitable fragmentation of the audience in this landscape. As I suggested
in the previous chapter, one response to such fragmentation through the
has
been
development
interactive
television
the
of
use
of applications that
privilege viewser choice whilst aggregating an audience in one place.
However, such applications not only diminish the public service value of
but
fail
digital
like
issues
to
the
of a
particular genres,
news,
also
address
divide that are central to the BBC's position as a universal provider.
Arguably the BBC has promoted two strategies for encouraging
participation and engagement that seek to address these issues of
fragmentation and division: locally, on a level of communities of interest,
below.
Bom
BBC's
discussed
Georgina
As
the
argues,
and nationally, as
digital activities 'extend the variety and range of the BBC's mode of address
to its audiences and publics, inviting participation'
(Born, 2004: 489). As
(2005),
(2005),
Jackie
Harrison
Strange
Niki
by
Jackson
Lizzie
and
work
Bridget Wessels (2005) has demonstrated, the web, cross platform projects
BBC
in
the
can
address
which
interactive
television
Provide
ways
all
and
formed
These
interests".
are
often
communities
on
of
"communities
specific
303
Interactive
Television
Kingston
(KIT)
local
BBC's
level,
the
a
such as
partnership in Hull, or the plethora of services and partnership that
Harrison and Wessels discuss. As Harrison and Wessels argue, localised
interactive television projects need not represent the atomisation, isolation

fragmentation
Rather,
initiatives
facilitate
the
audience.
such
of
the
or
can
formation of new audiences and communities with 'individuals and groups

[not]
be
participants in these new services' (2005:
who otherwise might ...
849-50), such as the case with the digital immigrant.

In contrast to the local level of community these projects address,
the BBC's other strategy has been to position itself as capable of bringing
together the whole nation, binding them through shared experiences.
Inevitably, this tactic is most often fulfilled through event television. As I
suggested in Chapter 2, whilst Wheatley is correct to problematise such
flow,
in relation to their
the
schedule's
programming's place within
interactive applications we might more usefully think about how these
here,
For
this is intimately related to
structure viewser-flows.
my purposes
how and who they include within a Habermassian public sphere facilitated
by new media. That is, how the BBC's commitments to universalism and
Murdock's
to
the
charge that virtual
respond
questions of
national
communities are often insufficiently
inclusive. As I have suggested, the
BBC's role in 'bringing the nation together for shared experiences' needs to
be thought of in relation to a plural notion of cultural citizenship that

digital
Britain.
forms
identities
diverse
as
part
of
of national
recognises
Whilst the BBC's Athens Olympics application facilitated the aggregation of
diverse identity positions, the applications below don't just recognise the
different
but
to
diversity of viewsers,
engage
structure their vlewser-flows
be
digital
both
immigrants,
to
interest,
real
and
of
communities
facilitate
BBC
Thus,
the
to
the
pull of
a
incorporated as part of the national.
304
be
incongruous
is
that
one
national public sphere need not
with such
pluralism - as the BBC itself recognised, the corporation's role is to 'offer
democratic
everyone a
voice and a means of contributing to the national
debate' (2004: 66).
Bringing the past to life: (Digital) immigrants and the (digital)

nation
[D-Day's dramatisation and] first-hand eyewitness
link
the past and the present to the red
accounts
button (Jana Bennett, Speech given to MiPTV and
Milia, 30/04/04).
The commemoration events of Dunkirk and D-Day were inscribed

discourses
broadcasting
debates
the
of
public service
and
about the
within
digital
The
BBC
in
the
the
age.
constant citation of these
place of
by
the
programmes as examples of such public value was explicitly marked
history
discussed
in the opening of this
criterion of good
programming
life'
'bring
Building
Public
Value
to
the
to
past
and 'our
chapter:
undertook
heritage
for
(2004:
historical
alive
a modern audience'
shared
and cultural
70). Furthermore, Jana Bennett's description of D-Day above also suggests
dramatisation
forms
historical
link
these
to
programming,
and
of
a concern
(tactics
that play to the aesthetic of television's
testimony
eyewitness
immediacy), to the experience, aesthetics and structures of red button

interactive television. As a result, the interactive applications here show a
history
the
programming, themselves
concerns of
concern to extend
figured within the discourses of public service in the digital age, to the
interactive applications themselves.
As commemoration
events the programming, coverage and
both
D-DaY's
applications of
/Prosieben/France2/Dangerous
(BBC,,'DiscoN-ei-,
Films/Te IFrance, 2004) and
305
Dunkirk's
(BBC, 2004) memorial histories were multifaceted. Both
drama-documentary,
focal-point
consisted of the eponymous
which was
facilitated by the extensive use of reconstruction and testimony, screened at
for
by
D-Da
day's
However,
live
this
Y
was
preceded
prime-time.
a
and
interactive coverage of commemoration events in Normandy, which had in
turn been preceded by further coverage of dignitaries' visits to memorial
day.
dramain
the
the
previous
effect,
even
coverage
sites
and
documentary for Dunkirk had acted as a precursor for the D-Day
celebrations, marking a season of events that the BBC intended to use as
demonstrative of its ability to bring together large audiences for shared
defined
by
Separated
that
the
two months, the two
experiences
national.
linked
events were
primarily through the People's War website, which acted
as a common thread of promotion. As a result, one of the most important
for
both
interactive
in
the
ways
which
applications
events was to work was
(Goodchild,
09/06/05). This was
to
the
as a portal, sending people
website
by
function
the
achieved
entwining
application's portal
with their status as
for
demands
history
the
authenticating strategies
of
programming. I start
first,
how
discussion
latter
before
this
to
going on
consider
with a
of
status
this was intimately related to the application's function as a portal, 'bringing
audiences closer to programmes, getting them more involved and creating
Uana
Bennett,
MiPTV
Milia,
to
and
speech
given
shared experiences'
30/04/04). Thus the applications discussed below, through their close
history
demands
the
programming, evidence
of
aesthetic
relationship with
by
bringing
2004,
interactive
increasingly
television
the
everyday place of
television's position as window and portal closer together.

Taylor Downing suggests that after The Morld at War, television
histor, became dominated by two formats: those that 'were presenter-led,

testimony
the
inter-cut
with
of
eye-witness
use
on
those
premised
and
306
dramatic
film,
commentary and powerful music to
archive
which used
bridge the gap between the two sources (2004). Whilst the popularity and
importance of the presenter-led series is evident in the high-profile

historians,
deals
David
Starkey
television
such
as
of
production
and Simon
Schama, the latter form has increasingly been infused with use of
62 As Downing goes on to argue, part of the
for
the
reconstructions .
reason
increased use of reconstruction is the need to free television history from
the 'tyranny of the archive image', opening up 'pre-twentieth century
history
[and revealing] elements of twentieth century history that it has

...
been impossible to depict in a visual medium' Gbid: 13). Reconstructions,

Schama
Downing
Champion,
in
the ability of
and
all
argue,
are
pivotal
as
television history to bring the past to life. As Schama contends,
history,
the
television
poetics of
which
reconstructions are part of
for
[a]
for
least
the
calls
sense of surrounding
viewer,
at
(even
harder)
different
in
some moments
a
world; and
for
forget
the
those same moments that
making
viewer
the outcome of that history is already known ... Poetic
lose
if
it
is
to
to
the
work, needs
reconstruction,
by
extension, us, who are watching
characters, and
them, entirely within their own world without any
inkling of their return trip to the contemporary (2004:
29).
Schama's comments point to the way in which good history programming
invokes television's imaginative journeys into the diegetic world of the
by
discuss,
is
As
I'll
then
the
this
reinforced
go on to
programme.
but
discursive
journey
this
through
to
occupy not
world,
promotion of a
interactive television's portal, a remediation of this world into online spaces
formation
digital
has
in
important
the
of
role
an
where the national past
Britain's future.
62For example, in 2003 Simon Schamasigned a record f 3million with the BBC to present two
history
art.
and
landmarkon
series
new
307
However) the increasing use of reconstructions has not been

Bragg
'there
is
Melvyn
suggests
always the question of
as
unproblematic;
dramatic reconstruction' (2004: 85). This question is most often raised in

relation to the veracity and realism of reconstructions and history
documentary
debate
As
2006
4's
Radio
Frow
origins.
a
programming's
on
Row programme about Simon Schama's history of art series 7-bePower of
Arl (BBC2,2006) attests, extensive use of reconstructions is perceived to
diminish the educative value of such programming, criticisms effectively
discourse
dumbing
down
the
reconstructions
within
wider
of
placing
(20/10/06). As with my discussion of the display of natural history in
Chapter 5, the demands of history programming require the negotiation of
forms of spectacle, in this case 'set-piece' dramatic reconstructions of
battles, fights etc, with not only the educative aims of the genre, but its
budgetary constraints as well. That is, as with the first form of spectacle
history
form
5,
in
Chapter
outlined
programmes'
of spectacle relates to
verisimilitude and the ability of such scenes to invoke wonderment and

f.
(c.
Gunning, 2004). As Kilborn and lzod's
in
the
astonishment
audience
dramatic
documentary
reconstructions
work on
aesthetics argues, whilst
be
might
a primary source of a programme's appeal to audiences,
be
in
to
the
audience
order to
clearly signalled
reconstructions must also
factual
discourse'
be
"responsible"
'the
to
underline
programme's claims
(1997: 160). However, equally important is the place of reconstruction in
bring
In
immediacy
this context,
the
to
alive.
the
past
necessary
creating
verisimilitude
is a desirable quality that the budgetary constraints of the
genre can impair:

As documentary producers we never have the budgets
had
Tom
Spielberg
Hanks
Stephen
and
to spend that
As
it
And
Brothers.
B(old
makers of
shows.
of
on
factual television we will never make combat seem as
308
dramatised
Band
in
scenes
the
of
real as
of
wholly
Brotbers (Downing, 2004: 13).
In this way, unlike Walking with Beasts' desire to emulate the forms of CGI
blockbusters
in
Hollywood,
the
of
spectacle
history programming must
look for other ways to authenticate the dramatic reconstructions. It is

interactive
this
that
the
context
applications work not only to further
within
the aims of the genre, but also those of the BBC in 'bringing audiences
digital
in
to
turn,
programmes' and,
closer
spaces.
focus
to
particularly on Dunkirk,
want
first
in the series of
the
as
following
discussion
in
2004,
in
the
commemorative programming
of
interactive television's deployment to facilitate the public service goals of
history programming. I then turn to examine how both Dunkirk
and D-
Day worked as portals to encourage engagement and participation by

digital immigrants in a way that foregrounded television's, and the BBC's,
defining
in
the national. Dunkirk's
role
dramatic reconstruction told the
from
British
Dunkirk
the
troops'
to
and evacuation
story of
retreat
following the Nazis' Blitzkrieg. The programme related the historical details
based
intertwining
the
through
narratives
on testimony
a series of
of
events
from veterans involved in the conflict. The interactive application consisted
Stories'.
'Eyewitness
'Eyewitness
Notes'
'Eyewitness
two
and
of
elements,
Notes' worked as an example of the BBC's Engaging Enhancement
boxes
text
that
the
viewser with a series of pop-up
applications, providing
interpreted, explained and enhanced the programme. These featured
being
from
told or anchorin 9
the veterans whose stories were
quotes
In
information about characters involved in the drama-documentary. The
key
below)
(discussed
three
then
stories
picked up on
second element
from the drama-documentary using the voices of the veterans quoted in
depicted
feature
in
Notes'
to
the main
expand
upon
events
the 'Eyewitness
309
drama-documentary. In different ways, both features worked as

for
in
dramatic
told
the
the
narrative
programme's
authenticating strategies
drive
helped
in
into
to
turn,
the online spaces
viewsers
and,
reconstruction
War
Peoples'
the
website.
associated
of
Dunkirk's
opening sequence announces the interweaving of
dramatic reconstruction with archival footage as the programme's primary

drama.
We are introduced to the programme
the
strategy of authenticating
through the world of the reconstruction with a tightly framed close-up of a
face.
focus
The
his
intense
by
is
camera's
the
on
young soldier's
eyes met
back
beyond
is
the audience into the
returned
soldier's gaze, which
middle-distance, as if recalling the atrocity and despair of Dunkirk. A cut
then introduces the series' first use of archival footage: a shakily panned
shot across a wrecking-yard
beach
during
is
Dunkirk
that
the time of
of a
the evacuation. These images are joined by more archival shots of burnt
boats,
leaden
looking
out
cars and
soldiers as a voiceover is introduced on
the soundtrack and a series of cuts moves the programme back and forth
between reconstruction and archival footage. The cutting almost creates a
dichotomy between archive and reconstruction, whereby the former is
imbued with properties of a still, baron quietness, whilst the latter is filled
by
in
increase
movement
signalled
an
with a greater sense of present-ness
derived from the camera's first person perspective within the water-bound
fellow
by
buffeted
However,
as
they
evacuees.
and
waves
are
evacuees as
introduce
draws
the
to
shots
the sequence
reconstruction elements
a close
diegetic
is
the
an
the
shots
and
a
minimum
at
the
noise
still,
camera
where
deck.
This
blood
on a ship's
almost abstract close-up of a mop cleaning
blood
pouring out of a gutter, a vivid stream of red
gives way to a shot of
dominating a blank background over which the bold, red title DUNKIRK
bound
footage
the
two
Throughout
the
are
sources
of
sequence
appears.
310
together by the voiceover, which we are invited to treat as the soldier's, as

it reads an edited version of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. Arguably it is this
attempt at seamlessmovement, between archival footage and

reconstruction, to which the interactive application and its use of veteran's
voices must respond: a challenge to 'bring the past alive' by imbuing the
footage
archival
or testimony with an immediacy through the presence of
the reconstruction, which in return is lent authenticity by the continual
inter-cutting of archival images or testimony.
Although it is this seamlessness and strategy of authentication to
which the interactive application must respond, as I noted earlier, the
dramatic reconstruction's writers had to base their narrative on eyewitness
testimony that was researched and recorded by the interactive team. From
a production standpoint therefore, the interactive team were instrumental
in driving the linear experience of television and its relationship with the
web. Nevertheless as Goodchild notes, one of the primary goals of the
interactive application was to add credibility to the series' dramatic
reconstructions:
These interactive elements gave us the opportunity
here
to reinforce the series' factual authenticity
...
have
historical
we
a
story which we're going to tell
as a drama, but we'll be able to include the personal
testimony of the people the story is based on in the
interactive stream (Interview in iTVToday, issue 5.34,
25/02/04).
As a result, the pop-up text boxes occur at fairly regular intervals
throughout the programme, serving to validate the narrative on screen.
Unlike the text-boxes in Walking ivitb Cavemen however, spectacle is
never given precedence over the role the application plays in underscoring
the factual accuracy of the programme. Instead, the application's use of
form
from
in
the
testimony
of short quotes
veterans, works to
eyewitness
level
image
to
the
explanation
onscreen
of
-,is well as emotional
provide a
311
demonstrates
focus
briefly
I
that
to
one
sequence
on
the xvay
realism. want
in which the 'Eyewitness Notes' feature worked not only as an
but
for
the
reconstruction
authenticating strategy
also to promote and keep
feature
Stories'
'Eyewitness
the
at the end of the programme.
viewsers on
The incident revolves around the massacre of thirty-six British
troops by the Nazi SS in a cowshed in Wormhout, northern France. The
sequence takes place approximately two-thirds of the way through the
drama's narrative, when a troop of British soldiers including central
protagonist Private Alf Tombs - surrender to the Nazi SS following a
hopelessly one-sided gun-fight. For the audience of the dramatic
reconstruction, the scene plays out a stereotypical archetype of German
brutally
"Jerry"
the
who
execute British troops in cold blood.
soldiers:
Having herded the men into a cowshed, German officers execute a
British
number of
soldiers, including their captain who is making
for
be
his
to
treated in accordance with the Geneva
representations
men
Convention. The sequence ends with a German soldier throwing a grenade
into the shed crammed with British soldiers, returning shortly after to gun
down any moving survivors he finds. The emotional intensity of the scene
being (rather clumsily) reinforced by blood splattering the camera lens,
lending it an immediacy akin to that noted by Scott and White in their
discussion of the Tyrannosaurus spitting on the camera in Walking witb
Dinosaurs (2003). The sequence ends with a close-up of "Alf Tombs"'
dazed and blood-soaked face, indicating to the audience there were at

least some survivors. We then segue to a rousing speech by Winston
Churchill that urges against a negotiation with the Nazis, promising "we
his
[until]
is
fight
it
own
each one of us choking on
out ...
shall go on and
blood upon the ground".
312
Read together, without any inter-cutting of archival sources in the
form of testimony or footage, the lack of explanation about the event

results in scenes relying on and reinforcing a view of German-English
jingoistic.
In
is
this sense, the BBC's effort to
that
and
acrimonious
relations
bring the nation together for shared experiences is rather backward
looking and negative. However, for the digital viewser the 'Eyewitness
Notes' feature works to authenticate this as an emotionally powerful
by
driving
in
the viewser-flows to the 'Eyewitness
particular
moment,
Stories' application. Thus, whilst the 'Eyewitness Notes' feature worked as
for
brutality
the
an authenticating strategy
of the scene by adding the real
Alf Tombs' testimony in a text-box to accompany the scene's aftermath,
this function is secondary to driving viewsers to the extended experience
interactive
the
of
programme's
application. As such it occurs after the
devastation
figure
dePicts
7.1
is
Wormhout,
at
scene of
which as
by
a pop-up text-box that explains: "None of the perpetrators
accompanied
brought
justice.
Hear
Wormhout
the
to
of
at
ever
more
massacre
were
did
Stories'
'Eyewitness
Although
the
this
the
about
after
programme".
function to further authenticate the drama-documentary, more importantly,
for
discussion
feature
this
of the
also worked to provide an extended space
doing,
British-centric
by
it
In
the
set
rather
so
experiences of war
veterans.
drama-documentary
the
account of
main
from
"recollections
amongst
British, French and German soldiers on the road to Dunkirk" ('Eyewitness

Stories' voiceover). Thus, across the 'Eyewitness Stories' feature a more
between
British
German
soldiers, where
and
complex relationship emerges
brutality,
admiration and clemency
the conditions of war enforces acts of
from all participants.
feature
Notes'
therefore works on a number of
The 'Eve-,vitness
drama
hy
to
the
it
emotional
adds
realism
levels. Firstly, authenticates and
313
form
for
in
immediate
the
the
reconstruction
providing
of
evidence
from
In
'Eyewitness
testimony
turn,
collected.
the
snippets
eyewitness
Notes' acted as a strategy of promotion for the second 'Eyewitness Stories'
feature. Thirdly as a strategy of authentication, the application contributes
toward Dunkirk's
fulfilment of the goals of good history programming. In
particular, the application works to ensure moments of spectacle do not

reduce the audience to astonishment and wonder. For example, as the
beach
the
at Dunkirk a point-of-view
story's protagonists reach
looks
shot
landscape
hundreds
CGI
recreated
of
of soldiers, ships,
out onto a
German
and
equipment
planes on the attack -a spectacle of verisimilitude
discussed
for
5.
in
Chapter
However
the viewser the application
as
immediately authenticates this shot, providing them with testimony of
Private James Bradley who reflected "There were hundreds and hundreds
of soldiers on the sand ... I thought they'll never get these people away"
(figure 7.2). Overall, the function of the interactive application is to provide
drama-documentary
immediacy
to
the
and the veteran's testimony: the
an
function'
drama
by
latter's
former's
'truth
in
the
turn
the
of
authentication
lends the veteran's voice the immediacy of the drama-documentary's
verisimilitude, spectacle and emotional narrative. As Goodchild argues, the
BBC attempted 'not to play on what makes [the veterans] a generation
focus
but
to
on the aspects of their story that make your relate to
apart,
their experiences as young men' (Interview in iTVToday, issue 5.34,
25/02/04). Thus, Alf Tombs' presence onscreen as both veteran giving
bridge
drama
in
to
this
the
works
character
testimony
as
and
emotional
for
life'
Such
I'll
testimony,
the
'bring
to
as
go on
the past
viewser.
gap and
ferment
between
intertextual
application, programme
to sliow, through the
driving
in
became
the
viewser-flows
were
strategy
Nvay
a
and promotion,
interactive
television,
by
encouraging
of
te
practices
portal
managed
314
digital immigrants to see their own experiences as relevant to digital

Britain.
The importance of testimony therefore worked simultaneously as a

driving
viewsers online as well as acting as an authenticating
way of
for
drama-documentary
itself.
In
lent
is
turn,
the
testimony
strategy
immediacy by the drama-documentary and the presence of veterans' voices
feature,
'Eyewitness
Notes'
it
the
through
which was reinforced by
within
the 'Eyewitness Stories' element of the interactive application that featured
The
the
the
transmission
end
of
programme's
at
slot.
application
commenced almost immediately after the closing credits of the dramadocumentary. Viewser-flows were managed by voiceover during the
closing-credits and the presence of videographics that indicated more
testimony was "Coming Up Next". Importantly, this voiceover was
explanatory:
Over the next half hour [signalling to the viewser how
long their use of the application will last] you can hear
from
by
the
told
the people who
stories
campaign
'Eyewitness
it
Dunkirk
experienced
continues
with
...
Stories', three real stories from the drama of Dunkirk.
Use your left and right arrow keys and select to choose
the stories you want to watch.
The voiceover then lists the options and informs the viewser of what
discuss
importance
Before
I
to
the
they
of
go on
stream
are currently on.
the application's explanatory structure, I want to first briefly conclude on
the importance of testimony in the application. As the application's
introduction
Stories'
'Eyewitness
offered the viewser the choice of
suggests,
three stories that were based on the testimony of Dunkirk veterans,

drama-documentary.
from
the
intercutting this with scenes
preceding
for
here,
in
importance
is
Testimony
standing
elements of
given primary
through
the veteran's
emotional
realism
an
creating
and
the reconstruction
final
Throughout
the
7.3).
the
(figure
the
of
retelling
moments
of
presence
315
from
footage
drama-documentary,
the
is
inter-cutting
of
events, there no
instead relying on the intensity of Tombs' testimony and signalling its
importance as an authentication strategy for the programme.
Arguably, the application's privileging of testimony as an
authenticating strategy encouraged an older generation to see their own
stories as valuable, representing their participation as integral to the
formation of digital Britain by encouraging them to share their own
discuss.
I'll
Of particular importance here
to
experiences online as
go on
was the way in which the application managed the tension between the
forms
interactive,
liveness
the
of
real-time
new media
and
of television.
Whilst the application opens with a representation of veteran's testimony
hypermedia
the
placed within
aesthetic of a database (figure 7.4), this
screen is quickly replaced by the application's homepage that clearly
marshals the choices on offer in relation to television's liveness rather than
database
6
(figure
in
Chapter
the
a remediation
ontology of computing, as
7-5). The viewser can either select one of the three streams on offer, or
choose to do nothing from this screen and watch whatever story is
indicated by the cursor's current position. The access to each story is
therefore managed by a combination of viewser choice and television's

liveness: the front page's countdown timer gives the viewser given plenty
of time to select which story to watch, as well as indicates to the viewser
when stories will commence. As a result, the application avoids inducing
the paranoia of the 'what have I just missed now' on the other streams,
in
the
of
movement
rationalisation
viewser
complex
which requires
11"alking ivitb Beasts. In addition unlike the news and Olympics
homepage,
because
to
this
the
cannot
choose
call up
viewser
applications,
but is rather returned to it at the end of each looped story, viewsers are
different
by
disorientated
"midbe
entering
a
stream's
story
to
unlikely
316
loop". Thus viewser-flows are rationalised in a way that seeks to replicate

the linear experience of television, as the voiceover explains: "you can
Or
between
time.
at
any
choose to watch all three
stories
choose to switch
The
the
simplification
other".
after
one
of choices through the careful
liveness
indicates
television's
not only, as Goodchild
management of
but
'was
interactive
television
that
rapidly maturing',
also a
suggests
from
BBC
to render the encounter with new media's portal
the
concern
familiar
(quoted
'comfortable'
in New Media
and
as possible
experiences as
Age, 12/02/04). In turn interactive television functioned as a portal to
I
C)
in
BBC
the
that, importantly,
sustained
viewsers
a
experience
engage
with
built confidence in the digital immigrant to go online and share their
"valuable" histories.
In terms of this engagement it is significant that neither D-Day nor
Dunkirk, as interactive drama-documentaries, stood alone but were rather
part of a season of event programming to commemorate the end of World
War Two. As a result, the BBC was able to use interactive television to
between
the programmes, the People's War website and,
create a continuity
(and
BBC's
the
the
the
of
vital role
government)
crucially, remind
viewser
in covering such events. Thus, as I suggested earlier, not only did Dunkirk
by
but
itself
D-Day
to
a series of
preceded
was
act as a precursor
interactive trailers. During trailers for Dunkirk viewers were able to press
their red button and access a series of short eyewitness testimony extracts.
As Goodchild argued, in effect the BBC used 'interactive television to drive
(Interview
09/06/05).
As
linear
TV
a result,
on
conducted
the
experience'
here
interactive
not only acted as a portal to the
television applications
the
itself.
to
the
television
but
important
in
experience
ways also
website,
A similar approach was evident in the way in which the interactive
dramatic
for
the
D-Day
prime-time
reconstruction.
preceded
application
317
This application was available from the start of the BBC's coverage of DDay memorial activities, which commenced at nine a.m. earlier that day. In
addition to the strategies of authentication and reinforcement evidenced by

discussion
of Dunkirk's
my
application above, D-Day's application worked
in
the events and
of
engaging
as
a
way
viewsers
and
as anticipatory
BBC's
D-Day
This
the
coverage.
application consisted of
opportunities of
three video streams and two text-based services (figure 7.6), both giving
information on the BBC's cross-platform coverage of the events, including
the television and radio schedule, details of 7-bePeople's War website and a
latter
Indeed,
this
mobile phone game.
element arguably addressed a
digital
dichotomy
Rupert
Murdoch's
the
natives of
younger audience who, in turn, were represented as part of the D-Day commemorations by
appearing alongside their grandfathers in short segments inter-cut during
the BBC's coverage of State ceremonial events. Thus digital immigrants and
life'
forging
in
'bringing
its relevance
the
to
natives were entwined
and
past
to building digital Britain. To return to the application itself, a videostreams
highlights
from
included.
2004
In
the
commemoration
events
was
of
like
Stories'
'Eyewitness
'Veterans
Reflect'
the
stream which,
addition a
element of Dunkirk's
from
footage
intercut
eyewitness
application,
testimony interviews with archival footage and promotion of the evening's

D-Da y drama. A final stream, entitled 'On this Hour' worked to provide
how
D-Day
the
the
over
progressed
campaign
on
viewsers with updates
live.
day,
the
events were
addressing the viewser as if
course of the
As Goodchild explained, through foregrounding testimony the
like
detailing
back-stories
'provide
opera
soap
application was able to
lioxv scenes in the drama came about'. This feature, together with the 'on
[sic]
to
the
feature,
'became
thread,
hour'
viewer
navigate
enabling
a
this
dramadriving
tov,
the
D-Dav'
them
-ards
and
of
elements
the various
318
documentary (interview conducted on 09/06/05). This has two important

implications for my argument here. Firstly, the application exploited the
liveness of television to keep viewsers engaged with the BBC's coverage of
by
host
them
of material to explore, return to and build
events
offering
a
from across the day. Secondly, as with Dunkirk,
testimony became a key
for
managing viewser-flows between application and
organising strategy
key
discourse
for the way in which the application
programme, acting as a
functioned as a portal to drive people to the website. I want to conclude
discussion
my
of this memorial programming with an examination of how
this discourse, linked with traditional window-on-the-world concerns to

bring the nation together, facilitated the viewser's journey to participating
in the public spaces of the online world. Thus I suggest that the close
integration of the application with the aesthetics and discourses of this
memorial programming, was integral to the achievement of what Schama
history
argues are part of
programme's attempt to 'surround the viewer
in a different world', which for D-Day and Dunkirk
included the online
spaces of the Internet.

As with Dunkirk,
D-Day gave viewsers access to a simple form of
drive
digital
designed
immigrants'
to
that
as a portal
new media
was
drive
BBC's
its
As
the
structure continued
such
viewser-flows online.
by
limited
that
towards simplicity, offering
choices
were clearly structured
feature.
This
More importantly,
Hour'
liveness,
'On
the
television's
such as
it was through explicitly valuing the experience and testimony of older
from
the
take
this
to
confidence
the
that
meant
was
viewser
generations
imagine
to
television's
online
and
go
experience
media
simplified new
drama-documentaries
Before
Internet.
the
the
to
of
portal
as
a
window
during
the
both events, and over the course of their promotion as 'well as
BBC
that
trailer
the
pushed the
a
themselves,
ran
interactive applications
319
BBC's
People's
become
War website. As
the
to
online
on
viewser
a user
with the interactive applications, the promo evinces a concern to
encourage the digital immigrant to participate, by representing their
experiences of World War Two as a vital part of British history. The
figure
depict
how,
in
7.7
screenshots
similarly to the attempt at seamless
intercutting between archival and reconstruction sources in Dunkirk, the
between
digital
archival and
promo moves
sources: a screengrab of the
website embedded within a pin-board of old photos. Over this image, a
voice over invites the viewser to participate online and share their
experiences:
If you, or someone you know, was at Dunkirk [sic DDay] in 1940, as military personnel or civilian, we want
to capture your stories. Type your experiences straight
into the people's war website
it's easy
Your
...
...
memories are part of our history, please share them
lest
forget.
with us,
we
This call to action was repeated throughout the D-Day application's
day,
the
the
availability over
course of
reminding viewsers of the
opportunity to be active in the process of building an archive of important
histories from World War Two at the end of any stream of content. As
such, the invitation to engage and participate online was constantly
by
the presence of veterans' testimony, which itself had been
reinforced
turned into a prime-time drama-documentary. Thus by embedding
testimony as part of a new media experience and hypermedia aesthetic,
histories
these
the application suggested
were part of
experiences and
digital Britain.
The journey on offer through the interactive application's portal
here is not that of entering the diegetic world or cyberspace of the
discourses
discursive.
The
is
but
promotional
ask
more
rather
application,
from
interactive
build
television
the
of
using
experience
to
the viewser
Z-1
320
applications and seeing older generation)s testimony represented as

(part
imaginative
'national
to
journey to
the
make
event')
valuable
of a
become Internet users: to see the spaces behind the television screen
familiar
in
the
terms of the collective experience of the national
couched
liveness,
immediacy and authenticity of
the
tropes
aesthetic
of
and
television as a winclow-on-the-world
lying
behind
to
those
as
analogous
-
the computer screen. In turn, this journey is structured by the safe and
comforting experience of the BBC acting as a trusted guide to these new
spaces.
It is worth quoting John Willis, BBC Director of Factual and
Learning, at some length here as he outlines how 7-bePeople's War website
fitted within the BBC's strategy of promoting itself as breaking down the
digital divide and facilitating the participation of its audiences in debates
about the national.

Our web initiative 7be People's War seized the
by
TV
opportunity created
great
programmes to inspire
older viewers to tell their wartime experiences. This
resulted in over 125,000 contributions with 91% of the
65.
by
More than that,
stories contributed
people over
by harvesting those personal histories online we not
but
only created a unique archive
raised awareness of
the web with older people. Over 15,000 people started
further
7-be
People's
War
Internet
the
with a
after
using
75,000 saying they planned to do so (quoted in
Broadcast, 12/05/06).
In contrast to the user figures here, Jane Roscoe's study of Big Brother
Internet users suggested that the programme had a core fan base who
(Roscoe,
The
2004).
impact
just
35,000
in
of
online activities of
participated
the commemoration
programming therefore successfully encouraged
in
to
that
merely
wasn't
reduced
a
way
engagement
participation and
but
instead
that
a
viewsership
was
addressed
contestant,
a
out
voting
being
left
hy
to
the
and
vulnerable
sector
commercial
neglected
particularly
Goodchild
As
Britain'.
argues:
'digital
out of
321
D-Day was ultimate public service. On the television

level, we were addressing the nation
At the
...
interactive television level, we were dealing with the
level
The
Internet was
personal and emotional
...
...
sort of an archiving process. Here it was about
future,
for
building
(collective)
the
capturing the stories
knowledge (interview conducted 09/06/05).
Goodchild's comments are illustrative of how the BBC used the season of
drive
to
audiences closer to the programmes, the BBC, and in turn
events
Britain'.
'digital
As a result, the use of personal
of
each other as part
testimony as a discourse to structure viewser-flows towards the BBC's
interactive
television to act as a portal that at its end
spaces
allowed
online
point, as Goodchild implicitly suggests, opened out onto to the broad new
digital,
for
digital
immigrant rather than simply
the
online spaces
vistas of
level
the
of 'personal and emotional'. The success of
operating on
had
indicated
interactive
the
that
television
participation on
website
successfully reimagined television's window as a 'democratic Internet portal
that gives everyone equal access' to the spaces of digital Britain (Parks,
2004: 133). Thus, as Peter Preston writing in 7-beObserver surveyed, the
BBC's coverage of D-Day was 'a set-piece public service broadcasters'
festival, stiff upper lips and pre-scripted rhetoric exorcising the last ghosts
(06/06/04).
Hutton'
of
Conclusion: Extending the national

Broadcasting now has a major role - perhaps the
by
in
"re-imaging
the
nation": not
critical role - to play
homogeneity
to
which
re-impose a unity and
seeking
has long since departed, but by becoming the "theatre"
in which [Britain's] cultural diversity is produced,
displayed and represented, and the for-Lim in which the
This
life
its
together
negotiated.
are
terms of
associative
key
broadcasting's
public cultural role remains
...
be
is
there
a
unless
sustained
and one which cannot
by
in
idea
part
and a system shaped
public service
(Stuart
it
Hall,
to
sustain
public service objectives
507).
2004:
Bom,
in
quoted
322
Despite the success of the above applications in extending a reimagined nation, digital Britain, to the digital immigrant, the stories and
opportunities to engage there were arguably addressed to an audience that,
had
long
digital
the
considered themselves to be Britons.
revolution,
until
The stories told predominantly
from
came
white people of Anglo-Saxon or
Celtic origin, with all except one delivered by men. Whilst there are clearly
interesting questions of the national to be explored with respect to the
history of strained Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic relations, for my purposes
here I am more concerned with the way in which a re-imagined digital
Britain is opened up to the diverse multicultural
identities of the modern
nation.
Wl'boDo You Tbink You Are? s approach to national identity is
form
important
in
to
the
particularly
relation
rather closed
of identity one is
being
digital
by
for
Britain
to
the
encouraged
explore
part of
applications
the memorial events discussed above. These applications were addressed
to digital immigrants who might have had an involvement in the war itself,
treating their memories as precious national commodities. Whilst it would
be unfair to characterise this address as exclusive of other identities, the
dwelling
here.
The
is
on
worth
centrality of commemorating past events
BBC's promo, discussed above, for viewsers to share their memories ends
drops
laconic
jazz
the
away and the voiceover
soundtrack
poignantly, as
forget".
line
deliver
Discussing
dramatically
"Lest
the
the
to
we
pauses
importance of such memorial events in the context of attempts to build a

Daniel
Nourry
identity,
Australian
argues:
national
multicultural
Anzac Day, through the call "Lest We Forget",
(re)inscribes
the conditions
of a
of possibility
hegemonic notion of Australian identity into future
defines
that
as etbical and
generations, through a call
to
the
relations
uncritical
and
positive
autlwwtic only
logic of this interpretation (mcl the 'ideal' subject it
(truth)
basis
historical
this
of
the
as
produces
323
interpretation:
2005: 373).
[original
Anzac
emphasis] (Nourry,
the
Nourry's persuasive argument that such acts of remembrance call up a

hegemonic notion of national identity is arguably replicated by not only the
here,
but
to
also the privileging of eyewitness testimony as the
action
call
both
histories.
As James Chapman
of
event's
authenticating strategy
suggests, over-reliance on testimony is problematic. Discussing the
landmark
7-be
World at War, he details how there
the
series
production of
was an acute awareness that cover a quarter of a century after the events,
fallible'
(2001: 137). Furthermore, he
people's memories may prove
has
history
that
testimony
tendency
to
to the level of
suggests
a
reduce
anecdote going on to argue that it is 'not the stuff of history'. For Chapman
testimony, rather than being the guarantor of reconstruction's authenticity
and truth, always serves the purposes of the drama. Whilst I do not want to
far
go as
as Chapman's claims about the reliability of testimony, it is
important to note that in both Dunkirk
and D-Day testimony is privileged
as the guarantor of the reconstruction's authenticity. In turn, the "Lest we

Forget" call to action inscribes the participation of similar war stories
(recalling that the People's War website is arranged around events in the
historical
that
than
epoch, such as
war, rather
any expansive account of
history.
British
truth
the
migration) as
of
authentic
As a result, I want to conclude the chapter by looking at Wbo Do
You Tbink You Are?. Whilst the programme's status as a celebrity-led
BBC's
interest
in
investigation
the
to
extending
continue
worked
genealogy
digital Britain to the digital immigrant through the interest in genealogy of
looked
incorporate
it
to
an approach that
also
older generations,
biggest
diverse
BBC2's
As
ratings success of
nation.
recognised a more
5
2004, gathering an average audience of over million people, Wbo Do You
324
Tbink You Are? thus exemplifies the BBC's attempts to 'reflect the diversity
belonging
'foster
the
of
a sense of
country' and
and encourage
participation' amongst a plural conception of British identities (BBC, 2004:
36). The series predominantly
follows British television personalities as
they trace their individual family tree and figures these genealogical
broader
histories
into
excavations
of Britain and British national identity,
engaging with a more encompassing notion of each. This is underlined by
the selection of television personalities for the series, with the first season
including portraits of more complex British identities, such as David
Baddiel (British-Jewish) and Moira Stewart (British-Afro-Caribbean),
alongside more "traditional" notions of British identity, such as Jeremy
Clarkson's white Anglo-Saxon background of industrial prosperity. As the
BBC's publicity for the series suggested, the series would attempt to define
a national extended to the viewer's own personal histories:
The ancestors of these well-known faces were part of
the warp and weft of the fabric of Britain's social
history, just as the ancestors of everyone had their
(BBC
Press Office release, 24/09/04).
to
part
play
In its address to a wider audience, the television personality's history
becomes a paradigm through which to explore other issues of British
history, creating the sense that British identity is constituted by a variety of
doing
in
experiences.
so the series asks the audience to interpolate their
owii identity-position,
historically,
how
racially,
ethnically or
no matter
British
into
national identity.
otherwise complex
an expanded notion of
Similarly to the 'Eyewitness Stories' application discussed above in
relation to Dunkirk,
Wbo Do You 7-bink You Are? s application was made
from
followed
brief
As
it
the
on
a
programme.
such
available at the end of
individual
the
that,
the
conclusion
after
coming
programme's
segment at
featured
brief
their
genealogy,
ov,-n
a
chat
celebrity's excavation of
325
between presenter Adrian Chiles and genealogist Nick Barrett that provided
had
been
how
insight
into
the
research
an
achieved. Chiles would
some of
then invite the audience to press the red-button to join him and Nick for
BBC
information
research,
on
genealogy
events and 'Digital Stories'.
more
Whilst the first two of these elements is generally addressed to the digital
immigrant, as connoted by Chiles' presence in the interactive application
itself - welcoming viewsers, instructing them how to navigate the menu
and providing a reassuring presence -'Digital
Stories' provided the
diverse
to
address a more
notion of British identity. This
opportunity
feature consisted of two different video stories each week compiled by
"twenty members of the British public", as Chiles introduces them, on their
family history. These personal stories allowed viewsers to understand their
history
testimony
own
and
as valuable in constructing the meaning of
British-ness. However, the application extended its address beyond those
to the veterans of World War Two evident in D-Day and Dunkirk by
from
diverse
in terms of age,
providing stories
participants who were
ethnicity, gender and race".
Whilst I don't want to comment extensively on the individual stories
told across the application's twenty contributions, it is worth briefly
how
they promote an engagement amongst viewsers to
considering
family
history
important.
Nick
Henry's
their
story and
as
consider
own
here.
Telling
is
illustrative
the story of a
the
to
viewser
opening address
deep family secret about a concealed first marriage of his grandmother and
illegitimate child, Nick suggests that 44ordinarypeople's family history is just
family
history.
Sometimes
Queens'
fascinating
Kings'
even more
and
as
as
6-ISuch an addressis also apparent in the BBC's interactive application for its coverageof the
in
This
text
their comments on the
to
Tournament.
Football
allowed viewsers
European 2004
in
from
Trev
Bedford
Thus
to
one
exchange,
another.
one
game, share their emotions and respond
in
Glasgow
Ailes
'
just
like
down,
to
responds
which
my pint!
declares 'Portugal are going
how
'em
Portugal,
a team works'.
show
'C'mon
326
is
Anglo-Saxon
family,
I
Whilst
Nick's
of
a
think".
one
white
told
story
so
by a middle-age white man, his unearthing of a family trauma is
learning
himself
his
into
about
of
and
a process
recuperated
relationship
him
helping
[his]
father,
his
"continue
in
to
turn
own journey". The
with
inclusion of such a story is suggestive of the way in which the application
works to reassure the viewser that excavating troubling information in a
family past need not be a negative experience in understanding one's own
life. Similarly, the story of a British-Asian woman describes her relationship
discovery:
her
"Until
it
Indian
a
recently
origins
as
was a culture I
with
knew little about. Now I have lived in India, I am proud to be that little bit
Indian". Her story takes her British identity as central, with the genealogical
her
her
Thus
identity.
immigrant
the
ancestry an extension of
excavation of
'Digital Stories' feature included stories from members of the British public
that had more complex relationships to their Britishness through immigrant
histories.
To a degree this might suggest a co-opting of multicultural identities
in a way that suggests a continued hegemonic representation of Britishness,
by
be
is
identity
thankfully
to
and gratefully accepted
whereby national
"the Other". As Ghassan Hage argues in relation to Australian national
identity, such an extension of national identity is only to mask the power
'good
dominant
the
the
multiculturalism/nationalism'
of
rhetoric
under
of
homogeneity,
'evil
exclusion and racism
nationalism' of
enlisted against the
(Hage, 1998). Undoubtedly
Wbo Do You 7-bink You Are? might fall under
different
identities
by
however
of
representing participation
such criticism,
does
digital
Britain
the
a
space
open
up
important
programme
of
part
as an
for different identities to come together and debate their place within the
told
the
important
is
that
it
to
a
are
with
stories
all
note
indeed,
national.
home cinema aesthetic, which encourages the viev,-ser to understand the
327
This
do
is
themselves.
reinforced by the
process as one they could
loop
between
Aiden
Chiles,
on
reappears
a
presence of
who
stories to
familiarising
the
to
application,
the spaces of
guide viewsers
other areas of
the application through the immediate and intimate tropes of direct aural
and visual address. At the end of 'Digital Stories', Chiles suggests "If that
inspired you to get started, you might care to take a look at Nick Barrett's
how to guide" or "go online and look at our website
Similarly, Barrett's
---"for
directed
to
the
viewsers
web
more information on how to trace
guide
family
history.
As such, the application again acted as a
viewser's own
64
portal to structure viewser-flows towards participation on the web . After

three series of the programme, only the first of which was accompanied by
65
100,000 messages had been posted on the
the interactive application
,
from
how
These
Family
Histog
tips
to
simple
associated
website.
range
as
to better do one's research into family history, through to the sharing of
experiences unearthed in the process that others relate to, sympathise with
boards,
In
to
the
the site contains a
message
and comment on.
addition
by
individuals
to
allowing
posted
users,
searchable archive of pictures
histories
(for
through
undiscovered shared
connect with one another
discovers
family
for
surname and
a particular
example, a user searches
here
is
The
Piere
Levy's
to
akin
participation
another user's posted photo).
65),
dialogue
(1998:
in
with
engaging users
conception of a multilogue
BBC
the
offers of the national, negotiating
each other and representations
digital
Britain.
their experiences as a shared situation of
To return to John Street's work on the forms of participation
it
that
the
by
technologies,
applications
clear
is
media
new
enabled
64The Fwnil.v History website contained links to external sites, rather than simply the BBC's own
shift
practices
online
the
second
of
obligations
service
public
evidence
content, which
information
'How
To'
boards
the
of
a
reinforcement
and
message
as
well
as
research
genealogical
from Nick Barrett.
65As I discuss in the thesis conclusion. the increasing penetration of broadbandhas moved much
interactive
to
television
through
online
spaces).
available
made
content previously
328
developed by the BBC in 2004 work towards positioning it at the centre of

digital Britain. The applications for Dunkirk
and D-Day speak to different
heralded
by Wlbo Do You 7-bink You Aiv.;,
interest
to
those
communities of
but all invite viewsers to see themselves as not only part of the national,
but as participating in its formation under the umbrella of the BBC. As
in
Building Public Value, the BBC's use of new media and
promised
interactive applications will seek to open up 'not just individual consumer
but
pathways',
new civic spaces akin to 'town squares and public places
learn
from
we
can
share
where
experiences and
each other' (2005: 24). As
Buzzard suggests, such a conception conforms to the fantasy of new
media's portal structures, which 'occupy ... the coveted promised land
Some see these portals as the new shopping malls, town centres and news
hubs all rolled into one' (2003: 205). However, for the BBC the second shift
herding
here
practices of
viewser-flows
use interactive television as a portal
to send people to the web not just as a means of aggregating and
by
discourse
Instead,
that represents
rationalising viewser mobility.
using
history
testimony
everyone)s
and
as a valuable part of British identity, they
'reimagine the television screen as a democratic Internet portal'. However,
in addressing the digital immigrant, this interestingly does so in a way that
doesn't just simply recall the traditional position of television as a windowon-the-world,
but actively appropriates it. Thus in these applications it is
television's status as a portal that opens out on to broad vistas of digital

from
for
journey
the
the
private
viewsers'
spaces
purposes of negotiating
spaces to participation
in the public spaces of the national.
Across the content of these applications, television's window is not
but
does
Stuart
in
that
to
responds
a
'way
so
only re-imagined as a portal,
forum
for
of negotiation,
Hall's call
a re-imagination of the nation as a
Britain's
Nvhere
'cultural
diversity
is produced.
displayed
and represented'.
329
The notion of a forum returns us to the way in which interactive television

functions as a portal to spaces that fulfil a Habermassian notion of the
public sphere. Such a conception is evident in the way these applications
are marshalled under the measure of impact set out in Building Public
Value. As Mark Thompson set out in 2006, this involves going 'beyond
immediate audience data to gauge the wider effects of our output - in

terms of public response and participation, educational outcomes and
here
In
BBC's
is stimulate 'new ways
the
particular,
critical reactions'.
role
deliberative
dialogue
(speech
11/10/06). Arguably
the
of
with
public'
the interactive applications discussed here, particularly through their
for
to
the
as
a
position
portal
viewsers and users to engage
web, allowed
in dialogue with one another, the BBC and with what it means to be British
in the digital age. Whilst they are open to Murdock's charge that new
forms
democratic
of
media
participation are insufficiently conclusive, their
value in securing the BBC's position as the place where audiences,
debate
deliberate
together
to
and
on the national
viewsers and users come
is invaluable. In particular, their public service value lies in their ability to
digital
landscape
Harrison
the
that,
to
the
new
as
conditions
of
respond
and Wessels suggest, provides the opportunity
for 'new forms of pluralism
facilitate
diversity
that
audience
and
of participation and representation
by
(2005:
2004
Thompson
Thus,
Mark
850).
noted,
as
engagement'
interactive television had 'come of age', not simply through its increasingly
de rqelter status in production strategies (quoted in 7-beGuardian
08/09/04), but also through the way in which their portal function has
become increasingly inscribed within the televisual experience.
330
Appendix of imagesfor Chapter 7
Figure 7.1
Eyewitness Notes as strategy of authentication in Dunkirk
-'%"
vamows
Junin
okmmn
0 saw
I WIT www VID

a
the UN
ONES
, seem
box
the
text
7.2
Dunkii-k's
Figure
authenticated
applications
interactive
5,
discussed
Chapter
in
CGI,
might otherwise work as a
which as
use of
form of stupefying spectacle.
rigure
7--1 frame I
]Figure 7.3 Frame
332
Figure 7.3 Frame 3
Figure 7.3 Frame 4

Figure 7.3
The use of different settings and lighting sets Alf Tombs'
testimony apart in Dunkirk's 'Eyewitness Stories' applicatoin, allowing the
from
build
Thus
intensity.
in
the
to
sequence
sequence moves
emotional
the domestic settings in frames I and 2, where memorabilia and natural
light provide comfortable environs, to the scene of the present-day location
in frame 3, and finally Tombs' studio-lit setting in frame 4, surround the
veterans.
333
Figure 7.4
Veteran's faces appear in a hypermediated database aesthetic
in the first page of Dunkirk's 'Eyewitness Stories' application. However, the
bar
bottom
the
menu
at
of the screen and the application's homepage
(figure 7.5) simplify the choices on offer and recuperate the new media
practices of 'interactivity' into the more familiar linear broadcast experience.
homepage
Stories'
Dunkii-k's
'Eyewitness
7.5
Figure
remains
left
large
in
top
the
timer
of screen,
countdown
explanatory and, via the
liveness.
inscribed within television's
334
LA 11111
VA
V'll
ri
1,
, ,
D-Day's application worked as anticipatory by featuring an
Figure 7.6
'On this Hour' videostream and back-stories to central characters in that
drama.
night's
The BBC's promotion for the Peoples' War website, which

Figure7.7
that
the
of
photos
montage
a
within
of
website
embeds a representation
board.
if
appear as on a note
Conclusion: interactive television, the BBC and the

period of excess
Through an examination of interactive television I have
demonstrated how textual analysis can help us understand both the place
fulfilment
BBC
its
the
and
of public service obligations in the digital
of
television landscape. Furthermore, such an approach has enabled a
consideration of interactive applications as an example of television's new
formations in the period of excess, which figures these within longer
histories of, and discourses about, television's cultural form. in so doing, I

have elucidated a key dialectic between understandings of television as a
window-on-the-world
and its positioning as a portal that interactive
television, as one site of television's changing formation, explicates. This
dialectic places television's form at the boundaries of debates and theories

has
One
the
thesis'
therefore,
about old and new media.
of
major concerns
been to engage with how theory from both these academic disciplines can
illuminate our understandings of the changing text of television studies. I
have therefore proposed a number of emergent textualities, which have
between
BBC's
the
public service
uncovered a complex relationship
fulfil
interactive
its
these and the
to
applications
obligations,
use of
By
I
in
the
of
conclusion,
age.
way
post-broadcast
corporation's relevancy
for
future
findings
key
implications
and suggest some
shall summarise my
work.
To greater or lesser degrees the applications under discussion in the
thesis have demonstrated the continuation of window-on-the-world

discourses across television's history, from television's initial inception into
life during the period of scarcity, through to digital television's
have
life
I
daily
the
into
argued
start of a new era of excess.
inception
at
336
that these discourses have often been entwined with the tactics through
familiarised,
been
has
interactive
television
which
organised, rationalised
differentiated
forms
from
broadcast
and
of television. In turn, this new
has
post-broadcast era of excess
seen a rise in the prominence of
discourses that connect interactive television to new media portal practices.
However, in doing so I have been careful to maintain that television's
longer histories and discourses are constantly recalled and re-circulated. As
both
such, whilst
window and portal are pivotal in framing the world the
have
I
audience and viewser perceives,
suggested it is the latter which now
further
constraint on the imaginative journey that (interactive)
acts as a
television invites us to take: rationalising the viewser-flows of interactive
TV. As I suggested in Chapter 4 and 5, the mobility promised by not only
television but also antecedent technologies of visual display - including the
has
been
in
the
the terms of the portal of
cinema and
museum re-cast
twenty-first century new media by interactive television. In demonstrating
the persistence of such historical concerns I have argued that television's
digitalisation is not a radical break from its analogue past, but requires us
to understand new forms of television practices that are emerging, such as
interactive television, as intimately related to institutionally,
historically and
debates.
generically specific
Beyond the now rather familiar declaration that what is new about
have
I
is
that
argued that textual analysis of
new media
not
new at all,
these interactive applications provides a particularly useful methodology for
digital
form
in
in
television's
the
continuities
and
shifts
understanding
debates
key
in
Whilst
television
studies.
of
my
to
a number
relation
been
has
in
the
which we can analyse the text
with
way
primary concern
interactive
through
the
service
of
value
applications
public
and understand
have
BBC,
I
in
the
to
the
also
of
pointed
practices
Nvay
the second shift
337
which interactive television's place within the everyday milieu of the

televisual has been constructed along gender lines. Thus whilst the mobility
is
interactive
television
through
always structured and rationalised
on offer
by portal practices that delimit the choices on offer, this often occurs in
female
that
viewsers' mobility is restricted to a negatively
such a way
domestic
Furthermore,
the owner of the remote
mise-en-scne.
valued
dictates
interactive
the
actual
process
of using
control
applications. Whilst
Ann Gray's (1992) and David Morley's (1994) work is suggestive of how
be
by
the gendering of
structured
use of such applications might
technologies, the convergence of digital television with other media forms
and the multiple opportunities and personalised journeys on offer through
these suggests more complex relationships might be arising. This is work
that Helen Wood's study of audiences has pursued in Interacting witb
Television and I hope that my work here will contribute a useful textual
forthcoming).
(Wood,
further
in
this
to
area
work
counterpoint
Fundamentally, the thesis has suggested that the relationship
between the text of interactive television and the industrial strategies and
fecund
has
BBC
the
ground within which
proved
regulatory obligations of
to investigate the role of public service broadcasting in television's post-
broadcast era. Chapters 5,6 and 7 propose a number of different

BBC's
interactive
the
textuality
the
of
role and
understandings of
industrial
the
to
and
generic,
applications, which pay attention
institutionally
specific contexts within which they were transmitted.
However, the value of these textualities is not tied to the extent of the
in
in
particular,
each chapter.
generically specific conclusions reached
form
this
constructed
each
mobility,
texts
of
a
promoted
whilst each set of
that
s.
viewser-flmv.
and
regulated
rationalised
portal
through
a
mobility
its
the
subsequent
of
choice,
through
promotion
That this occurred
338
structuring and the resultant personalisation of the text was of specific

concern for my interest in understanding the texts and public service value
dwelling
here
for
is
interactive
This
television.
the way in
worth
on
of
which it elucidates the conclusions of this study and points to its use for
future scholarship.
As Lord Birt articulated in his 2005 McTaggart speech to the British
television industry, 'the awesome challenge for the next generation of
broadcasting
be
to maintain universality amidst
service
public
will
fragmentation
kind
individual [and]
to
to
reach
out
every
of
offer
an
...
...
increasingly personalised viewing experience'. Birt's speech identifies a

tension that I have linked to the broad vistas of television's long-held
position as a window-on-the-world, and the role of public service

broadcasting in securing these, and its escalating personalisation as a
portal. This tension is not simply articulated by the interactive applications
I have discussed here, but is both evident in and complicated by wider
how
A
short example will explicate
programming and portal strategies.
further work in this area is required. In 2003 the BBC launched BBC3, a
demographic.
20-35
Pivotal
to the
the
targeted
at
year
old
niche channel
inclusion
the
to
this
of a
new channel was
government's acquiescence
from
distinct
BBC3
the multifarious
to
make
news service, which was
lucrative
This
this
targeted
news service
group.
at
commercial offerings
60-second
bulletin
hour
half
"bite-size"
and
originally consisted of a nightly
hourly intermissions. However, the BBC successfully argued that the
financial
did
justify
low
bulletin's
the
cost of
not
audience ratings
nightly
in
I
its
in
suggested
terms of
general public service remit.
the service
form
individual
6
textual
the
Chapter that the privileging of choice within
for
day's
left
the
fragment
selecting
news and
the vie,xser responsible
of
leave
to
a
potentially
viewsers
with
unbalanced
want
therefore
Nvas
339
its
reduction to a simple sound-bite.
still,
the
experience of
news or, worse
However, the promotion of a raft of channels as a way of facilitating
individual choice has precisely left BBC3 audiences with this outcome
the
-
60
has
been
basis
to
the
a
second
sound-bite
that
news
on
reduced
audiences weren't using the more extended experience of the hourly ne,vs
text. As the ability to track viewsers' use, surfing and interacting
becomes
dominant
increasingly
an
part of the way portals
preferences
structure viewser-flows",
this begs the question as to what will happen to
those nodes of the interactive news' fragmented database form that do not
garner the requisite viewser use.
This example evidences both how fragmentation works at the level
of text and audience to complicate the position of the BBC as a public
broadcaster,
how
further
as well as
service
research is needed into the
developing portal strategies that track, monitor and filter our use of such
how
it
is
Indeed
this
to
the
that
example pays attention
services.
pertinent
BBC tries to cater for a younger audience within its universal remit and
building
digital
Britain.
Chapter
Whilst
in
its
to
endeavour
ensure
relevancy
7 examined how the BBC attempted to use interactive television as a portal
to drive digital immigrants online as a group identified as vulnerable to
being left behind by the process of digital switchover, this younger
Namely,
BBC
in
is
to recall the
the
to
another
way.
audience
vulnerable
tinder-cutting
broadcasting
for
I
the
service
public
scarcity argument
of
lost
being
to
Chapter
1,
in
younger generations are vulnerable
elucidated
by the BBC as they may not see the value of the licence-fee in an era of
The
the
and
government
of
choice.
plethora
a
excess that offers such
by
BBC's
impact
on the commercial sector
Barivise Report worried over the
66William Uricchio's excellent article on the importance of filtering and tracking,technologies

(2004).
further
issues
explores these
340
targeting this demographic through various services, such as BBC3 through

to BBCjam. Equally however, the BBC have worried that without securing
this group's allegiance the corporation's ability to sustain its publicly
funded status in an era of excess will come under ever-more threat as this
demographic become the licence-fee payers of the future. This issue
key
battleground
for
how
the BBC ensures its relevancy to
represents a
digital Britain. More work that takes public service broadcasting's role as
cultural, rather than simply a matter of plugging the gaps of market-failure
being
digital
in
is
the
simply
another
cboice
to
marketplace
needed
counter economic-driven
(c.
f.
Barwise's
Cox, 2004;
analyses such as
Collins, 1993,2002,2006).
The relationship between the textualities I have proposed here
suggests that to ensure the corporation's relevancy in the digital landscape,
the overarching second shift concern for the BBC's public service role must
be, as articulated in Building Public Value and government White Paper, to
act as a trusted guide to the spaces, choices, opportunities and challenges
of television's amplified convergence with other digital media. That is, how
the BBC structures its overall brand as a portal to demand the Corporation's
relevancy in the post-broadcast era. However, this is not to suggest that the
BBC's portal should operate in a manner analogous to a commercial portal,
its
its
that
to
content
or
of
own proprietary content
opening out only
become
As
television's texts, production practices and audiences
affiliates"-.
increasingly convergent with other digital media, particularly the Internet,
how we evaluate the BBC's portal will be intimately linked to how this
functions as a gateway for both audiences and producers alike: that is, hoxv
67The BBC may become increasingly pressuredto give priority to 'content affiliates' as it is
fee,
licence
find
its
bid
in
the
to
to
such as
driven towards partnerships
alternative revenue sources
its production partnership with Discovery and its content sharing agreementNN-Ith
Google/YouTube
341
it connects audiences/viewsers/users with each other, the BBC and

independent producers.
As Mark Thompson suggested in 2006, 'the broadcasting space, the
digital media space, is public space -a part of the public realm just as
This
involves,
town
squares'.
as Thompson went on
much as our city and
to argue, fostering a space that 'goes beyond private supply and demand
directed
is
at wider societal goals. Supporting democratic
and which
between
culture,
education,
engagement,
understanding
communities and
between Britain and the world' (Smith Institute Media Lecture, 11/10/06).
Thompson's speech again calls up the dialectic between television's
window-on-the-world
to
these
offering
access
new spaces - and portal
us
-
how
fulfil
interactions
then
to
our choices, movement and
are
structured
here
focused
how
have
My
the
case studies
primarily on
societal goals.
interactive
television are structured to meet such goals, touching
of
spaces
on their relationship with online spaces in Chapter 7. Much more work is
how
these spaces and their interrelationship with television are
needed on
have
how
they
to each other,
there,
what access
structured,
viewsers get
independent producers and important social debates once they get there.
Whilst such work can, and should, take the form of ethnographic studies,
draw
BBC's
the study of these spaces and the
on the
role can also usefully
looser
broadcasting's
I
texts
that
to
service
public
second shift approach
have articulated here.

However, it is important to recognise that within my study these
have
remained rather medium-specific, structuring
second shift strategies
discussion
In
interactive
the
television.
above
contrast,
the viewser-flows of
The
increased
technologies.
convergence with other
points to television's
delivery
broadband,
the
of
coupled
growing
with
of
rising penetration
be
launched
Vision
BTs
to
soon
Internet protocol television - such as
342
bundling
broadband
BSkyB's
Virgin's
of
mobile,
service and
and
and
directs
television services - progressively
our attention to television's
Thus,
interactive
television has
whilst
spaces.
relationship with online
become increasingly an everyday feature of the digital television landscape,
in that it has become unremarkable (c. f. Gunning, 2004), investment in the
decreased
look
has
to exploit new web-television
as
companies
platform
leaving
BBC
Sky
the
only
and
as the major exponents of
synergies,
interactive applications. Of course, this in and of itself is a battle worth
paying close attention to, as I suggested in section I these two "8001b
have
dominated
digital
landscape.
UK's
the
television
gorillas"
Nevertheless, the attention to these new forms of convergence television is
body
has
of work
emerged over the course
only appropriate and a growing
of writing the thesis that engages with such cross-media practices as unbundling (Dawson, 2007), bundling (Strange, 2007), viral marketing
(Caldwell, 2005), branding (Johnson, 2007), flexible-microcasting
(Parks,
2004), and filtering (Uricchio, 2004).

The emergence of this body of work has provided fruitful material
disappointing
has
it
However,
to
remained somewhat
engage.
with which
focuses
in
American
television,
this
particular
that the majority of
on
work
for
Drama"
Quality
"American
engaging with
treating
as a priori grounds
(c.
f.
2005;
landscape
Boddy,
digital
in
al,
the
et.
what television means
Creeber, et. al, 2007). My work on the UK's interactive television therefore
its
Americanbut
to
provides a corrective
not only contributes to this work,
bias in focusing on two under-developed areas of research: interactive

in
BBC's
the period of excess.
its
to
the
place
television, and
relationship
find
interactive
television's
is
position
to
degree,
it
To a
unsurprising
both
in
and
academic
to
concern
subsidiary
a
somewhat relegated
production
(2000),
1
1
in
John
Ellis
Drawing
section
and others
on
circles.
343
degree
large
both
in
that
of
uncertainty
there
apparent
the
noted
was a
industry and television studies itself as to what television and its texts
be
litany
For
in
failed
the
the
my
purposes,
would
given
era of excess.
of
interactive TV start-up ventures I noted in Chapter 4, this uncertainty
included a question mark as to whether a corpus of texts would develop in

have
demonstrated,
As
I
the relative success of
any meaningful way at all.
interactive television in becoming part of the certain object of study that is
digital television, owes largely to the re-circulation of winclow-on-the-world
discourses. Thus whilst the textualities of interactive television might be
iterations"
BBC's
"first
the
the
of
considered
programming strategies in a
discourses
is
tracing
these
era,
suggestive of the way
post-broadcast
my
of
in which this thesis contributes to the prepared-ness of the field to study
the shifting parameters of television. As John Caldwell suggests, in the
digital landgrab for theorising emergent technologies, textualities and
develop
historically
and contextually grounded
practices, we must
theorisations, which ensure that as new technologies change, our critical
heap
its
'rendered
is
to
them
own ash
not similarly
capacity to engage with
(Caldwell,
3).
2000:
trends'
of past
Furthermore, whilst analysing these first iterations of post-broadcast
further
for
foundation
fruitful
analysis on subsequent
television provides a
iterations, it also ensures that we do not simply sit on our hands, to wait
'correct'
hopefully
happens
of
account
a
more
producing
and see what
is
date.
latter
Everett
As
Anna
argues, such an approach
the medium at a
disciplines
for
is
because
as
such
academic
stake
at
of
what
problematic
is,
that
a risk that a
television studies:
by
failure
television
scholars
and
cinema...
continued
[in
lead
to keep current with and, preferably, take the
formations]...
debates
about new media
analyses and
from
fields']
[the
in
avant-garde
repositioning
result
Nvill
field's
[As
formation
the
a
resultj
to rear-guard
...
344
information
the
ascendant
relegation to the margins of
(2003:
5).
be
[would]
assured
economy
Everett's caution suggests the need to continually engage with emergent
forms of media practice in order to ensure our seat at the table for debates
has
This
information
thesis
the
economy.
attempted to ensure not
about
debates,
but
television
to
these
the
studies
relevancy of
only
also a
historical and cultural approach to understanding public service
broadcasting's role in this emergent digital landscape. I hope that future
how
historical
such an approach can reveal other
work will explore
trajectories than the one between window-on-the-world and portal I have

for
here
in
turn,
account
newly emergent textualities that
and,
elucidated
position the BBC's role in cultural terms.
345
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programme's
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After Auscbwitz (Rees, BBC4,2005).
Auscbwitz (Rees/Tatge [director/writer,
6 episodes each], BBC2,2005)
Big Brotber (Endemol for Channel 4,2000 - ).

Builtfor the Kill (Buchanen/Watts/Fairclough
Discovery/Granada Wild, 2000 - ).
[15 episodes each],
7-beBlue Planet (Fothergill, BBC/Discovery, 2001).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Whedon [writer/creator], Fox, 1997-2003).
Celebrity Big Brotber (Endemol for Channel 4,2001 - ).
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Dunkirk
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7-beGroves (Warrington, BBC, 1954-1957).

Horizon (BBC, 1964 -).
).
2003
[Controller],
BBC/BBCi,
(Kenyon
Proms
Last Nigbt of the
(McFadyen
10,1990).
Network
Free
Ri
Blood
Let the
iii
,
BBC/Discovery, 2002-03).
The Life of Alam mals'(Salisbury,

(BBC1,1964
Day
Alatcl? of the
-).
[6
Lorimar
'\N*agg
(Frankish
divoii
each],
episodes
I
r-,ua
1987-88).
Productions/ABC,
371
Miami
Vice (Mann, Michael Mann Productions for NBC, 1984 - 1989).
Pop Idol (Fuller, ITV/Thames Television, 2001-2003).

7-bePower of An (Scharna [writer], BBC2,2006).
7-beReal World (Kenney, Bunim-Murray Productions for MTV, 1992 ).
7-beSalon (Unknown,
Endemol for Channel VE4,2003-04).
7-beSimpsons (Brooks/Groening,
Twentieth Century Fox, 1989 - ).
The Sopranos (Chase, HBO, 1999 - 2007).

Test the Nation
(Gurin, BBC, 2000 ).

-
'Tbe Today Sbow (NBC, 1952 - ).

Walking witb Beasts (Haines, BBC/Discovery, 2001).
Walking witb Cavemen (Dale, BBC/Discovery, 2003).
Walking witb Dinosaurs (Green/Haines/james/Learoyd/Lynch/Orr
episodes each], BBC/Discovery, 1999).
[6
Wbat's your Story (Pilkington, BBC, 1988).

Wbo do you tb ink you are? (Carter/Smith, Wall to Wall for BBC, 2004 - ).
Wbo Wants to be a Millionaire?
1999-).
(Knight [series' creator], Celador for ITV,
Winky Dink & You (Heyward/Prichett/Wyckoff
[series' creators], CBS, 1953
-1957).
372

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University of Warwick, Department of Film and Television Studies

Chapter 2: Plenty to excess: Television as new media

Interactive television: Television as new media?

New media theory: Remediating television theory

(Inter)Active audiences: Communities and the public sphere

The formation of digital television

Chapter 4: `Your window-on-the-world' - Rationalising viewser mobility and the

"Touch my button babe"! Spectacle, masculinity and the advent of UK

Interactive Television as window-on-the-world

Appendix of images for Chapter 4

Spectacle and public institution: From the museum to the BBC

Conclusion: Extending the national

I am grateful to the AHRC for having provided me with financial

I have been incredibly fortunate to have a supervisor as supportive

Above all else I owe my fiancee, Niki. It is impossible to have

Across the chapters I am concerned to connect the textual and

Independent Review of the BBC's Digital Television

British Satellite Broadcasting

British Sky Broadcasting

Department of Culture, Media and Sport

Digital Video Recorder

Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances

Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M. G. (Chair

Broadcasting in the 90s: Competition, Choice and

BBC. (Chair Alan Peacock), London: HMSO.

Advert for ITV digital terrestrial platform

Advert for Freeview digital terrestrial platform

BBC Freeview promotion

Walking with Beasts' title sequence

BBC News multiscreen

Text-driven, first iteration of the BBC's news application

on its use in non-fiction

strategies, policy remits and purpose.

determined by the moment of digitalisation. Rather

immediacy to hybridity, from discourses of the national and public to

(2006), Spigel (1992,2001a)

Walking with Beasts (BBC/Discovery,

Walking with Beasts promised to `deliver some of the benefits [interactive

(BBC News, 15/11/01).

Rhetoric such as this positioned the application as part of a wider discursive

Yet this experience

the broadcast programme (and, as such, raising concerns of a "digital

broadcasters alike, but also fundamentally undermined

the "scarcity" rationale for public service broadcasting. On the other,

inviting them "to explore" a

into the spaces television's

points. Firstly, the UK's

interactive television market is consistently positioned as a world-leader

relationship of commercial and public service rivals that interactive

Virgin/NTL) and digital

terrestrial (Freeview). At the time of commencing research on the thesis,

General) noted in 2004, over the intervening

true of the BBC where, as Jana Bennett (BBC Director

Television) explained, `interactivity is now fully embedded into our

in 2006 (BBC, 2006a).

In contrast, BSkyB have continued

in revenue from its SkyActive portal in 2006, excluding

1), and the BBC reporting

(BBC 2005a, 2006a). This is suggestive of not only

the increasingly commonplace status of interactive television, but also the

interactive. shtml, site visited

times already both active