“How do we ensure,” the Review document asked, “that we offer programmes which the market alone would never make YET [BBC emphasis] also remain in touch with the broadest of audiences?”Yes, indeed. How do you ensure that? TV at the moment is awash with documentary series: Cutting This, Modern That, Inside The Other The best of them are witty, revealing and provocative. They wanted (we were told) to see their own lives reflected in the stories And they wanted good, gripping stories at that. Pleasing the audience, insofar as it as thought about at all, was clearly secondary to presenting what the journalists thought were important stories or (more rarely) analyses on screen. Since that time, however a long and (I believe) increasingly corrosive debate has gone on about how to make current affairs more palatable to a larger audience.We know the drivers for this debate: hugely increased competition, a resulting battle for ratings, pressure from advertisers and the need for the BBC to maintain the legitimacy of the licence fee. In previous capacities, I was present on several occasions when the gloomy results were discussed, and the pressure was always in one direction. Viewers respected authority and balance, but what they really, really lusted after was relevance.

So, over the years a thousand consultancies have quizzed a zillion focus groups. Moreover in Europe, from London to Moscow the evening news is broadcast in the evening, at 8 or 9, when working people can actually watch it.”But the real reason for my change of heart has been the slowly growing realisation, prompted by the sight of a new government wrestling with exceptionally difficult problems, and by the paucity of intelligent coverage of the issues, of how little good journalism there is in our country, and how we do not value what there is.When I first joined London Weekend TV’s cerebral current affairs show Weekend World in 1982, ITV and BBC news and current affairs people were the pampered elite of the broadcasting organisations They were clever, arrogant, noisy, well-paid and confident. There is unilateral (sic) support for this in the industry.”
So what? Who cares if they do move the bloody thing? Well, a year or so ago I thought I didn’t give two hoots, but I’ve changed my mind. They get ITN over there on cable channels, and Remnick observed that “To watch, say, the ITN evening news in Britain, is to get a glimpse of the greater world .. places that are nearly invisible to an American viewer. This is partly due to reading an article in this week’s New Yorker in which the American writer David Remnick lamented the loss of good TV news is the US. Mandy Pooler, managing director of the leading media buyers Mindshare, gave the game away by telling the Guardian that, “We believe ITV can build audiences by moving the news.

The true motive is to increase audiences earlier on ITV, in particular by allowing adult programmes to be shown uninterrupted (except, of course, by tampon and pet food ads) in the post-watershed slot between 9 and 11. No, the news on ITV will profit to this extent alone: at 11pm it will no longer have to worry about catering for such a large and diverse audience as the one it struggled to inform at 10; because they won’t be there, as sure as eggs is eggs. This change – attempted a couple of years back and frustrated by the personal intervention of John Major – will apparently succeed the second time around because, as a senior ITV source said, “We will explain to the politicians why the move will make news on ITV even stronger.” I look forward to such an explanation, which sounds as improbable and self-serving as a 70-year-old man’s attempted seduction of a 20-year-old model on the basis of her being able to benefit from his long amatory experience. ONE by one the ancient bastions fall. Last week it was the flag on Buckingham Palace, and yesterday it became common knowledge that ITN’s News At Ten really would soon be shunted back to 11pm. But can anybody beat this flyer that came through my letter box today: “Thames Water customers can now get cheaper gas from London Electricity.” I feel faint

DAVID GIBBS
London SW4.

Completion can then take place within weeks and the purchaser must assess the risk he runs of having two properties on his hands.
CHRIS CHARLESCheadle,Staffordshire. COMMERCIAL incongruity is rife. Sainsbury’s is a bank, Boots is a sandwich bar, and God knows what those pop-record people Virgin aren’t into. In Norway, and indeed elsewhere, a purchaser is bound by his offer and has to seek bridging finance. IF THE excellent scheme of legally binding bids which obtains in Norway (letter, 12 March) is to work in England and Wales, it first requires a complete change in the attitude of house buyers and sellers. I know of nowhere else worldwide where a house purchaser expects a seller to wait whilst the purchaser sells his own house This is the real cause for delay.

The full effects of these announcements will not be visible for a few years.The inspector is right to raise criticism, but he is pushing an open door.MICHAEL G WINWOODManaging Director, The QSS GroupDerby. YOU REPORT (11 March) that “knocking” adverts directed against the tobacco companies prove effective in stopping people smoking. If this is so, why do illegal drugs sell so well? After all, drug barons don’t get much good press

JOHN LAWRENCE
London NW3. Announcements by Virgin for West Coast and Cross Country stock; by EWS on freight stock; by Railtrack for investment in stations, permanent way, signalling and new train control systems are just the headlines. Train operators, suppliers and contractors are also investing in technology, capacity, human capital and new management systems. Investment announced by Railtrack some time ago is already under way. The chief consideration is safety but operational issues are not far behind.
The public needs to understand that under-investment in the network and the operating railway over the last 10 to 15 years cannot be reversed overnight.