Television Policy offers a unique and authoritative account of the major developments in television programming and policy since 1976. Here, in a single volume, the MacTaggart lectures delivered at the Edinburgh International Television Festival over the last quarter of a century are collected. The MacTaggart lecturers include the most celebrated and distinguished program makers, producers, performers, playwrights, policymakers and senior media executives from all sectors of broadcasting. They include John McGrath, Marcel Orphuls, Norman Lear, Jeremy Isaacs, John Mortimer, Peter Jay, Ted Turner, Jonathan Miller, Denis Foreman, John Schlesinger, Troy Kennedy-Martin, Philip Whitehead, Christine Ockrent, Rupert Murdoch, Verity Lambert, David Elstein, Michael Grade, Dennis Potter, Greg Dyke, Janet Street Porter, John Birt, Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran, Peter Bazalgette, Richard Eyre, David Liddiment and Mark Thompson.

A foreword by John Willis and an introductory essay on the history of the MacTaggart lectures supply a review of the shifting themes and concerns of the lectures. The book provides a forum for the significant debates and unprecedented change in broadcasting that helped shape television content and policy across twenty-five years. Including the future of public service programming; the relationship of government to broadcasters; the impact of ownership on the freedom of broadcasters; and debates about whether or how television should be regulated.

Television Policy is essential reading for all students of media and communication studies and those interested in reading accounts of television programming and policy. Especially those written by some of the most eloquent, eminent yet contentious figures in television broadcasting.

Features

* The first collection of the prestigious MacTaggart Lectures

* A unique insight into the development of television programming across twenty-five years

* Authoritative and eloquent analyses of television policy

* Critical assessment of the contribution of the MacTaggart Lectures to current policy debates

* Insider accounts of the development and future of Public Service Broadcasting.

Bob Franklin is Professor of Media Communications, Department of Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield

Introduction; Foreword (John Willis); John McGrath - TV Drama: The Case against Naturalism; Marcel Ophuls - Naturalism in Television; Norman Lear - Taboos in Television; Jeremy Isaacs - Signposting Television in the 1980s: The Fourth Television Channel; John Mortimer - Television Drama, Censorship and Truth; Peter Jay - The Future of 'Electronic Publishing'; Denis Foreman - The Primacy of Programmes in the Future of Broadcasting; John Schlesinger - Reflections on Working in Film and Television; Troy Kennedy Martin - 'Opening Up the Fourth Front': Micro Drama and the Rejection of Naturalism; Philip Whitehead - Power and Pluralism in Broadcasting; Christine Ockrent - Ethics, Broadcasting and Change: The French; Experience; Rupert Murdoch - Freedom in Broadcasting; Verity Lambert - De-regulation and Quality Television; David Elstein - The Future of Television: Market Forces and Social Values; Michael Grade - The Future of the BBC; Dennis Potter - Occupying Powers; Greg Dyke - A Culture of Dependency: Power, Politics and Broadcasters; Janet Street Porter - Talent versus Television; John Birt - A Glorious Future: Quality Broadcasting in the Digital Age; Laurence Marks & Maurice Gran - Rewarding Creative Talent: The Struggle of the Independents; Peter Bazalgette - Television versus the People; Richard Eyre - Public Interest Broadcasting: A New Approach; Greg Dyke - A Time for Change; David Liddiment - The Soul of British Television; Mark Thompson - The Creative Deficit in British Television; Tony Ball - Freedom of Choice, Public Service Broadcasting and the BBC; John Humphrys - First Do No Harm.