THERE has never been a year when we have felt more concern for
Auntie - but we have not been hovering round the sickbed offering
grapes and sympathy. We have been wondering how far our
exasperation can stretch before we declare the relationship over
for good.
The BBC is generally acknowledged as the world's favourite and
best broadcasting organisation, and the Queen's Jubilee was the
very subject-matter at which it most excels; but The Diamond
Jubilee River Pageant was a broadcasting error of such a scale
as to call into question the directors' basic commitment to the
Corporation's core values.
These doubts were exacerbated by the unfolding horror of the
Jimmy Savile revelations; the accusations that Panorama
had been leant on to pull a programme about Savile's behaviour; the
débâcle of Newsnight's broadcasting - in its eagerness to
restore faith in the independence and fearlessness of BBC
journalism - an accusation of child molestation against a
politician who was immediately able to prove his innocence; and the
appointment and hasty departure of a new Director-General.
The sight of a once-loved and respected national institution in
meltdown should strike a chord of sympathy with all members of the
Church of England, but we are clearly in no position to offer
advice.
Despite this enveloping miasma, some very bright lights shone
through the BBC's slough of despond. The year 2012 could be
considered as the Year of Great Britain - the Jubilee attracting
around it a galaxy of native-themed documentaries of the highest
standard: Andrew Marr's The Diamond Queen, the Revd
Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch's How God Made the English,
Ian Hislop's Stiff Upper Lip, moving accounts of the work
of Lucian Freud and David Hockney, a terrific account of The
Dreams of William Golding. Add to these a slew of programmes
about, and productions of, William Shakespeare, all attesting that
our remarkable national creative heritage has no lack of worthy
interpreters in the medium of TV.
And TV redemption of a kind enlightened the heart of the year:
the BBC's coverage of the Olympic Games was magnificent, its
explication of the marvels of human endeavour then, astonishingly,
equalled, or even trumped, by Channel 4's devotion to the
Paralympics. The opening and closing ceremonies of both sets of
Games were amazing feats, conceived for a worldwide TV audience as
much as for those in the stadium.
They presented glorious impressions of a nation comfortable with
itself, for good or ill, happy to laugh at its most cherished
institutions and to acknowledge the dark elements in our story,
willing even to incorporate the odd hymn. I do not think it too
far-fetched to see them as para-liturgies, summoning core virtues
of inclusion, fellowship, endeavour, and commitment.
The viewer has to be open to such considerations, as explicit
religion on TV was woefully missing. It was most movingly present
in the Christian faith underlying the nuns' vocation in the BBC
drama Call the Midwife. But my accolade for Most Promising
New Actor of the Year is awarded - thanks to her starring role in
the Olympic opening ceremony - to Her Majesty the Queen.