David Lister: The Week in Arts

The fantasy world of television executives

The successful return of Doctor Who, which notches up the 10th episode in the current series tonight, is being hailed as the catalyst for an even more unlikely return, the return of family viewing. With audiences of eight million, the Time Lord seems to be responsible for the generations sharing a sofa in front of the TV for the first time in decades. Or so television executives would have us believe.

The successful return of Doctor Who, which notches up the 10th episode in the current series tonight, is being hailed as the catalyst for an even more unlikely return, the return of family viewing. With audiences of eight million, the Time Lord seems to be responsible for the generations sharing a sofa in front of the TV for the first time in decades. Or so television executives would have us believe.

Television executives have long told us that families don't watch together any more. Personally, I've never believed it and would be interested to see the research. But when television executives decide on a trend, then that trend exists; no one dare contradict, and programming suffers the consequences.

Some few years back, they decided that audiences didn't like costume dramas any more. So they stopped making them - until Pride and Prejudice attracted huge audiences and the then controller of BBC1 Michael Jackson, to his credit, went on the Today programme to admit that they had got it wrong. Tough luck, of course, on the generation that missed out on televised costume dramas.

Then it was the turn of family viewing (and consequently family programming) to be declared obsolete. Even the writer of the current Doctor Who, Russell T Davies, was worried. He told one newspaper this week: "I lived in fear that the family audience had disappeared. A demographics expert told me that it did not exist because children have television sets in their bedrooms and are embarrassed to be watching the same programmes as their parents. We could have been dead in the water. I was ready for Doctor Who to fail."

It didn't, and one happy result is that programmers are thinking once more about what constitutes family viewing. Of course, it changes over the years. But be it EastEnders, The Simpsons or a classic serial, most families know that there are some programmes that bring them together. And a classic serial might do it more than TV executives think, if they started to put a few on again.

Elaine Sperber, the head of drama at CBBC, says that the success of Doctor Who will indeed encourage programmers to plan for family viewing. But it's the way she tells it that is revealing. She says: "It proves that the audience is there. Yes, family viewing is changing; we may no longer sit in the living room with a cup of tea, but families still like to view the same thing - some in the kitchen, some in their bedrooms - and talk about it afterwards."

Who are these families in which the various members dart off in three different directions to watch the same programme at the same time and then reconvene to compare notes? They are the families of television executives, those same people who have decreed that family viewing in the same room no longer exists. Perhaps for them it doesn't. Perhaps for them it is the norm for Doctor Who to be echoing from the living room and the kitchen and the bedroom before a brief coming together of viewers to swap critiques. But I'm not convinced it is the norm.

Never take the viewing habits of television executives to be typical. They have enormous influence on what we see. But their homes are another country. They do things differently there.

Out of step with marketing speak

The most irritating press release of the week comes from the English National Ballet. It announces the appointment of the brand communications consultancy, The Team, as "creative brand consultants" to the dance company. But I'm rather old-fashioned in calling English National Ballet a dance company. For the press release goes on to say: "The Team will review and refresh all internal and external elements of the 15-year-old brand. This will encapsulate all through, above and below the line publicity and campaign materials and online and offline brand messaging."

I don't begin to understand what any of that means, but I do note for future reference that the English National Ballet is a "15-year-old brand". Those of us who thought it was a ballet company are so last season. It is time to bring the world of ballet into the 21st century. I look forward to receiving information about brand directors (or choreographers as we boringly used to call them) and brand image frontline personnel. (I hope no one still refers to them as ballerinas.)

¿ I was pulled up short by a comment in an article in this paper on Tuesday, written by one of the extras in Deborah Warner's production of Julius Caesar. He said that while rehearsing the crowd scenes, some of his female colleagues had objected to the "sexism" in Shakespeare's lines. I couldn't for a minute think what this might refer to, until the author explained that the offending line was "Peace ho".

Of course - "ho" is now an abbreviation of whore, as music and film fans know. So, where Shakespeare meant to say "let's have some hush" he is now accused of saying "shut up you bitch".

I suspect it hadn't occurred to Deborah Warner or the multitude of Shakespearean scholars worldwide. But I bet it has led to a new zest for Shakespeare in schools. Come on - what student could resist turning to a fellow student and snarling "Peace, ho!" with a look of utter innocence.