Bragg defends South Bank Show move

The host of long-running UK arts programme The South Bank Show has criticised its former broadcaster ITV for axing it and  defended the series’ move to satcaster BSkyB.

Melvyn Bragg fronts the 30-year-old series, which was dropped by terrestrial ITV in 2009 but is due to return on News Corp-controlled Sky Arts on Sunday May 27 at 22.00.

Bragg will present six new episodes this year, focusing on grime music for the first time with profiles of Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder as well as programmes on author Pat Barker and theatre director Nicholas Hytner. Another six are planned for 2013.

Speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild event to reveal the line-up for the new series, Bragg said he asked for the rights to the show’s title at a time when ITV “was feeling a bit ashamed of themselves” and said it was a poor business decision by the channel to drop the show.

Bragg said: “This is not to criticise the present incumbent, but you will find a paper trail of memos from me to the people running ITV saying ‘This can be a brand, this can be a business.’

“They were selling it to more than 30 countries for next to nothing, they were giving it away. As soon as Sky came in we started to give away stuff to them and I opposed it.

“You have nearly 800 programmes there, many on people who are dead who will never be filmed again. It’s gold, you just have to find a way to do something with it, and I thought there was a business there.

“The problem ITV had was it couldn’t think in terms of niche businesses. It could only think in terms of bucket businesses and in the long run that might be to its detriment.”

He went on to defend the decision to take the programme to Sky, in which Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp holds a controlling stake.

Murdoch is under heavy fire in the UK in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at News Corp’s newspaper business News International, which led a parliamentary select committee to released a report last week saying he was “not fit” to run an international corporation.

Bragg said: “I work for Sky Arts, which so far as I can make out – and I’ve taken my time about it – the influence of Murdoch as a person is zero. I’m not working for Murdoch, I’m working for Sky Arts.

“It’s a tricky one, given Murdoch is the current monster. Murdoch actually allowed the British press to liberate itself from strangulation when it was a really nasty business. We’ve got to give him that and respect history.

“Some of the finest journalists in this country write for Murdoch papers, some of the finest broadcasters work for Murdoch television, so there you go – what shall we do about it? We all get agitated about it but follow through the consequences of your agitation – does everybody walk out?”

Bragg also said he wasn’t concerned about the smaller audiences attracted to Sky Arts compared with ITV.

“Of course we’d all like 10 million viewers but the compensations of Sky are considerable,” he said. “There is a short decision line, they are very fast to work with, they have strong opinions and so do we, and we have a proper engagement which is what you should have.”