Steve Hewlett Comes to Grassington Festival, By Tom Swain …
There’s something about a quaint, provincial festival of culture that seems to attract interesting names to speak about interesting things.
Steve Hewlett, Guardian columnist and experienced media stalwart, is one such interesting person.
A talk from Steve followed by a Q&A on the issues raised was the billing for Monday night at Grassington Festival, and it went off pretty well.
The festival programme has Steve talking about the BBC, Rupert Murdoch and Leveson, but he spoke more about the generalities of television, newspapers and the rise and rise of the consumer.
Steve Hewlett is an fascinating bloke with a lot of worthwhile things to say.
He spoke about the power struggle between TV, the internet, and now social media, all the while keeping in mind that television was surviving against all the odds.
“The Internet was supposed to take TV off schedule,” he said, quoting some startlingly insubstantial figures relating to on-demand viewing.
On-demand, he said, was supposed to empower the consumer, and although the BBC iPlayer gets astronomical traffic, the rise of social media has created ‘event television’.
Recording Eastenders to watch the next day is no longer acceptable, he explained.
If you don’t watch something as it is aired, you are immediately behind the lightning quick dialogue of social media – a thought that elicited concessionary murmurs from the audience.
Steve explained; “The dialogue building up around event television is cementing the place of schedule programming.”
On the subject of Rupert Murdoch, Steve pointed out he was yet to come across someone who knew Murdoch personally and had something bad to say about him.
Some humorous anecdotes about Mr Murdoch encouraged the audience to let go of their cynicism – although cynicism and agendas resurfaced during the Q&A session.
Steve was pressed on the topic of BBC management, accountability and chronic errors during question time, and rebuffed with a lovely metaphor.
“The BBC is like a yacht with a particularly heavy keel. You can knock it flat but you can’t turn it over,” was his defence to questions about Saville-gate and other recent-memory debacles.
Audience members I spoke to were pleased that Grassington Festival was putting on events like this, and enjoyed the opportunity to enter into conversation with an expert in an industry under intense scrutiny.
Steve took questions dripping with frustration and accusation and handled them with a quietly staunch defence of press institutions.
He conceded that whether he was right or wrong about these issues remained to be seen, but his answers were reasoned and understandable.
Steve Hewlett was speaking at Grassington Festival on Monday 17th June, and the evening was chaired by theatre and artistic director at Slung Low, Alan Lane.
The Festival continues with many more notable personalities until June 29th.