There was a time not so long ago in broadcasting history when the commercial channels were so heavily regulated that it must have seemed to them as though their schedules weren't their own. Quotas existed for all kinds of public service programming, coupled with what now seems a scarcely believable requirement for much of it to be given a nod of approval by the regulator even before it was aired.
Those were the days (insert a full stop here depending on your viewpoint) of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, the organisation which oversaw commercial television and radio until 1990. Yet, ironically, they were also the days when television was probably least in need of such onerous regulation. Once independent television was truly established by the late 1960s, a culture developed which dictated that success should be based on prestige as well as ratings - it was a notion that held true until the multi-channel, converging media world of the mid-1990s. Of course, this was an easy principle by which to stand when the resources were plentiful, the competition minimal and the income virtually guaranteed.
Just a couple of decades later and things have necessarily changed beyond recognition. The quotas remain, but they are largely limited to news output and are much more readily re-negotiated than in the past. Yet even in this climate, another integral aspect of public service programming, current affairs, survives - and often thrives - with three distinctive strands across BBC1 (Panorama), ITV1 (Tonight) and Channel 4 (Dispatches). However, within the genre, there is a sub-category whose existence is less assured - investigative journalism.
The House of Lords recently debated a report highlighting the challenges of maintaining worthwhile investigative reporting across all platforms, including television. And it seems that members of the Communications Committee flirted with the idea of recommending a quota similar to that imposed for current affairs in general. One of the difficulties of such a policy would be to define exactly what constitutes investigative journalism. Any given edition of the staple current affairs shows mentioned above might count as an investigation - but that does not necessarily make them investigative. Investigations can be exploratory, illuminating and a forum for debate, but to be classed as investigative requires something unique.
Investigative journalism is the revelation of hitherto unreported facts, the discovery and reporting of what is truly new, rather than just a more detailed take on some aspect of the news agenda. It not only informs debate, it shapes it by the strength of its findings. We are fortunate that all of the major current affairs strands undertake investigative projects on quite a regular basis. Given the reach and potential impact of television compared to individual newspapers (which have always been more prolific in investigative terms), it is vital that they continue to do so. However, it still feels like there is much less of this type of programming than there once was.
The unceremonious and myopic way in which World In Action was jettisoned by the then management at Granada Television in 1998 changed the landscape for broadcast current affairs. The programme - which had mounted huge investigations into the IRA, paved the way for the acquittal of the Birmingham Six, brought about the jailing of a serving member of the Cabinet and often found itself defending its output in court - left a gaping void. The fact that, on one occasion, the joint Managing Directors at Granada were themselves prepared to go to prison in defence of the programme's journalistic integrity (1), is a mark of the pervading investigative culture of the time. Although often mis-remembered as having produced ground-breaking investigations every week (the programme recognised that, for many of its viewers, it was the mundane that mattered), World In Action's demise was a pivotal moment.
With the disappearance of Thames Television's This Week earlier in the decade, it seemed as though investigative broadcast journalism was going to be the preserve of the BBC. Yet even the corporation's flagship Panorama was, for a time in the early 2000s, buried late on a Sunday night before eventually re-emerging in peak, but with a reduced running time.
In spite of the perceived threat to investigative television journalism during that era of flux, the situation today is far better than might have been expected. ITV's Tonight, often derided because of the status of its illustrious predecessor and an initial preponderance of celebrity interviews, is a different programme for a different era (and, no doubt, a very different budget), but today it still provides an outlet for mainstream investigative work which chimes with a wide audience. In Panorama, the BBC does exactly what is expected of it by maintaining an investigative strand which continues to live up to the gravitas earned over several generations. Meanwhile, it is Dispatches that can probably best lay claim to being the rightful heir to World In Action, with a diverse slate of programmes running the gamut of topics and often investigative in the truest sense of the term. Just last month, when the television gods conspired for Dispatches and Panorama to produce editions on identical subjects in the same week, it was Dispatches which adopted the more investigative stance, in this case infiltrating a training course for the assessors of incapacity benefit claimants.
Even those of us with few qualms about imposing quotas to ensure the most important programme genres remain on screen might just balk at the notion of attempting to stipulate the content that goes into them. Just like compulsory voting, it might achieve a given target, but the quality of the outcome could be somewhat dubious. Maybe we should instead be thankful that the golden age of investigative broadcast journalism has inspired - and maybe even required - a new generation to sustain it and maintain television's tradition of unearthing a good story.
(1) The Dream That Died, Raymond Fitzwalter, Matador Publishing (2008)
