Welcome to the eighth in a series of 10 posts, written for a university assignment last year (I write this disclaimer in Nov 19), which required blogging about current issues in television. As a result, the material is rather dated/irrelevant now, and the tone a little more formal than I prefer, but I thought I'd publish it on here anyway as I put a lot of work into it. I hope you enjoy/find it insightful!...
12/02/19
By a stroke of sheer luck, it seems there has been a recent stream of not only soap-related news, but news which praises the power of soaps. In my previous post, I analysed the Director General of the BBC’s comments regarding the importance of EastEnders in the BBC’s programming, and in the post before that, I discussed the vitality of soaps in the TV schedule. Therefore, it is convenient and very fitting that today we discuss last week’s news that Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Director of Television, called the future of the traditional sitcom ‘quite bleak’ and remarked that:
'ITV was never quite the home of sitcom. It’s very hard and part of the issue is the increased volume of soaps. Corrie is genuinely very funny at times… we’ve smuggled in the drug you used to get in sitcoms into soaps but it has been at the expense of traditional comedy… audiences can get their fix of character-based scripted comedy from Corrie. It’s on six times a week and you don’t have to create a 30 minute plot.'
-Kevin Lygo, Director of ITV
When this news broke, I was inevitably intrigued, but puzzled. As mentioned in blog post 7, it seems that broadcasters rarely laud their soaps, let alone over other genres altogether. The notion that sitcoms are beyond salvation seems ludicrous enough, but even more so when soap, an arguably equally divisive genre, is being presented as a suitable replacement of the traditional sitcom.
Of course, as a soap fan, it is reassuring that the genre is being championed amongst a wide range of modern TV genres and competition, but if a broadcaster which produced massively successful sitcoms such as Benidorm, Mr Bean, Birds of a Feather, Men Behaving Badly and Plebs is willing to almost entirely give up on the genre, then what does this say about the future of other genres?
A promotional photo for ITV's classic sitcom, Men Behaving Badly (ITV Studios, year unknown).
Although the absence of a variety of sitcoms on ITV may up the ratings for the broadcaster’s soaps, I think this is unlikely. Conversely, I predict that it will simply cause more people to turn to online streaming alternatives to have more TV choice, and it may also cause some resentment to be thrown in Coronation Street’s direction if it is to blame for the death of sitcoms on ITV. Not forgetting the fact that, at the end of the day, Coronation Street is a soap, and it should remain that way. Although blending genres seems the hot thing in TV at the moment, with programmes such as Westworld (HBO, 2016-) and Riverdale (The CW, 2017-) demonstrating this; soaps must stick to their foundations due to their generations of stalwart viewers who tune in expecting their daily dose of soap, and who may be alienated and frustrated if ITV tries to make Coronation Street different in order to fulfil some sort of comedy quota for the channel.
Although Coronation Street is known for balancing warm, Northern comedy with dramatic, hard-hitting drama, it is vital that this balance remains equal and undisturbed. When push comes to shove, soaps have to evolve with the times, but this should not be at the expense of their origins.
Blanche Hunt, played by Maggie Jones and Patricia Cutts, is one of Corrie's best-known comedy characters (ITV Studios, year unknown).
So, although I suppose Kevin Lygo’s comments should, on the surface, please me as a soap fan, I think that, upon digging deeper into the implications of his words, his statement is problematic, lazy and just bizarre. However, one thing is for sure, and that is that, as I have argued throughout all my blog posts, soaps are a fantastic way of analysing and predicting the future of the television landscape and are worthy of examination.
-ASIS
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