The BBC's head of arts has hit back at criticism from broadcasting tycoons David Dimbleby and Melvyn Bragg about the broadcaster's approach to cultural programming, saying he and his team are “incredibly” committed to defending the arts.
Speaking exclusively, Suzi Klein, the BBC's head of arts and classical music television, said the network's new line-up of programmes spoke for itself.
Her comments came after Dimbleby told the Guardian that the BBC had “lost its will” and no one was “interested” in the arts. Mr Bragg said no one at the BBC had the “courage to fight back”. And he didn't mind never working there again.
“I have a lot of respect for David and Melvin. I worked as a researcher for Melvin on 'Start the Week,'” Klein said. “But I [those accusations]The BBC has an incredibly strong and passionate commitment to the arts, which my team and I defend every day.”
The former producer and broadcaster said: “This is hard to doubt when you consider that we produce 28,000 hours of arts and culture content a year and that our programming has been watched by around 30 million people – almost half the UK population – in the last 12 months. Looking at our programming it's hard to say we're not making arts programming.”
The lineup announced Wednesday includes a new drama documentary series, “Renaissance: Blood and Beauty,” starring Charles Dance as Michelangelo; “Jane Austen: The Rise of Genius,” a drama documentary marking the 250th anniversary of the author's birth next year; “Our History,” a cultural history series in which Simon Schama looks back at the origins of the culture wars; “The Last Musician of Auschwitz,” a film that tells the story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the last surviving musician at Auschwitz; and the series “Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar,” which premieres this Friday.
“I think the challenge of the current TV environment that David and Melvin talk about is that we're inundated with content and the TV audience is so fragmented that it's becoming harder to discover and find content,” Klein said.
“When Monitor was on the BBC, or when Melvin started making The South Bank Show, there were far fewer channels. I'm very clear that we live in an economy of attention and distraction. Social media and YouTube are also taking up our time.”
She said telling stories that only the BBC can tell is the way to go, stressing that the BBC “produces more arts content than all public service broadcasters and streamers combined”. “The arts doesn't just mean one type of audience – at the Proms you'll have Sam Smith and Florence Welch alongside Mozart and Beethoven.”
Klein said that after Britain's drawn-out culture wars, it was more important than ever for the BBC to unite people, and he highlighted two strategies.
“The first step is to tackle it head on, like Simon Schama's new series exploring the roots of the culture war. This is something people are aware of and are troubled by. Why have we come to a point where different communities and classes of society feel so angry at each other?”
“The second is to look at areas where we are strongly united as a country. There are very few cultural institutions that have not been affected by the culture wars. We need to embrace the joy and passion of arts and culture and not feel like we are the place to always blame.”
And how can it attract more young people to the show? “There were always concerns, but everyone goes through different stages in life,” Klein said. “I didn't necessarily watch a ton of BBC TV as a teenager. We don't need to take that for granted, but we can afford to be comfortable about our place in the culture.”
She pointed to Glastonbury coverage, BBC Three and youth-focused radio stations as attractions, “and audience analysis shows that 16-34 year olds don't just watch programmes about young people, they also like older figures like David Attenborough.”
Indeed, she said, at a time when arts education in schools is in decline, the BBC plays a “vital” role in enriching society.
“Personally, art was a big turning point for me because it showed me what life was about and where it could take me,” she says. “My father worked in a thrift store and my mother ran a small business. I had to find my way intellectually. I remember when I was eight years old, I heard a Mozart trio on the radio. Everything went quiet and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. And so I ended up studying for a music degree.”
