It has been a while since we looked back at the world of Seventies and Eighties light entertainment. One forgets why. Anyway, to remedy that, last night BBC4 devoted 90 minutes to the battle for Saturday night TV ratings since the birth of ITV. So far, so esoteric (this is BBC4, after all).
But while the idea of Michael Grade, erstwhile boss of LWT, BBC1, Channel 4 and ITV – the ultimate TV insider’s TV insider – chatting to his old chums about the glory days has more than a hint of the solipsistic about it, this was actually simple, effective programme-making.
The problem, often, with documentaries about the television industry is that they’re placed in the context of wider social change: “As we moved into a world embracing the free market, so we got Terry Wogan’s Blankety Blank yada yada yada…”
But The Fight for Saturday Night didn’t do that. For the most part it was simply Grade sitting in a well-lit warehouse attic (it looked a bit like the one from Dragon’s Den given a bit of a sweep) talking to the producers, commissioners and stars of Saturday night, from Bruce Forsyth on The Generation Game right through to Bruce Forsyth on Strictly Come Dancing.
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