Courting Malvolio: The Background to the Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting, 1960-62
Title:
Courting Malvolio: The Background to the Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting, 1960-62
Author:
Milland, Jeffrey
Appeared in:
Contemporary British history
Paging:
Volume 18 (2004) nr. 2 pages 76-102
Year:
2004
Contents:
This article looks at the circumstances surrounding the appointment of the Pilkington Committee in 1960. It argues that, at a time when television was becoming the dominant medium in British life, sections of the governing elite, which were otherwise in contention, came together to ensure that broadcasting in Britain continued to reflect middle- and upper-class values, and to resist American-type commercialism. The concerns of some Conservatives for 'the Malvolio vote', and a widespread 'moral panic' about television on the right and on the left, were to lead to the rejection of the ideology of the free market in broadcasting, and, in television, to a paternalistic duopoly becoming firmly entrenched.
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