BBC TV Journalism Coming To US

First TV broadcast 1954

Opens with some priceless stuff, the French fighting in Indo China (Vietnam) and more trouble in Tunisia, at the six minute mark a film report starts, floods in Texas, and a host of interesting material for US viewers as well.

A few weeks ago the Columbia Journalism Review published a piece headlined "Superiority Complex - why the Brits think they're Better" which examined the growing popularity of British-based journalism in the US. It was a good piece, apart from the headline, which (I hope) was written with a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek. We have big plans for the US market, but we certainly don't think we're superior.........

So why do we think we can do well in one of the most crowded television markets in the world? Rome put it neatly yesterday when he said: "More and more Americans are seeking smart and sophisticated coverage of the world; coverage the BBC is uniquely capable of providing." So it's that combination of a demand *(among a certain section of the audience) for a greater level of international coverage at a time of globalisation and complexity, combined with the scale of the BBC - we have more than 40 news bureaux around the world and a fantastic tradition of providing high-quality, independent journalism for global audiences...... more

* I bet Fox are worried sick.

A snippet or two from the embedded link.

”We tend to let people speak a bit longer and complete a sentence,”says Richard Porter, bbc World’s head of news. ”I know that’s kind of unfashionable in the U.S.”

That said, some things haven’t changed. American reporters still stand at White House press conferences when President Bush enters the room–something British reporters like Gerard Baker, The Times’s U.S. editor in Washington, say they would never dream of doing for Tony Blair.