2022: the year we kept calm and carried on

The war in Ukraine, turmoil in government, inflation, strikes and the death of our beloved Queen Elizabeth have meant that many of the great TV and radio events of 2022 have been on our news and current affairs programmes. This was the year we had to keep calm and carry on, as did our broadcasters.

The planned schedules have played their part, especially with events like the Platinum Jubilee, that no one alive today will ever see again. But too often reality has blocked out the fiction that makes up much of our entertainment.

Who will ever forget the bravery of those reporters and camera operators who stayed in Kyiv during February and March, facing another cynical use of the Red Army tanks by Vladimir Putin? In the first days of the war, it looked as though the Russians would sweep to victory because the Ukrainians would simply fold. Visions of darkened streets, massive fireballs, women and children fleeing for their lives all conspired to help us understand the reality of war.

There were heart-stopping moments when we saw Putin order his generals to prepare for nuclear war. Then the 24 hours as Poland investigated an apparent missile strike on its territory with two victims. Ukraine faces a grim winter and our prayer on Christmas morning must be for peace with justice.

We will never again hear Her Majesty give her Christmas Day message. Each year she said more about her faith, which was clearly very important to her. The Platinum Jubilee celebrations on our television in June seemed muted as if we all knew what was coming and, in September, it did.??On the day of her death, our TV stations brought us the sad news as it unfolded. Hasty decisions were made to rejig the schedules and many of the special programmes seemed a rerun of those that had celebrated the Jubilee, just fourteen weeks before.

The very last pictures of the Queen on our screens were of those when she said goodbye to Boris Johnson and welcomed Liz Truss as Prime Minister. The political turmoil in government was carefully recorded and the hustings between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss struggled to grip viewers’ attention. After a year of turmoil at the top, we now have a government which seems remote and incompetent. Television and radio are supposed to be “balanced”, but that sometimes gets reduced to timidity.

Normally, the big sports occasions grace the summer schedules where they really belong. We expect tense matches from Wimbledon to be played into the evening.??This year we also had the joy of seeing the Commonwealth Games unfold in Birmingham and the whole country seemed to get behind these sportsmen and women. Who cared if the scheduled programmes were shuffled aside???But football’s World Cup completion from Quatar has shattered the late autumn schedules and felt intrusive.??On these dark and cold evenings many of us want to be settled around the TV with a cocoa our and relax with a??familiar??programme.

The rearrival of BBC3 as a terrestrial channel, promised great things, but seems to have got into something of a rut. GB News and Times Radio had hoped for a bigger audience in 2022, but both seemed lost in the ghetto inhabited by political anoraks. TalkTV was launched in April, but has yet to be seen by anyone else I know.?

Anniversaries have been a major part of the schedules and none more so than the celebration of the launching of the BBC in 1922. Lots of good archive footage and an opportunity to see some favourite episodes of BBC programmes, especially sitcoms, that are rarely aired today. They are now often accompanied by warnings of inappropriate language and attitudes. Surely one of broadcasting’s innovations in 2022?

The 40th?anniversary of the launch of Channel 4 seemed altogether less flamboyant. I remember sitting with colleagues at our advertising agency watching the first evening’s shows, discussing whether we should divert advertising to the new channel (we didn’t).

Other anniversaries reminded us of past sorrows. The 40th?anniversary of the Falklands conflict may have been expected to create more programmes, but it felt very subdued. Perhaps the schedulers saw the future 50th?anniversary as being more significant? Sadly, many of those who took part in those battles will not be with us in ten years’ time.?

The 25th?anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, brought us programmes which commemorated that short life and those dramatic days. It is all the more poignant as we see the stresses between the two brothers, William and Harry, being played out on our screens.?

It was the 75th?anniversary of the dramatic unwinding of “British” India that bought us some first class, and moving, documentaries on both television and radio.??Many of us have friends and neighbours from multiple communities in the Indian sub-continent and this was an opportunity to revisit some of the issues which can tear those neighbours apart.?

Having watched TV on behalf of the Methodist Recorder for the best part of a year I would make just one observation: Why on earth does so much television have to be reduced to the “reality” format? It works for ‘Strictly’ and for some talent shows, but sewing and cooking??

Meanwhile in all the turmoil, my admiration for BBC radio continues to grow. They really kept calm and carried on.