Urban Bias in the Media or Regional Neglect?

With news of the anticipated axing of Sean Dunderdale's Farm Watch program from BBC Radio Lincolnshire I post an excerpt from my book Marsh Fen and Town South Lincolnshire and Beyond. Is this Urban Bias or Regional neglect?

Urban bias in the media – the Fenland area has been protected by a strong history of free, unfettered and at times fearless local press. Indeed the Lincolnshire Free Press was originally founded as The Lincolnshire Boston and Spalding Free Press to counter the “buying off” of criticism under threat of libel by politicians that were being held to account. As radio came to the fore in the 1930’s this was, by its very nature, biased towards national interests as the audience was national. However, within that was a growth of rural broadcasting about the countryside. Indeed when that “every day tale of country folk” The Archers was first broadcast nationally by the BBC in January 1951[xi] the aim of the show was to spread information to farmers on how they could increase productivity focusing upon three farmers that would sound familiar in some ways over seventy years later: the productive farmer that had very little money; the farmer with little money that was inefficient with virtually no resources; and the rich farmer making a loss to avoid paying tax.

Besides The Archers were a group of early rural broadcasters that shone a light on rural life and practises to the urban and country resident alike. Broadcasters such as Michael Bratby and Old Romany became popular. In the post War period this grew and we saw locally Peter Scott broadcasting about wildfowl including the marsh near Sutton Bridge and the washes at Welney. Yet local issues and news remained the confines of local printed press.

The floods of 1947 were a key event in getting coverage of what was a disaster along the East coast in both national press, radio and what was the fledgling post-War BBCTV, that had only a few viewers. 1959 saw the expansion of TV with the regional Anglia Television, a commercial station based in Norwich. Spalding was on the edge of its transmission range, but this channel proved popular in the area. Here was a TV station that catered for the masses, but was also  capable of identifying with the Fens and its people in its news and programming. Regional TV was problematic in that it favoured larger centres of population. Thames TV was a weekday giant that served 4,270, 000 homes in 1971 [xii] and the case was being made to shrink commercial TV from fifteen down to the big five, of which Anglia Television and Yorkshire Television were two. All the TV channels were capable of producing programs of national quality and popularity, but London dominated in the form of London Weekend and Thames Television.

Anglia TV was capable of producing programs for the masses such as “Sale of the Century” but also produced excellent documentaries featuring  such people as the Linehams at Fosdyke, Kenzie Thorpe at Sutton Bridge and Ernie James at Welney as well as various farming and conservation activities from the area. The Anglia TV Natural History Documentary Unit was headed by a countryman, writer and journalist, Colin Willock. As well as brilliant international wildlife documentaries he included local niche ones such as The Piper of Nacton – the only TV documentary known to me to fully demonstrate the workings of a decoy.

In 1974 a restructuring of commercial TV and transmitters saw Yorkshire Television take over transmission in Lincolnshire with most of South Lincolnshire losing Anglia TV. This was a disaster in many peoples’ eyes as they could identify with Anglia TV but not with Yorkshire Television, not the Midlands alternative of Central Television. “This decision could only have been made in London without any thought of regional identity”, was the cry from some objectors. I recall many of my father’s customers complaining, “ I don’t wish to listen to that Yorkshire twaddle” or complain of the Yorkshire accent. The reality is that the geography of the area meant that South Lincolnshire, the South Holland region, was between two transmitters and in a no-man’s land.

To a degree local radio established coverage of the Fenland area, initially with the aptly named Hereward Radio based in Peterborough and then BBC Radio Lincolnshire in 1980 and Lincs FM in 1992. I feel Radio Lincolnshire in particular took care to include the south of the county. I even found myself in a small studio cupboard at Spalding swimming pool giving an interview to the station about Spalding Wildfowlers. Coverage of rural matters was kept alive by the skill, passion and care of individual broadcasters. Most notably Alan Stennett at Radio Lincolnshire and subsequently Sean Dunderdale of both Lincs FM and later Radio Lincolnshire, and Steve Orchard at Lincs FM until recently. It also needs to be remembered that key democratic accountability and information is provided by these media, but sadly a centralisation and a move towards the internet has seen this severely eroded. 

The coverage of the South Lincolnshire Fens by broadcast media is now very poor and the lack of local knowledge and perspective often shows, especially when compared with London. As to whether this is urban bias, I would possibly argue it is one of regional neglect.

As to content, the programs that do cover the countryside are, in my humble opinion, dominated by an urban gaze.

If you find this of interest my book Marsh Fen and Town South Lincolnshire and Beyond is available on Amazon in paperback and hardback where I discuss history and the many issues of this rural area ip to the present day.