One of Britain’s most legendary TV dramatists, Sir Phil Redmond, is no stranger to tackling difficult issues on screen.
Courting controversy famously with his hard-hitting storylines on his children’s show Grange Hill for the BBC in 1978, before he switched over to Channel 4 to give it its two most prominent soaps, Brookside (1982) and later Hollyoaks (1995).
He’s been a pivotal figure at Channel 4 from its inception, widely considered to be a father to the channel.
While he’s been responsible for putting some of TV’s most impactful storylines to air for them – from the first lesbian kiss, to bodies buried under patios – off-screen nowadays, he’s equally radical about what should happen.
“Channel 4’s job in 1980 was to provide a platform for the voices, ideas, and people that weren’t able to break through into television. They did a fantastic job. I was part of that, and now it’s done.”
It’s not that he wants to kill off Channel 4 but – as broadcasting bosses gather for Edinburgh’s annual TV Festival – he believes they urgently should be talking about mergers.
A suggestion which goes down about as well as you might imagine, he says, when he brings it up with those at the top.
He laughs: “The people with the brains think it’s a good idea, the people who’ve got the expense accounts think it’s horrendous.”
A ‘struggling’ BBC trying to ‘survive’
With charter renewal talks under way to determine the BBC’s future funding, Sir Phil says “there’s only one question, and that is what’s going to happen to the BBC?”
“We’ve got two public sector broadcasters – the BBC and Channel 4 – both owned by the government, by us as the taxpayers, and what they’re trying to do now is survive, right?
“No bureaucracy ever deconstructs itself… the BBC is struggling… Channel 4 has got about a billion quid coming in a year. If you mix that, all the transmissions, all the back office stuff, all the technical stuff, all that cash… you can keep that kind of coterie of expertise on youth programming and then say ‘don’t worry about the money, just go out and do what you used to do, upset people!’.”
How feasible would that be?
Redmond claims, practically, you could pull it off in a week – “we could do it now, it’s very simple, it’s all about keyboards and switches”.
But the screenwriter admits that winning people over mentally to his way of thinking would take a few years of persuading.
As for his thoughts on what could replace the BBC licence fee, he says charging people to download BBC apps on their phones seems like an obvious source of income.
“There are 25 million licences and roughly 90 million mobile phones. If you put a small levy on each mobile phone, you could reduce the actual cost of the licence fee right down, and then it could just be tagged on to VAT.
“Those parts are just moving the tax system around a bit. [then] you wouldn’t have to worry about all the criminality and single mothers being thrown in jail, all this kind of nonsense.”
‘Subsidising through streaming is not the answer’
Earlier this year, Peter Kosminsky, the director of historical drama Wolf Hall, suggested a levy on UK streaming revenues could fund more high-end British TV on the BBC.
Sir Phil describes that as “a sign of desperation”.
“If you can’t actually survive within your own economic basis, you shouldn’t be doing it.
“I don’t think top slicing or subsidising one aspect of the business is the answer, you have to just look at the whole thing as a totality.”
Since selling his production company, Mersey Television, two decades ago, much of his current work has focused on acting as an ambassador for the culture and creative industries.
Although he’s taken a step away from television, he admits he’s disappointed by how risk-averse programme makers appear to have become.
“Dare I say it? There needs to be an intellectual foundation to it all.”
TV’s ‘missing a trick’
He believes TV bosses are too scared of being fined by Ofcom, and that’s meant soaps are not going as far as they should.
“The benefits [system], you know, immigration, all these things are really relevant subjects for drama to bring out all the arguments, the conflicts.
“The majority of the people know the benefits system is broken, that it needs to be fixed because they see themselves living on their estate with a 10 or 12-year-old car and then there’s someone else down the road who knows how to fill a form in, and he’s driving around in a £65k BMW, right? Those debates would be really great to bring out on TV, they’re missing a trick.”
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While some of TV’s biggest executives are slated to speak at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Redmond is not convinced they will be open to listening.
“They will go where the perceived wisdom is as to where the industry is going. The fact that the industry is taking a wrong turn, we really need somebody else to come along and go ‘Oi!'”
When I ask if that could be him, he laughs. Cue dramatic music and closing credits. As plot twists go, the idea of one of TV’s most radical voices making a boardroom comeback to stir the pot, realistic or not, is at the very least food for thought for the industry.
Edinburgh TV Festival runs from 19 – 22 August.
