The Popular on British Television: Global Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences

This article explores two related and highly significant aspects of British broadcasting: how the nature and identity of British television have been influenced by the potentially contradictory demands of high and low culture and associated popular and quality programming; and how (far) national broadcasting has been able to face the threat to its existence posed first by internationalisation and now by globalisation. After an initial discussion of the notions of the global and the popular, this study considers how past conceptions of the role of television affected attitudes to programming, before considering the difficulty of determining what is national, popular television in a world where domestic broadcasts and global pastiches are scheduled side by side. The conclusion examines how national and local characteristics have enabled British programmes to maintain popularity in the face of globalisation.