How The Royal Family Used TV To Change Their Image (And How TV Pushed Back) _ Our History

After the war, because of her father's ill health, Princess Elizabeth increasingly assumed the public responsibilities of the monarchy. Her own accession to the throne in 1952 was to set in motion the most dramatic transformation of the public face of the monarchy through the medium of television. But at first, the establishment opposed the idea of broadcasting the coronation ceremony live on television. It was the Duke of Norfolk who saw its potential. Well, the Duke of Norfolk was very, very forward thinking and a lot of people thought he was rather stuffy, but in fact that wasn't so at all. And he had this big responsibility of organising the coronation and I think he felt that if it was televised live, then it would be seen by the whole country and this could do nothing but good for the monarchy. I mean, there'd been this mystique about the monarchy, but why shouldn't everyone see the coronation? I think that was his attitude. And for the first time in history, through the medium of television, the ancient and noble right of a coronation service will be witnessed by millions of Her Majesty's subjects. Now, the Archbishop turns to the west side of the theatre, looking down the full length of the abbey. Wherefore, all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same? The Queen herself was delighted with the television presentation. The royal visitors went first to Studio E. The Queen came to Lime Grove to see a recording. We didn't have videotape in those days, it was just a film tele-recording. And she enjoyed it so much that she knighted George Barnes, who was director of television at the time, she knighted him on the spot in Lime Grove where she'd watched the recording. Peter Dimmock has little doubt why the royal family were so pleased. Well, fairly soon after the coronation, when I was talking to Prince Philip about television, I said that I thought the coronation broadcast had ensured the future of the monarchy for at least 30 years. And I think he agreed with me, because he then took on a lot of projects himself and became very interested in television. But the awe-inspiring effects of the coronation had begun to wear off by the 1960s. On Sunday, Her Majesty was 37 and newsworthy as ever, even when doing nothing in particular. It was described by ITN as celebrating quietly her birthday with her family at Windsor Castle. But how do you celebrate your own birthday noisily? Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday, dear Mauders, happy birthday to me! And in 1968, even Prince Philip admitted publicly that perhaps the monarchy was looking boring. You know, we're getting on from middle age, and I dare say when we are really ancient, there might be a bit more reverence again. I don't know. I just thought we were entering probably the least interesting period of a kind of glamorous existence. People began to get terribly bored with the monarchy, and that's the one thing that monarchs can never allow to happen. And I think you had, at the end of the 60s, the idea that the British monarchy was sort of vanishing away. Even the Daily Telegraph said the British monarchy will not be abolished in a revolution, but it could fade away in one great collective yawn. Once again, the monarchy was ready to respond, authorising the enormously successful film Royal Family. You see if this is strong enough to... Get on. Get on. The significant thing about that film was that no-one had ever seen the royal family in a kind of natural way like any other family. I mean, they weren't like any other ordinary family, of course, but they were human beings at least, like the rest of us. And I think that caused a great identification with the royal family, greater than had happened at any time before. I think the key to the success of the modern monarchy is their ability to be both just like us and not like us, to be both very extraordinary and quite ordinary, banal even. I think that ordinariness comes very much from them being a family. But if you take the royal wedding of 1981 between Charles and I, that was also an extraordinary event. It was named typically a fairy tale romance, and I think it's that constant tension between ordinariness and extraordinariness that is so beguiling about the modern monarchy. But it was perhaps this overwhelming success that sowed the seeds of the present difficulties, setting in motion the evolution of the royal family from solid respectability into soap opera. Once you'd actually admitted that the royal family were ordinary human beings, ordinary wants, lusts, hates, problems, difficulties and all the other things, once you'd admitted that, you couldn't go back. And I think we've been lumbered, or the royal family's been lumbered with us ever since. I think it was a sort of pact with the devil that they agreed to. Even before her marriage, Diana Spencer excited frenzied behaviour from the press. And after the wedding, the excitement surrounding her every action led in the summer of 1982 to the publication of an infamous photograph. A pair of journalists crawled for several miles through tropical jungle to get their blurred shot of the pregnant princess. James Whittaker, then of the Daily Star, was the man responsible. I don't think that the royal family, I've never believed this, have the right to say, well done, we've enjoyed you covering this official visit or that particular opening or that unveiling ceremony, now please go away until we choose to have you back. Time and again, the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales have called in the editors, have tried to explain to them, have asked them to lay off, to just cool it. And they've had no luck on any occasion. The editors have been invited individually to have lunch with the Prince and Princess and they've gobbled up their organic vegetables and gone away and done exactly the same as they've been doing before. I don't know how you solve the problem. James Whittaker is of the view that while the palace may not like the press, they do depend on it. I can assure you that there's only one thing worse for the royals and the Queen actually has been heard to say this, one thing worse than being harassed and that is being ignored. They dislike that more. Television 2, once largely loyal, now offers an image of royalty that is uncomfortably like the caricature of the early 19th century and it's claimed this only reflects a change in public attitudes. I mean, the amount of caricature you could do of the royal family and of the royal family in the 16th century was pretty minimal. And I think with Splitting Image we had to be very careful. We didn't have the Queen Mum on the first show. I mean, I wanted the Queen Mum on the first show and the producer said, no way. And I think that you do it with really the consent of the reader or the viewer. Gradually you can do more. There must be some truth in the satire. You're doing a little bit of truth in the satire and I think that you can't just make things up because you think you will. You have to go along with your audience. .