Too Much, Too Young

The 25 years since the creation of Channel 4 coincided with a substantial increase in mental illness among young people – depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, violence and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). At times The Daily Mail has implied this was cause and effect, that ‘Channel Filth’ wrecked our youth. The truth is much more interesting: Selfish Capitalism (or Neo-Liberalism) screwed them up.

The most startling scientific illustration of increased mental illness is a study comparing the mental health of 5,000 fifteen-year-olds in 1987 with the same number in 1999. Identical questions were asked of these very large samples. Overall, mental illness had increased from sixteen per cent to 24 per cent. But most horrifying of all was that the vast majority of the increase had occurred among girls, and girls from the highest social class: up from 24 per cent to a staggering 38 per cent for girls in social classes 1 and 2 (the highest). Four factors emerged as reasons: school performance worries; fears about exam failure; weight; and family problems (like parental divorce or disharmony). It is no coincidence that 1987 to 1999 was the period when boys and girls went from being equal in GCSE success rates to girls outstripping boys by some margin. Nor is it coincidental that this was when the pressure on women to be thin increased considerably, through role models, TV and advertising. Girls from the top social class were not just being told they could have it all, they were being made to feel like hopeless failures unless they succeeded in doing so – the grades, the body, the boyfriend, but also the labels and the lifestyle (clubbing, ecstasy and ‘Wild Child’ girls splashed across the press, like Amanda de Cadenet and Emma Ridley). Indeed, during this period the number of girls who had sex before age sixteen exceeded the number of boys (between 1984 and 1994, girls who had sex before sixteen went from sixteen per cent to 25 per cent).

But the pressures were not restricted to posh girls. As a thousand newspaper articles have chronicled (alas, with no discernible effect on the government), we have epidemics of ADHD, eating disorders and even autism. In fact, it is not completely clear that any of these have really increased in prevalence. It could just be due to more reporting and changed definitions. But there is little doubt about depression, anxiety and substance abuse (drink and drugs).

What has been driving youth mad? My two books, Britain on the Couch (1997) and Affluenza (2007), have blamed all these trends on Selfish Capitalism. This form of political economy has four core characteristics. One, a business’s success is judged almost exclusively by current share price. Two, privatising public utilities. Three, massive economic inequality caused by minimal regulation of business, suppression of unions and very low taxation for the rich. Four, the ideology that consumption and market forces can meet human needs of almost every kind. World Health Organisation surveys show that mental illness is twice as common in selfish, English-speaking nations (23 per cent), compared with relatively unselfish, mainland western European ones (11.5 per cent). Above all, the canaries in the Selfish Capitalist mine have been young women, the most screwed-up group by a long way, despite living in an era of the greatest freedoms and affluence of any females in any time.

Some critics claim that C4 has had to reflect these Selfish Capitalist realities by departing from its general remit to innovate but this argument is least tenable in its youth programming. Mental illness and a commercial, exploitative attitude have been forced on the viewers (and on the increasingly youthful people who both commission and make the programmes at C4) but the channel’s track record in this specific genre is arguably the single greatest achievement to be celebrated on its 25th birthday.

The channel’s track record in the specific genre of youth programming is arguably the single greatest achievement to be celebrated on its 25th birthday

My personal connection to Channel 4 began in 1985 through friendship with John Cummins, then commissioning editor for young people’s programmes. He jumped to these heights from the most junior production job (researcher) on The Tube. This celebrated live music series was presented by Jools Holland and Paula Yates with an invigorating informality never seen on TV today. At least in the early years, there were still numerous memorable bands – The Jam, The Smiths, Culture Club, Madonna or The Pretenders.

But as the Eighties wore on, Paula and Jools became increasingly erratic in their behaviour. Once, doing a live promo for the show at around 5.15pm, Jools exhorted the viewing children to be ‘a groovy little fucker’ and tune in. The C4 switchboard exploded with calls from horrified parents. In 1987, Cummins replaced The Tube with Network 7, running for two hours on Sunday lunchtimes, at a stroke inventing a new genre of programming: Yoof TV. For two series, peculiar camera-work combined with an eclectic and exotic collection of young presenters to provide a magazine programme designed by youth for youth. The programme won a BAFTA but Cummins left the channel. The channel still continued to be the one most watched by teenagers but this programming was reflecting an increasingly ‘greed is good’ culture.

Michael Jackson started work as Chief Executive at the channel on the same spring day in 1997 that Tony Blair took residence in Downing Street. He achieved the difficult feat of recovering audience share and keeping it around the ten per cent mark. A big factor was his young people’s programming, of which the Big Brother franchise was a cornerstone. Jackson was actually quite nervous about whether it would work and surprised it became so huge. Wisely appointing the clubbable, imaginative Kevin Lygo as Head of Entertainment meant there were plenty of other youth-flavoured confections that did well, most famously Ali G.

The Big Brother franchise became a highly significant revenue source for the channel. What had begun as a serious exercise in stretching the boundaries of what can be achieved through TV became a much-imitated cash cow in a brutally competitive commercial environment. The show’s development was emblematic of the wider society.

Reviewing the evolution – and huge contribution – of C4 to TV for youth, it is striking how much it has mirrored that audience. The exuberance and optimism of The Tube and Network 7 were replaced by the game-playing of Ali G and Big Brother. Today’s teens are primarily concerned to obtain the car, house, iPod or luxurious foreign holidays of their parents as quickly as possible – ironically, these are now much harder to acquire. No students left university in 1982 with big debts making them afraid of dissenting from the status quo. And it was still possible to get a toe on the property ladder, whereas today’s students must totally commit themselves to conventional values from their mid-teens (good GCSE grades, CV-building through holiday work experience) onwards, if they are to have any chance of solvent home ownership. Even then, it is extremely tough for those without affluent parents. Indeed, a child born in 1958 is more likely to have achieved upward mobility through the education system than one born in 1970.

When asked what they want to be when they grow up, a much higher proportion of young people answer ‘famous’ than ten years ago. As the broadcaster that brought reality TV to Britain – Big Brother – it seems undeniable that C4 significantly contributed to the desire to be famous for being famous, by making it a real possibility.

In this, however, it has been no worse than any other broadcaster and in the end, as one C4 programme controller put it to me recently, the reason why people watch TV has changed during the last quarter century: ‘People look to it to entertain much more than to inform’. As head of BBC2 Michael Jackson had felt impelled to axe 40 Minutes, and its successor Modern Times did not last long. In all these cases he felt he had no choice because, quite simply, hardly anyone was watching. That was not TV’s fault, it was the fault of post-1979 (and post-1997) Selfish Capitalism. Increasingly obese, substance-abusing, overworked, needy and miserable, viewers switched on their telly at the end of the day wanting bread and circuses to accompany their fast food, not information or missions to explain. This was not C4’s fault. The blame wholly falls upon Thatcher, Major, Blatcher and, today, Bratcher.