New Year’s Eve always reminds me that in contrast to its brilliant collection of radio stations, the BBC’s television output when it comes to music is generally pitiful. You’ll get plenty ‘An evening with …’ shows, featuring mainly repeated shows from the archives, but when it comes to music from the 21st century, and a fair bit of the 20th to be fair, there is precious little. For anyone under 60, there’s virtually nothing. Tonight’s pitiful effort across the BBC TV channels is utterly pitiful. Not that things are any worse today than they were in the old days, which is to say the days when I was not so old.
The main offerings were of a Scottish variety, with … er … legends like Moira Anderson, alongside perennial kilt-wearers Andy Stewart and Kenneth McKellar belting out Hogmanay classics such as Auld Lang Syne. Until I was old enough to go the pub on New Year’s Eve, that was all there was. It may have played out well on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh, where they really know how to celebrate the New Year. In downtown Bristol, not so much. So far as I remember, the BBC Hogmanay offerings were about as popular back then as Mrs Brown’s Boys are today, which is to say they were massively unpopular.
Nowadays, the only music shows on the BBC must be hosted by the besuited former Squeeze keyboard player Jools Holland, who first appeared as a presenter in Channel 4’s The Tube, a more than slightly smug music show which, to be fair, was a huge platform for emerging artists. From 1992, Holland became the face, pretty well the only face, of music on TV, when his show Later … with Jools Holland took to the air. 34 years, 67 seasons and 454 episodes later, if you want music on telly, it’s Holland or nothing.
To give credit where credit is due, Later … is probably the only vehicle for lesser known and undiscovered artists on which to appear. If you can stomach Holland’s performatory shtick that’s fine. Happily, I am able to skip through the tiresome talk by watching via the excellent iPlayer. If Holland’s regular show is usually a decent watch, that’s more than I can say about tonight’s Jools Annual Hootenanny.
Tonight will be Holland’s 34th Hootenanny and it promises to be even worse than ever. The show goes like this:
Holland’s admittedly excellent band will play a few classic oldies and one by one they will be joined by a popular singer. The emphasis, given the show’s elderly demographic, will be on, shall we say, ‘heritage’ artists and groups. There will be celebrity interviews and the Pipes and Drums of the Scots Guards be play Auld Lang Syne, all while pretending that the show is ‘live’ and wasn’t recorded many weeks ago. Tonight’s guests are classic Hootenanny: Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, Lulu, Heather Small, Craig David and the Kooks for the core MOR audience and the brilliant Olivia Dean for anyone young who happens to stumble by. If you think that’s bad, just wait until you see what’s on BBC 1: it’s ‘Ronan Keating and Friends: New Year’s Eve Party‘ starring chart-topping Boyzone star Ronan Keating. The Guardian helpfully points out that, “He’ll be singing his double platinum-selling When You Say Nothing at All, as well as No 1 single Life Is a Rollercoaster“. Not on my telly, he won’t be.
This dismal NYE line-up adds to my fears about the BBC. Not only has it become a mouthpiece for the hard right of British politics, it has settled for desperately generic, unchallenging slop instead of genuinely challenging and sometimes groundbreaking shows. The BBC’s Christmas TV effort has been pitiful, tonight promises to be as bad, if not worse.
I’m consciously avoiding a heavy night on the booze these days because I simply can’t cope with the mornings after like I used to. And that could be the excuse, if I need one, to avoid the telly tonight and have an early night. As one year comes to an end and another begins, we all know nothing will change and happy new year is just what we say instead of hello. Or in this case, goodbye. Happy New Year!
