[Humphrey Hacker]

Well there is that, but I mean if you're into opera (which aren't all in foreign languages you understand, there are English ones too ) you'll already probably already in regular attendance at the Royal Albert Hall anyway, and of course watching on the telly isn't the same as watching it from the audience while wearing a penguin tuxedo (like most things really)

No its probably safe to say the ITA vision was one thing and the reality was different.  Once you start adding the need to make money into the equation the direction of travel was obvious - lowest common denominator programming, not helped as such by the likes of the early ITV companies pretty much running out of money to feed this new machine.

I couldn't call myself a "culture vulture" but it does boil down to money. I can understand the ITA's desire to go upmarket but I think the changes the network went through in 1968 were destabilising (the '68 strike and the "merger" of ABC and Rediffusion) and the piggy bank was squealing.