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How Grimsby went to war with Channel 4 over Skint

April 1, 2014 by www.theguardian.com Leave a Comment

You could say that the fightback against poverty porn in Lincolnshire began at the end of January with a poll in the Grimsby Telegraph, illustrated by a skeletal drug addict fixing a hit: “What do you think? Should Skint come to Grimsby?” By the start of this week 65% of people had answered “no”, signalling not insignificant opposition to a Channel 4 reality show currently filming in the seaport.

Skint’s first series focused on an estate in nearby Scunthorpe, promising to give unemployed people “often maligned for their lifestyle” a chance to tell their own story. One of them was the aforementioned cadaverous pipe-smoker. Sam Wollaston, the Guardian’s TV critic, liked it, saying: “It could have been awful – gawpy and patronising, or worthy and dull. It’s none of those things. It’s funny, fair, frank.”

Yet within a few months of film-makers pitching up in Grimsby to film a follow-up, noisy opposition was building. By the end of January, local MP Austin Mitchell had written to the station boss demanding he cancel Skint’s commission and “consider the ethics of the trend Channel 4 has embarked on of demonising the poor and making poverty entertainment”.

A month later around 50 people turned up to an emotional public meeting in the Oasis academy on the Nunsthorpe estate, where test filming had already taken place. Various ideas were discussed as to how best repel the film-makers, including adding “GO HOME CHANNEL 4” to Grimsby’s welcome sign – a suggestion local Labour councillor Ray Oxby said he “wouldn’t rule out”. But if there was one overriding sentiment it was that expressed by one woman near the front: “We do not want to be the next James Turner Street,” she said, to unanimous murmurs of approval.

And there you had it: the genesis of the war between Grimsby and Channel 4 (or more specifically Keo, the independent production company behind the programme). The first shot in this bitter battle was fired not when Keo’s cameras first began recording, but on 6 January when Channel 4 aired Benefits Street and the hard-up residents of a road in Birmingham became a grim tourist attraction. Too much has already been written about that divisive programme, but it has had one under-discussed legacy: it is now much more difficult for documentary makers to continue using the formula.

All agencies operated by North East Lincolnshire council refused to engage with Skint. So did the Harbour Place Day Centre, which works with the homeless. Ditto the YMCA, which runs a hostel for the young and vulnerable. “They’ve been filming here,” says Rev John Ellis, who since 1972 has been running the Shalom youth project on the East Marsh, an estate built in the late 19th century to accommodate the town’s fish workers. “They’ve been having a little difficulty getting parents’ permission to film our young people, though.”

Ellis says his church, St John and St Stephen’s, was “not immediately keen”. But after long discussions with the production team, his trustees decided to take what he accepts is a gamble. “I just really wanted to try and tell the story of the community here, which is often described as one of the most deprived – I prefer ‘oppressed’ – in the country.” In 2011 part of the East Marsh was judged the second most deprived area (out of 32,000) in England and Wales, and last year it was ranked sixth in a national league table of “welfare ghettoes” (http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/Feature-Unemployment-Grimsby-s-East-Marsh/story-19170106-detail/story.html).

The vicar says he wanted to showcase Shalom’s “vital” youth work, which like all universal youth services, is under increasing pressure. It currently survives from a Comic Relief grant, topped up with council funding that was recently cut by two-thirds. He has little time for some of the anti-Skint campaigners, who assume participants are too weak or ill-educated to understand the consequences of letting cameras into their living rooms. “You keep hearing them being called ‘vulnerable’, but believe me, many are as vulnerable as a Sherman tank. They’re no shrinking violets by any means. They want their stories told.”

At the public meeting, much talk was of the damage Skint could wreak. One teacher was in tears as she predicted the confidence-zapping effect such a programme could have on her pupils. The industrial chaplain said the show would put off investors. Steve Maxon, former deputy head of a Scunthorpe school near where the first series of Skint was filmed, said the programme, broadcast last May, may have caused irreparable damage. “There are families there not speaking to each other any more as a result,” he said, complaining that she show was “hugely demoralising” for an a town already lacking in self confidence. “Say Scunthorpe to people now, and they’ll probably say, ‘Oh, that’s where Skint was filmed’, rather than ‘Oh, that’s the town that makes really high-quality steel for all the railways in Europe,'” he said.

The meeting ended with the authoring of a letter to send to Channel 4, Keo, Ofcom and beyond, saying: “Our town is a wonderful place to live, and however desperate a Skint TV channel is to increase its ratings and advertising revenue, they have no right to portray it otherwise.”

Katie Buchanan, head of documentaries at Keo, believes her firm has been a victim of the fall-out from Benefits Street. She points out that the Nunsthorpe public meeting had been convened by Steve Chalke, a charismatic Anglican pastor who runs over 40 schools under the Oasis banner, including one on James Turner Street. Chalke has led the charge against Benefits Street – among his claims are that there are children at that school who haven’t attended since the programme aired.

But Skint, says Buchanan, would “celebrate the resilience and ingenuity of these deindustrialised communities”. They are listening to the objectors, she insists, but to pull out of the project would be a “dereliction of duty”. None of the participants from Scunthorpe had raised objections, she says, and series two would be broadcast later this year or early next. Channel 4 talks of an “ongoing and wide-ranging consultation process which has involved residents and community organisations”.

A small note on the network’s website reveals the channel’s longterm commitment to these ratings smashers: “If you have been affected by the issues raised in the first series [of Benefits Street] and would like the opportunity to talk to one of our team about your street and the reality of life on benefits, please email us.” A second series is on the way.

• This article was amended on 2 April 2014. An earlier version referred to the Shalmon, rather than Shalom Youth Project.

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  • Television
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