For fans of Nicole Kidman, tonight’s TV schedules offer a treat but also a dilemma. At 11.35pm on BBC1, she appears in the 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives, although even her most devoted admirers may not be tuning in, as they will already be watching her in Rabbit Hole, the 2010 family tragedy, which goes out on BBC2 from 11.05pm.
Kidman thereby becomes one of the few performers to break the long-standing unofficial principle of scheduling that – except for participants in major news and sports events – nobody should be on the two TV channels at the same time. The convention has generally been broken only at times when a particular performer – Stephen Fry, Clare Balding, Rob Brydon – has been experiencing a period of ubiquitous commissioning, although Eamonn Holmes once achieved the most impressive feat of televisual bi-location by appearing simultaneously in two shows that gave the impression of going out live.
And, although contemporary TV viewers are sophisticated enough to understand that multiple images of the same face across a time-slot can result from some combination of live appearances, recordings and repeats, the rule against double vision reflects the fact that TV, with its time-signature grids and frequent news updates, gives the impression of being a real-time medium.
Tonight’s Nicole v Nicole ratings fight, though, illustrates recent shifts in TV’s use of movie screenings. Increasingly, transmission of old films is cannily timed to coincide with a star’s presence on the cultural news agenda. On Monday, Kidman opens in Photograph 51, her first London stage production for 17 years. So, with her face on the front of newspapers, it was a smart thought that TV viewers might be prompted to want to see her in something else, even if it’s unfortunate that the BBC should have had this good idea twice on the same night.
Clearly, the technology exists for Kidmaniacs to watch one and catch-up with the other – or even time-delay both – but it seems unlikely that many will, as movies are now available elsewhere on so many dedicated channels, streamed archives and DVD and Blu-Ray for sale or rent.
Indeed, the decline in the status of cinematic re-runs on TV may be the reason that schedulers either didn’t notice – or, if they did, were unconcerned – that Nicole will be living in a community of automatons on one channel even as she grieves the death of a young son on another. Films have become fillers for times of day or night when channel controllers expect a low audience or are stuck with a low budget.
This change is astonishing to older viewers who remember doing the frantic calculation as the end credits rolled in a cinema – or when reading a review of a movie you were unable to see – of how long it would be before the work appeared on television – generally between three and five years. But, since the rise of the multiplex-television hybrid, with Channel 4 or the BBC investing in films that they will then have a rapid right to show, films are frequently screened on TV within a year of theatrical release, and sometimes months or even days.
In the case of movies not funded by networks – or benefitting from the Murdochian synergy between Fox and Sky Movies – subscription channels have further reduced the sense of a cinema hit as a special TV event by ensuring that few blockbusters, when screened on terrestrial channels, are being televised for the first time.
The clearest sign of cinema’s decline in the TV schedules is seen during the winter holidays. In the past, a 25 December 25 or 1 January would often have been built around the television premiere of a James Bond, Harry Potter or Toy Story movie. Last Christmas Day, though, BBC1 and ITV ran a few films for children (including Gnomeo and Juliet and Nanny McPhee) but filled peak-time with special editions of their own franchises, such as Miranda and Downton Abbey. Much the same happened on the first day of 2015, although the BBC continued an ancient tradition by showing Mary Poppins, the film that, along with The Sound of Music, has become associated with the seasons of overeating and overdrinking.
So Nicole Kidman owes her television double-bill tonight to a combination of her currently being a big deal in theatre but movies no longer being a big deal in television.
Rabbit Hole, Friday, 11.05pm, BBC2; The Stepford Wives, Friday, 11.35pm, BBC1
