Raymond Snoddy on Broadcasting: Here is the noose at teatime, and hang the consequences

They ended public executions in the UK nearly 140 years ago. Now it seems we are getting them back, courtesy of public service broadcasting, with a little help from mobile phones.

The image of Saddam Hussein with a rope around his neck was an extraordinary one. Some viewers clearly couldn't face it and looked away. Others were riveted, perhaps against their better judgement, and have been left with a distressing memory-trace that will take a long time to fade.

Official pictures, minus the opening of the trap door, shown on national television, were followed by grainy, unauthorised, and probably illegal, mobile-phone images, showing further degradation on the gallows.

Are we now standing above our own trap door of "anything goes" news? Is the fact that almost anything, including the most violent and gory material, is available on the internet instantaneously, inevitably leading to an evaporation of restraint by conventional broadcasters?

The trouble is that every event is unique and can be justified as a special case. Saddam was a villain and mass-murderer of historic proportions. It was important for political reasons to show that he really was dead, and the official pictures were issued by the supposedly sovereign government of Iraq. The pictures existed. So what can possibly be wrong with showing them, particularly when the worst bits are not shown before the 9pm watershed and a little judicious editing is arranged for everyone else?

Well, the problem is that, unless we are careful about it, there will be a gradual erosion of what, in the past, might have been called common decency.

But it is not even clear that it is possible to devise any practical rules or restraints that might hold in a world where children can escape the restrictions of a nine-o'clock watershed by receiving pictures on their mobiles, or simply going to their bedrooms for their laptops.

In the case of the Saddam pictures at least, the arguments will be put in a coherent way as Ofcom, the communications regulator, begins an investigation into more than 30 complaints - albeit a surprisingly modest number. It will not be an easy adjudication. Some will be horrified that such pictures were shown at all, in any form. Others will argue, equally passionately, that reality, however uncomfortable, should always be revealed and that anything else is censorship.

It's enough to make you almost feel sorry for those who have to edit conventional news programmes or 24-hour news channels. It is absolutely impossible to please everyone.

As Peter Horrocks, the head of BBC Television News, argued in an Oxford lecture in November, maybe instead of BBC News you will need "BBC Newses" in future: the idea of a single universal version of the news may become unsustainable.

For instance, the young, who are deserting traditional news for the internet, are interested in more celebrity news, the stuff that drives older viewers of news bulletins to distraction.

Given the obvious difficulties, then, can any lessons be learned from the Saddam affair or is the best we can manage a general sense of unease in the face of insuperable odds?

Conventional broadcasters have to stay true to a broadcasting tradition and a system of values, and resist the free-for-all of the internet. Over time it might even turn out to be good business in terms of maintaining public trust.

The argument that 24-hour news channels should be allowed to march to a different drum-beat because people "elect" to turn them on, and therefore should be aware of what they are going to get, is, however, a particularly suspect one.

It leads to nooses at teatime, and if you are upset it's your fault because you chose to switch on. And Sky News and BBC News 24 are permanently on in offices, railway stations and airports all over the country, so not everyone elects to watch.

Viewers are rightly more tolerant of imperfections and honest mistakes on rolling news, but there should be common values, and that is an issue that Ofcom and the new BBC Trust can usefully address.

For those who don't like the result there is always radio. But, there again, even Classic FM is apparently facing an Ofcom complaint over its Saddam coverage.

The little box that means Murdoch's grip on British television is tighter than ever

One of the most endearing characteristics of Rupert Murdoch is his constant ability to surprise. He spends more than 20 years trying to get his hands on a satellite television station covering all of the US - and then sells his stake in DirecTV to his great rival John Malone. The £5.5bn manoeuvre allows Murdoch to tighten his grip on News Corporation - thereby proving once and for all that the one thing that obsesses him most is that the Murdoch clan should continue to control News Corp, and that the interests of the dynasty transcends conventional rationales of both business and even power.

In the UK, the spit in Sir Richard Branson's eye with the pounce on 17.9 per cent of ITV was quite the most entertaining media story of the year. Yet down in the undergrowth, away from the big breaking headlines, other significant developments have been rumbling away. In a modest press release that could easily have been missed, BSkyB recently announced that subscriptions to the personal video recorder service Sky+ have passed the 2 million barrier, far ahead of expectations and a rise of more than 50 per cent in 2006.

There are other digital boxes with hard discs that allow viewers to record, pause and rewind live TV, and there will be more to come. But for Murdoch the big advantage is that Sky+ works off the Sky electronic programme guide - thereby tying subscribers ever more firmly in to Sky. It's another tentacle stretched around British television. According to Sky research, the practice of time-shifting - watching shows after their scheduled slot - now accounts for more than 12 per cent of viewing by people who own a Sky+ box. Just think how many ads are being watched only via the fast-forward button.

Opponents of the Murdoch empire can at least draw some comfort from the fact that the launch of BSkyB's "free" broadband in July doesn't exactly seem to be going gangbusters. It's early days, but by the end of October, a mere 74,000 lines had been "activated".

Raymond Snoddy presents 'NewsWatch', the BBC Television viewer-access programme