Television Industry England

When Warner Bros. Television International President Jeffrey Schlesinger checked into London's Metropole Hotel two weeks ago, he expected to spend a day in the city before visiting Italy and continuing on to the large international television market held in this French resort each April. The Metropole Hotel, however, became the Warner Bros.

Universal Studios has signed a two-year agreement to provide ITV Network, a leading broadcaster in Britain, with theatrical films and television series and movies. The transaction has an estimated value of more than $70 million and is indicative of the lucrative revenue streams that studios are generating from foreign markets. Competition from cable and new digital services in Europe is driving up prices of programming, benefiting all the Hollywood studios.

For seven years now, it has been a ritual religiously observed by millions of British males, young and old. It starts at 4:45 on Saturday afternoons, when they nestle in front of their TV screens to catch the nation's soccer scores. And immediately afterward, they segue into a little light lechery--ogling the babes from "Baywatch." But no more.

O.J. Simpson took his case to a British TV talk show Monday, lambasting the Los Angeles police and the American media, praising the loyalty of his dead ex-wife and threatening to sue his detractors. In his first public remarks on an image-polishing visit to Britain after his acquittal on double-murder charges, Simpson appeared in a 15-minute segment of a live Granada Television show hosted by husband-and-wife team Richard Madely and Judy Finnigan.

What do you give an adulterous husband for his 47th birthday? The Princess of Wales knows, and all Britain thirsts to share her secret. In the latest episode of what haughty British newspapers deride as a royal soap opera (as they sing every aria), Princess Diana has secretly granted "an astonishingly frank" hourlong television interview about her family, her royal life and duties, and her separation from Prince Charles, Britain's future king. The interview airs here Monday night.

Those waxing euphoric about all British television haven't seen much British television. What the Brits do well, however, they do very well. And what they do well (most of the time) are mysteries. Just why U.S. television comes up short in this sphere (anyone voting for that CBS second-rater "Murder, She Wrote" should lay off the New Year's punch) is itself a puzzle. Perhaps at fault is mainstream U.S.

So imagine this: You go to see the guy who runs Channel 4 and after an hour's conversation about TV, he suddenly says: "Our viewers are very discerning, you know. People don't sit down and watch this channel for a whole evening. And I'm perfectly happy with that. In fact, it's our greatest strength." Couldn't happen, right? Not with the Channel 4 you're thinking of, it couldn't.

Cave dwellers and the cable-challenged might have missed the premiere of "Absolutely Fabulous" on Comedy Central on Sunday, but the fashion watchers didn't. Their fingers were poised on the record buttons of their VCRs to tape the daylong British sitcom's orgy of sex, drugs, dysfunctional families and eye-jarring fashion statements.

Those snobby Brits kept calling this the TV show that would never be seen in America. Too outrageous for all those politically correct Yanks. Well, here it comes anyway--so there. True, "Absolutely Fabulous" is not exactly the kind of sitcom the U.S. networks are churning out these days. When was the last time a hit comedy centered on two 40ish women who chain-smoke and guzzle booze for breakfast?

Dennis Potter, Britain's best-known and most controversial screenwriter, has disclosed that he is suffering from terminal cancer of the liver and pancreas and has only months to live. Potter, 58, whose widely acclaimed successes include the television series "The Singing Detective" and "Pennies From Heaven" (both seen in America on PBS), has known of his condition since February. A heavy smoker and drinker, Potter has suffered from ill health for much of his life.