Helen O’Rahilly became editor of Watchdog this January, just as ten
of Britain’s largest companies set up a war council to take on the
programme’s perceived unfair attacks on them. In a few weeks the BBC
will come head-to-head with Ford, BT, Dixons, Airtours, the AA, Hotpoint
and Procter and Gamble, to discuss their complaints about Watchdog.
’The main point is that, if we were getting things wrong, we’d be
fighting libel actions in the High Court rather than dealing with the
Broadcasting Standards Council,’ she says. ’We have tightened things up
a lot. We have taken more care over recruitment and training, for
instance, and our checking is much stricter.’
O’Rahilly has also tweaked the look of the programme. ’I’ve tried to
inject more humour and gossip,’ she explains. ’I like having the two
presenters, Alice (Beer) and Anne Robinson, talk to each other in that
rather gossipy style. My predecessor was a man so I think he avoided
that, but with 60 per cent of our audience being female it seemed more
appropriate to me.’
When Anne Robinson took over as presenter of Watchdog in late 1992, she
brought a stronger, tabloid approach, dealing with customer care and the
big companies. Ratings doubled almost overnight. Now it rates between
seven and eight million viewers for its Thursday and Friday night
programmes and has spawned a number of spin-off shows including Health
Check, the Big Dinner, Computers Don’t Bite, On The House and Value For
Money.
O’Rahilly says encountering PR people is not a series of vicious
arguments about unfairness and bias. ’Not at all,’ she says. ’Some firms
are absolutely brilliant at dealing with us. Marks and Spencer, or John
Lewis for instance, will send someone down to the studio and, if they
think our points are fair, make real changes there and then. It is no
coincidence that these are the companies who very rarely appear.’
’Refusing to appear then faxing over a three-line statement late in the
day makes companies look like they don’t care,’ she says.
Her predecessor Steve Anderson is now controller of news and current
affairs at the ITV Network Centre. He says he knew O’Rahilly, then an
assistant producer on Watchdog, was good as soon as he took over the
reigns at the show in 1992. ’Helen struck me instantly as the kind of
person who could run the show,’ he says. ’That’s why I made her my
deputy. One of the problems with Watchdog is that you have to make
four-minute films about a vacuum cleaner. She had the ability to make
these films interesting enough for network television.’
Despite Anderson’s praise, Watchdog’s detractors are still lobbing
shells at its editor. Recently, they have begun to take delight in
O’Rahilly’s nickname - Stalin. She, on the other hand, insists it is
endearing. ’People say it to my face,’ she says. ’I got it because I
have this huge Irish greatcoat that my mother gave me and when I first
wore it into the office, it had a certain militaristic look to it.’
HIGHLIGHTS
1991
Assistant producer, Checkout, Diverse Productions
1992
Assistant producer, Watchdog
1993
Deputy editor, Watchdog
1998
Editor, Watchdog
