British news and entertainment in USA

One of my major areas of research interest is the large and growing (and largely unnoticed) impact of the UK on America's media landscape. For a while over the summer this quiet drumbeat was magnified by a stream of British news events being reported on in the US. However, things have died down a tad - at least for the moment, and at least in terms of the big news stories. We've stopped hearing so much about the London terrorist bombings. Gleneagles and Live8 are already distant, all-but-forgotten memories. No-one seems to be talking about Making Poverty History anymore. All is silent on the 2012 London Olympics front. Americans are now consumed by the missing Aruba teenager and the BTK killer and (maybe if they're looking for more serious news) Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protest and the Israeli evacuation of Gaza. Britain's salience seems to be drifting away.

But hang on, not so fast! While the U.S. news world takes a break from "Blighty" (i.e., Britian), that steady drumbeat of the UK's hidden and not-so-hidden influence on U.S. news and entertainment continues relentlessly, even during the dog days of summer. Just think of all the British institutions and people who are having an impact on the U.S. media landscape right now.

Of course there's the BBC, and many Americans now get their news from The Independent and The Guardian newspapers as well. But what about Granada International and Celador Productions? What about the WPP advertising agency? Pearson (owner of the FT)? Conde Nast? News International (the UK arm of News Corporation, and home of The Sun and BSkyB)? And don't forget Richard Branson's Virgin.

Of course, the Brits people are most likely to have heard of are mostly in Hollywood. But there are many many others who are having more of a behind-the-scenes impact. There's Tina Brown and her husband Harold Evans; Christopher Hitchens and Richard Curtis; Martin Walker; we have to consider the defection of any number of tabloid journalists from London to the US, not to mention the many serious journalists heading to the US for the big bucks. Let's not forget Daniel Battsek (of Miramax) and Howard Stringer (of Sony); then there's dodgy Richard Desmond of OK! fame. And now there's James Goldston at ABC's Nightline.

In hard news and TV entertainment, in magazine and book publishing, in the big city tabloids, the British influence is palpable and incessant. And yes, the list really does go on.

And things aren't as quiet as they seem. All that's happened is that the temporary blip of Big British News Events has settled back down to the constant background noise - yes, a steady drumbeat - of the UK's continuing (and expanding) media presence in the United States. So even if we hear less about London's war on terrorism or Blair's electoral capital or the London Olympics or Britain's EU Presidency or its war of African poverty, don't be fooled.

There's still a lot going on.