Archaeology and British television

Abstract

The years at the turn of the millennium were a period of high synergy between archaeology and British television, as terrestrial broadcasters struggled to maintain their identity in a more competitive, multi-channel environment. Responding to the public's growing appetite for both history and science, these channels, notably BBC2 and Channel4, rebranded the image of their factual output by investing heavily in archaeological programmes, building on the success of mid-1990s series that had established a healthy core audience for TV archaeology. The broadcasting of archaeological documentaries was to increase threefold between 1998 and 2002, with over 650 transmissions in five years. An analysis of the locations, time periods, subjects and styles of presentation of 590 of these demonstrates that the archaeology that was being presented was largely UK-based, but wide-ranging in periods and subject matter, and that the formats most used were ones that focused on the process of archaeological work. The study concludes that, seen as a whole, TV's portrayal of archaeology in these years was less sensationalized than has previously been acknowledged.