Yoof TV: How Max Headroom inspired Network 7 and The Word
“24 hours a day, day after day, making tomorrow seem like yesterday.”
Blank Reg, Big-Time TV
In a wrecked future landscape, a shaven-headed man stares blankly at a precarious tower of televisions. Big-Time TV is screening non-stop 80s music videos, as usual. But then a strange angular face fills the screen, glitching and stuttering as he urges viewers to keep on watching.
Max Headroom first appeared in 1985, a wisecracking avatar of a TV presenter who would go on to become a global celebrity.
But the original TV movie that introduced Max to world is often overlooked. His fictional backstory was told in a 60-minute sci-fi tale, now recognised as a visionary exemplar of the cultural phenomenon known as “cyberpunk”.
The Max Headroom movie inspired an entirely new approach to television that would give us Network 7 and the wonderful world of Yoof TV.
COMING UP:
Network — Cyberpunk — Channel 4 — Network 23
music from Sigue Sigue Sputnik
Network 7 — Def II — The Word
Network
“Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park! We’re in the boredom-killing business!”
Howard Beale, Network
The acclaimed 1976 movie Network brilliantly portrays the long-running conflict between news and entertainment on television.
Faye Dunaway plays ruthless young programming chief Diana Christensen, willing to put anything onscreen to win extra ratings for her channel UBS.
She’s frequently challenged by seasoned news division president Max Schumacher (played by William Holden) who tries to assert the value and integrity of news programming, sidelined in favour of entertainment shows that become increasingly sensational — with deadly consequences.
“I don’t think I’ll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism when you’re right down on the streets soliciting audiences like the rest of us.”
Diana Christensen, Network
Network proved to be hugely influential, winning four Oscars including best actress for Dunaway and Best Original Screenplay for writer Paddy Chayefsky.
It also predicted that a TV industry driven solely by ratings would steer us into a desolate future.
A similar shift was taking place within science fiction. Utopian visions of the future, which had prevailed in sci-fi since the 1940s, were giving way to something much darker.
Cyberpunk
In 1977 the acclaimed British comic 2000AD introduced Judge Dredd, a stony-faced antihero who delivered instant justice in the overpopulated crime-ridden Mega-City One.
Similarly in 1981, Mad Max sequel The Road Warrior saw Mel Gibson violently defend a group of settlers from wild marauding tribes in an endless post-apocalyptic skirmish over gasoline.
One year later, a dystopian epic introduced key elements into what would become known as “cyberpunk”.
Based on the Philip K Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the movie Blade Runner starred Harrison Ford as ex-police officer Rick Deckard.
In this future, tech had enriched giant multinational corporations but not the general public, who barely survived on a bleak overcrowded planet.
Blade Runner director Ridley Scott presented future Los Angeles as “Hong Kong on a very bad day”, as broken residents shuffled through streets glowing with neon and drenched in rain.
Those who couldn’t afford to emigrate to off-world colonies attempted to escape their grim reality through TV screens, which bombarded them with vivid ads and sensationalised entertainment. Deckard was one of these marginalised and alienated loners — another key element of cyberpunk.
The term “cyberpunk” was coined by author Bruce Bethke, whose short story of that name was published in US sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories in 1983.
Bethke described cyberpunks as young people who would thrive in a tech-driven future. These kids were “Holy Terrors”, he explained, a combination of “the ethical vacuity of teenagers” with “a technical fluency we adults could only guess at”.
“The parents and other adult authority figures of the early 21st Century were going to be terribly ill-equipped to deal with the first generation of teenagers who grew up truly ‘speaking computer.’”
Bruce Bethke, author of short story Cyberpunk
These themes would be explored and expanded in William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, manga series Akira, Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish Brazil (1985) and many more books and films. Cyberpunk soon became the dominant sci-fi subgenre of the 80s.
Channel 4
Hard to believe now, but it wasn’t until 1982 that the UK gained its fourth terrestrial TV channel.
Channel 4 was an ambitious channel that offered a genuine alternative to the respectable formality of BBC One and Two, or the ratings-chasing populism of ITV.
The channel’s early programming included challenging storylines in soap opera Brookside, alternative comedy from The Comic Strip, world cinema and influential live music show The Tube.
By 1985 Channel 4 wanted its own music video show, in recognition of the massive success of US music channel MTV. But unlike the bright and shiny real-life veejays on MTV, Channel 4 opted for an animated presenter.
Enter Max Headroom. Creators Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel and George Stone devised Max as a shrewd parody of a typical smarmy TV presenter or talkshow host.
“Max was always a very political, anarchic, satirical character that wanted to comment on the world around him.”
Annabel Jenkel
Channel 4 audaciously promoted Max Headroom as the world’s first computer-generated TV host. In reality, the digital tech required at the time was prohibitively expensive, so the production team faked it by adding prosthetic makeup to actor Matt Frewer and filming him talking in front a green screen, onto which digital patterns were subsequently added. Fair to say: it worked.
Max Headroom was also given a fictional origin story, written by Steve Roberts. This story was originally intended to appear in chapters between music videos over several episodes of his TV show — but Channel 4 liked it so much they joined forces with US channel HBO to turn it into an hour-long movie.
Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future was broadcast on Channel 4 in April 1985, three days before the first episode of his music video show.
COMING UP NEXT: Plot spoilers
Network 23
“I compute the physical characteristics of his head, then I print his memory — his synaptic circuits — his mind. The brain is only a binary computer, a series of on/off switches. Then I can generate this man onto the screen from my computer.”
Bryce Lynch, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future
Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future stars Matt Frewer as Edison Carter, a kickass investigate journalist working for TV channel Network 23.
As in the movie Network, Carter’s employer has crossed a line in the race for ratings. It has hired a young tech genius named Bryce to develop subliminal ads called “blipverts”, which compress 30 seconds of advertising into just three seconds.
Blipverts leave viewers no time to change channel, to the delight of advertisers. Unfortunately this rapid barrage of information has an unexpected side effect for some viewers — they explode. Oh dear.
Carter is on the edge of exposing his employer’s criminal behaviour when Bryce puts a couple of hired goons onto his trail. Fleeing Network 23 by motorbike, Carter collides headfirst into a car park barrier which displays the warning message: “Max Headroom 2.3m.”
Expecting Carter to die from his injuries, Bryce attempts to digitally duplicate Carter’s memory, to create an avatar convincing enough to fool Network 23 viewers that its star reporter is alive and well.
Unfortunately 20 minutes into the future, tech has not advanced far enough for Bryce to complete his plan. He can only create a jerky avatar of Carter’s head, which constantly repeats the last thing Carter saw before he lost consciousness — the words: “Max Headroom.”
Bryce orders his goons to dispose of the digitised version of Carter, and it ends up in the hands of Blank Reg, the ageing punk owner of counter culture channel Big-Time TV. To great success, Reg uses Max Headroom as a wisecracking digital host for Big-Time TV’s endless stream of 80s music videos.
Meanwhile Carter recovers consciousness, and aided by expert hacker Theora Jones (hacking is another key element of cyberpunk) he exposes Network 23’s blipvert scandal live on air.
Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future combines the hi-tech dystopia of Blade Runner with the ruthless preoccupation with TV ratings of Network, to create an original vision of the future.
Its delivery was also innovative. We watch the story unfold through a variety of cameras: the viewfinder of Carter’s bulky handheld video cam, CCTV footage from inside offices and outside helicopters (complete with scrolling time codes) and the 3D wireframes of buildings infiltrated by hackers. Hazy images and frequent onscreen interference reflect the hi-tech grime of this cyberpunk world, which is then mirrored in Max’s trademark glitchy speech once he becomes a TV host.
The TV movie became a cult classic, and it would spawn an ABC follow-up series set in the same fictional dystopia. You can currently watch the entire Max Headroom movie on YouTube.
Back in the real world, The Max Headroom Show became a significant ratings hit for Channel 4, as Max wryly introduced music videos and waxed lyrical on anything and everything.
Max became a pop culture icon, and he would go on to appear in big budget Coke adverts, on magazine covers and talk shows, and in computer games. He also provided the juddering vocals to Paranoimia, a bizarre hit single by the Art of Noise.
Musical interlude: Love Missile F1–11
Talking of hit singles, a music video was released in 1986 which shot cyberpunk straight up into the charts.
Sigue Sigue Sputnik described themselves as “a neon space gang from another planet”. They were the brainchild of former Generation X bassist Tony James, with an image as brash and nihilistic as any Bruce Bethke cyberpunk.
Their debut single Love Missile F1–11 was produced by electro pioneer Giorgio Moroder as a sample-heavy fusion of punk and electronica, with just a touch of rock n roll.
The Love Missile F1–11 music video was a bombardment of film clips and rapid cuts, CCTV footage and computer graphics. Not quite a blipvert, but it could easily have passed as an out-take from the Max Headroom movie.
Every member of Sigue Sigue Sputnik was presented in the video as if their celebrity status had already been established, pursued by a rabid paparazzi only kept at bay by their steely publicist: the late Magenta Devine.
Love Missile F1–11 was a global hit, reaching no 1 in Spain and no 3 in the UK, Germany, Finland and Ireland.
Sadly the hype around Sigue Sigue Sputnik eclipsed their music, and after a couple of minor follow-up hits they exploded into space.
“They looked great, they were wonderful in print. Their mistake was making a record.”
Malcolm McLaren
Network 7
A Channel 4 series began in 1987 which shook up expectations around TV for young people.
Network 7 was devised by Janet Street-Porter and Jane Hewland, who finally challenged the belief that TV news and entertainment were mutually exclusive.
“We don’t believe that fact on TV has to be boring. We’ll bring you news on pop, fashion and the stars, plus the issues you care about. On Network 7: News is entertainment. Entertainment is news.”
Network 7
Broadcast live on Sunday lunchtime, Network 7 mixed serious journalism with celebrity interviews and style news, plus sci-fi detective series Dick Spanner.
Network 7 was aimed at a 16 to 24-year-old audience, the elusive Holy Grail for TV programmers up to that point.
With this in mind, Network 7 presenters were young, fearless and very stylish. They included Sankha Guha, Tracey MacLeod, Sebastian Scott and Magenta Devine — previously seen fending off paparazzi for Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
Network 7 was as fast-paced as the Love Missile F1–11 video. We watched every episode through a series of handheld cameras which moved rapidly across the studio while text and infographics flashed up. It also pioneered viewer interaction that would become a reality show norm, with phone-ins and vote results appearing live onscreen.
Network 7 fused the DIY ethic of punk with the tech overload of cyberpunk. It was exhilarating and compelling, and it frequently looked like Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future.
Janet Street-Porter acknowledged that the inspiration for Network 7 came from multiple sources, in BBC documentary Watch This Or The Dog Dies: The History of Youth TV.
“I got my ideas from everywhere, I was a complete plunderer. I’m not ashamed of that — that’s how I’ve always worked.”
Janet Street-Porter
Further inspiration for Network 7 came from style magazines such as The Face, US news shows, British tabloid newspapers and anarchic Saturday morning kids show Tiswas.
The combination of news, entertainment, rapid cuts, short segments, inexperienced presenters and in-your-face graphics was derided by critics as “Yoof TV”.
Nevertheless it worked: Network 7 won over the elusive 16 to 24-year old TV audience. In 1987 it was awarded a Television Originality Bafta and a year later Street-Porter was poached by the BBC.
Def II
“Instead of trying to come up with one programme like Network 7, I thought if I have slots, within those slots we can try out many different kinds of shows — music shows, magazine shows and travel shows.”
Janet Street-Porter
From 1988 Janet Street-Porter applied the “Yoof TV” approach to a BBC Two strand of original and imported shows named Def II.
This included Rough Guide, a travel series that covered topical international issues as well as visiting tourist sites. It was presented by Network 7 alumni Magenta Devine and Sankha Guha, and produced by Sebastian Scott.
Street-Porter also commissioned Reportage, which used Max Headroom-style graphics, quick cuts and viewer interaction to help make investigative news journalism appeal to a younger audience.
Music shows Rapido, Snub and Dance Energy were also included in the Def II strand, alongside popular imports such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Ren and Stimpy Show, Battlestar Galactica and Degrassi Junior High.
The Word
“We wanted it to feel like a fantastic youth club on acid.”
Paul Ross, series producer, The Word
Charlie Parsons had been a presenter on Network 7 and was also in its production team. While Network 7 had declared: “News is entertainment, entertainment is news,” Parsons felt that Janet Street-Porter’s move to the BBC re-established the split between news and entertainment on TV.
“Janet was very interested in the factual side, whereas I was more interested in celebrity, in entertainment, in talking about things with value but more down the entertainment route,” he said.
“The BBC [output for young people] went more serious, partly because of the nature of the BBC, where the Channel 4 output went more towards entertainment, partly because it’s a commercial station.”
After attempting to apply the “Yoof TV” formula to an arts show (Club X), Parsons launched a pure entertainment series in 1990: The Word.
With a live studio audience, shocking stunts, unpredictable guests and fierce bands, The Word used just about every means possible to grab your attention after coming back from the pub on a Friday night.
Guests and audience members frequently got out of hand, and hosts Terry Christian, Amanda de Cadet, Mark Lamarr, Katie Puckrik and Dani Behr often switched roles from ringmaster to bouncer.
The Word included an infamous segment called The Hopefuls, where a succession of young people declared: “I’ll do anything to get on TV.” They then proved it by french kissing a pensioner, balancing slugs on their tongue or drinking a pint of their own vomit, as the audience gasped in horror.
“The Hopefuls was definitely the logical conclusion of the whole Yoof TV thing up to that point,” said writer and comedian Adam Buxton.
“It was turning the camera on the audience and it just reduced to whole youth equation to: you are idiots, you’ll do anything to be on TV, and do something grotesque now. And they did.”
The Word was a compelling ratings hit. Charlie Parsons would subsequently create hugely successful TV series The Big Breakfast and Survivor, as a co-founder of production company Planet 24.
As for “Yoof TV”, it ran out of steam around 1997, when Channel 4’s The Girlie Show was seen as too formulaic (despite including the brilliant segment Wanker of the Week). After a decade of “Yoof TV”, the audience had grown up and a fresh approach was needed.
Epilogue
“This is the future — people translated as data.”
Bryce Lynch, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future
The Max Headroom movie dropped us into a disturbing sci-fi world that seemed highly unlikely in 1985.
Nearly 40 years later, we’ve accepted that corporations now hold more power than most governments. Young tech masterminds are hired to exploit our data to persuade us to buy this product or vote for this party — not though the power of blipverts, but through insidious targeted ads and social posts.
We’ve also accepted that anyone we watch onscreen could be an AI-generated avatar. Max Headroom’s jerky movements and stuttering speech were a giveaway in 1985 but tech has sped far ahead since then. As we’re heading into an election year in the UK and US, deepfakes could make or break a campaign, rapidly spreading disinformation across the web before they can be reported and taken offline.
“You could have all your politicians in little boxes. Very handy.”
Breugel, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future
No wonder cyberpunk proved to be so influential. After Max Headroom, cyberpunk gave us The Matrix quadrilogy, Ghost in the Shell, Robocop and many more dystopian masterworks, before mutating into steampunk, biopunk and music genres vaporwave, synthwave and retrowave.
Despite the success of Network 7, the conflict between news and entertainment remains as fierce now as when Network was released in 1976 — but I imagine news divisions now have to argue against blindly chasing online engagement as well as TV ratings.
Yet among its accurate predictions of a grim future, the Max Headroom movie also left us with hope. Through sheer tenacity, its hero Edison Carter exposes the corruption at Network 23 and brings justice to key players who had seemed untouchable.
By showing us the horrors of a dystopian future, cyberpunk can inspire us into action — if we can break away from our screens. Rebellious courage will still be needed, 20 minutes into the future.
