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UNTIL the mid 1960s, mention of homosexuality in British broadcasting was almost unthinkable. Now broadcasters are falling over themselves to redress the balance and the next few months will see the launch of an unprecedented batch of gay radio and telly, with both the BBC and Channel 4 launching ambitious gay-targeted series.
The groundbreaker was Out On Tuesday. Launched in 1989 by Channel 4, it was received by the straight press with predictable hostility ("What next - a show for one-eyed Mexican dwarfs?" asked Today). The gay community, however, embraced it as the culmination of a decade's campaigning for better representation on TV. But after three seasons the novelty wore off. Out's audience - restrained at first by a sense of gratitude that it existed at all - began to get restive. The programme was heavily criticised: too serious and politically right-on and irrelevant to the lives of most lesbians and gays outside London (the programme paraded items about S&M, obscure performance artists, the politics of shaving and endless talking heads, all over-analysing like crazy).
But Out had broken through the wall of resistance to gay-made television: gay programme-makers that have followed owe a debt to the pioneering series.
Radio Five Live's gay news programme, Out This Week, took the cause of gay broadcasting a step further last month when it won a Sony gold award for best magazine programme. Recognising its quality, the BBC has extended its contract from a 13-week run to a full year.
In London, Freedom FM was...