State of British TV

[XFool]

Don't often agree with articles in The Telegraph, but sometimes...

Serious television in Britain is all but dead – and that is a disaster

The Telegraph

Executives afraid of appearing elitist are dumbing down our programming – and threatening TV's status as the great democratiser

[Tedx]

Don't often agree with articles in The Telegraph, but sometimes...

Serious television in Britain is all but dead – and that is a disaster

The Telegraph

Executives afraid of appearing elitist are dumbing down our programming – and threatening TV's status as the great democratiser

Similarly in todays Tedxgraph

Serious newsreporting in Britain is all but dead – and that is a disaster

The Tedxgraph

Executives afraid of appearing elitist are dumbing down our newspapers – and threatening our newspaper's status as the great democratiser

[redsturgeon]

Don't often agree with articles in The Telegraph, but sometimes...

Serious television in Britain is all but dead – and that is a disaster

The Telegraph

Executives afraid of appearing elitist are dumbing down our programming – and threatening TV's status as the great democratiser

Yes the days of the likes of "The Black and White Minstrel Show" and "Love Thy Neighbour" are clearly sorely missed by the Telegraph writers.

[Leothebear]

There was rubbish back in the "Good old days" and there's rubbish today.
Some of the rubbish, I quite like.

[Arborbridge]

I wouldn't agree with the Telegraph on principle! Any company who can welcome Johnson back with a fanfare must be deluded.

Anyhow, to the question. There's still enough good TV on the free channels to keep me going, but there are big gaps appearing, and that is worrying. Owing to the various savage cuts that have been forced on the BBC, the quality of output has gone down - a fact I am forced to acknowledge. It's most clearly shown in the output of BBC4, which has now been deemed an archive channel - i.e. endless repeats. Many of these repeats just make us cry out "where are the decent heavy weight productions these days?" Where are new cultural programs, the top rate scholars and presenters? Now we have "personalities" presenting programs on subjects about which they know very little, except what is on the page in front of them - that is a whole world away from experts with a deep knowledge of their subjects.

Thanks partly to advance of the philistines in government, all these top grade programs have been short changed and cut to the barest minimum. Dumming down has been with us for at least two decades now - (some would say since the Third Program on radio became Radio 3! Now on TV Petroc Trelawny and Clive Myrie are elevated to being "experts" in music, for goodness sake. They are basically interested amateurs with no more in depth knowledge of music than I have).
It runs through coverage of both arts and sciences and is a desparate situation, for we will be reliant upon whatever Sky or the others deem will attract the mass market. Quality broadcasting is rarely about attracting numbers, and that is why a purely commercial approach will eventually starve our cultural commonwealth into being a zombie state.

Arb.

[kiloran]

There was rubbish back in the "Good old days" and there's rubbish today.
Some of the rubbish, I quite like.

Ah, but in the Good Old Days, we only had 2 channels so there wasn't as much rubbish. These days we have a zillion channels, with not only far more rubbish, but repeated rubbish from years ago, and rubbish from 1 hour ago on the +1 channels. Oh, and foreign rubbish too (our rubbish is far better)

--kiloran

[Itsallaguess]

Dumming down has been with us for at least two decades now

Getting worse as well, by the looks of it...

:O)

cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Arborbridge]

Dumming down has been with us for at least two decades now

Getting worse as well, by the looks of it...

:O)

cheers,

Itsallaguess

well spotted - I was only testing.

[Dod101]

I wouldn't agree with the Telegraph on principle! Any company who can welcome Johnson back with a fanfare must be deluded.

Anyhow, to the question. There's still enough good TV on the free channels to keep me going, but there are big gaps appearing, and that is worrying. Owing to the various savage cuts that have been forced on the BBC, the quality of output has gone down - a fact I am forced to acknowledge. It's most clearly shown in the output of BBC4, which has now been deemed an archive channel - i.e. endless repeats. Many of these repeats just make us cry out "where are the decent heavy weight productions these days?" Where are new cultural programs, the top rate scholars and presenters? Now we have "personalities" presenting programs on subjects about which they know very little, except what is on the page in front of them - that is a whole world away from experts with a deep knowledge of their subjects.

Thanks partly to advance of the philistines in government, all these top grade programs have been short changed and cut to the barest minimum. Dumming down has been with us for at least two decades now - (some would say since the Third Program on radio became Radio 3! Now on TV Petroc Trelawny and Clive Myrie are elevated to being "experts" in music, for goodness sake. They are basically interested amateurs with no more in depth knowledge of music than I have).
It runs through coverage of both arts and sciences and is a desparate situation, for we will be reliant upon whatever Sky or the others deem will attract the mass market. Quality broadcasting is rarely about attracting numbers, and that is why a purely commercial approach will eventually starve our cultural commonwealth into being a zombie state.

Arb.

I do not savage cuts are to blame. As kiloran says, when there were only two programmes it was a lot easier for them to maintain half decent standards. It is the BBC's own fault. They have so many channels on both TV and Radio that they simply cannot maintain the quality and of course need endless repeats to fill the time available. I watch hardly any TV nowadays and much prefer reading.

Dod

[Eboli]

SalvorHardin, like Koko suggested...

I was going to post a list...

No need, Yuja Wang for 25 minutes on iPlayer suffices for the year.

Eb.

[SalvorHardin]

SalvorHardin, like Koko suggested...

I was going to post a list...

No need, Yuja Wang for 25 minutes on iPlayer suffices for the year.

Eb.

My post was deemed "off topic", by redsturgeon. Whose post insinuating that everyone who reads the Daily Telegraph is a racist has been deemed to be on topic.

One rule for thee, another rule for me..

[CliffEdge]

Tianwa Yang makes life worth living.

[Dod101]

Prime time television om BBC1. Three elderly ladies presenting something called 'Rip Off Britain'. If that is not dumbing down and contributing to the general cynicism of society, I do not know what is.

Dod

[Redmires]

Prime time television om BBC1. Three elderly ladies presenting something called 'Rip Off Britain'. If that is not dumbing down and contributing to the general cynicism of society, I do not know what is.

Dod

On the other hand, if it prevents just one person from losing their life savings to the ubiquitous scammers then it will have served it's purpose. If this programme is dumbing down then what the flip would you call 'Love Island' and it's ilk ? (No, I don't watch LI either).

[Mike4]

Prime time television om BBC1. Three elderly ladies presenting something called 'Rip Off Britain'. If that is not dumbing down and contributing to the general cynicism of society, I do not know what is.

Dod

On the other hand, if it prevents just one person from losing their life savings to the ubiquitous scammers then it will have served it's purpose. If this programme is dumbing down then what the flip would you call 'Love Island' and it's ilk ? (No, I don't watch LI either).

Is that what it's about then? I don't have a telly licence (or a telly) so don't I watch.

I had imagined it would be all about how any UK company struggling to turn a profit by selling at a sensible price must be ripping people off because the same thing can be bought on ebay from China, for half the price.

This sentiment seems to be widespread on soshull meeja nowadays, sadly.

[Arborbridge]

But there's still some good stuff going around. Tonight, for example an excellent drama about the Magdalena Laundries called The Woman in the Wall. Earlier, Alice Roberts presenting Dig for Britain.

And even earlier this evening, an episode of Climbing Great Buildings. A repeat, but of particular interest as I've just been to Durham and Lincoln Cathedrals which have both been explored in this series.

I do agree with Dod and others who expressed the view that there are too many hours of TV to fill - like Lemon Fool, one runs out of things to talk about eventually. I don't see how this is the BBCs "fault" exactly, because they have been sustaining great television for many decades with four channels. Only when successive governments took the knife to them for political reasons was it not possible to have a big enough budget to do things properly.
I don't see any problem with the BBC having four distinct channels, and with Channel 4, 5 and ITV, one probably needs little else. The +1 channels have helped me out many times when I've needed to record something which clashed, so I wouldn't rule those out - I'm only sorry BBC doesn't have such a thing too. And I'm enjoying Doc Martin at present on ITV3, which I did not see originally.

What we don't need, in my view, are those poachers like Netflix, Apple, Sky, Google and Amazon etc. With our terrestrial channels, they are quite superfluous and are helping to suck the life out of existing channels. I call them poachers because it's quite depressing when I hear of British talent - often given their first exposure and training on BBC at our expense - ends up on those inaccessible hinterlands beyond the pale. It's a shame they don't kidnap the likes of Titmarsh etc.

[Dod101]

Prime time television om BBC1. Three elderly ladies presenting something called 'Rip Off Britain'. If that is not dumbing down and contributing to the general cynicism of society, I do not know what is.

Dod

On the other hand, if it prevents just one person from losing their life savings to the ubiquitous scammers then it will have served it's purpose. If this programme is dumbing down then what the flip would you call 'Love Island' and it's ilk ? (No, I don't watch LI either).

I know, I know. But what I was trying to get at was why not try saying something positive about Britain instead of all this negative stuff. At least some of our immigrants can see the positive side of Britain and it is about time we started talking it up than talking it down all the time.

Dod

[servodude]

On the other hand, if it prevents just one person from losing their life savings to the ubiquitous scammers then it will have served it's purpose. If this programme is dumbing down then what the flip would you call 'Love Island' and it's ilk ? (No, I don't watch LI either).

I know, I know. But what I was trying to get at was why not try saying something positive about Britain instead of all this negative stuff. At least some of our immigrants can see the positive side of Britain and it is about time we started talking it up than talking it down all the time.

Dod

Why can't it just be honest, (informative, educational, or entertaining), rather than exaggerating a side? Tomorrow's World didn't have to take a position on the C5 !!

And why can't the BBC put their back catalogue on iPlayer? (Actually they might still be prevented for reasons of "market advantage")

Why don't they tell kids to "switch off their television sets and go out and do something less boring instead"? Like the TV used to?
And no not their gaming thing .... something that stops them being sedentary fat things with asthma?

[XFool]

Why don't they tell kids to "switch off their television sets and go out and do something less boring instead"? Like the TV used to?

Bring back the potter's wheel, the National Anthem at 12pm, the end tone and, most of all, the white dot!

(And Tomorrow's World)

[Arborbridge]

Why don't they tell kids to "switch off their television sets and go out and do something less boring instead"? Like the TV used to?

Bring back the potter's wheel, the National Anthem at 12pm, the end tone and, most of all, the white dot!

(And Tomorrow's World)

And Top of the Pops. My way of keeping up with pop trends effectively ended when that program died.