Is Ed Stourton feeling the pinch after yesterday’s budget? From an “in the next hour” preview on this morning’s Today programme…
Nah, I’d hold the pillow down a bit longer, if I were you.
Although I dislike Jeremy Clarkson and the whole BLOKES TALKING ABOUT BLOKEY THINGS AND CALLING A SPADE A SPADE IN A LOUD SMUG VOICE subculture he seems to have inspired, this makes me feel uneasy…
Police probe Clarkson phone photo (BBC)
Yep, if he was talking on his mobile while driving at 70mph, that’s bad. It’s more than bad, it’s illegal. But do we really want a system of law enforcement based around crafty phonecam snaps sent to tabloid newspapers?
I see people using (non-handsfree) mobile phones while driving, sometimes while making involved manoeuvres, on an almost daily basis. And it annoys me, much like any other example of people thinking they’re above the law. But if I take photos of these people and send them to a tabloid newspaper, or even the local police station, what’s going to happen? Probably nothing, and that’s a shame. However, perhaps someone should make the usual channels work properly before we start franchising our entire legal system to the Daily Mirror newsdesk.
Last week ended triumphantly for “Dr” Gillian McKeith “PhD”, but worryingly for those of us with the capacity for rational thought. The latest PLR statistics for public library borrowing in the UK show the Poo Lady’s books in first and third position in the non-fiction chart.
But what a difference a weekend makes!
Ben Goldacre’s hard work, both in the Guardian and on his own Bad Science blog, has finally paid off. After a tip-off by one of Dr Goldacre’s regular readers, the Advertising Standards Authority has now ruled that McKeith’s use of the title “Dr” is “likely to mislead”, breaching two clauses of the Committee of Advertising Practice code: “substantiation” and “truthfulness”.
Of course, she’s still perfectly entitled to claim that a single seed contains enough energy to create a full-size plant, or that chlorophyll can create beneficial oxygen in the gut, and no doubt plenty of people will still buy her books, watch her TV shows and believe every dangerous word she says. But it’s a step in the right direction…
Matthew Sweet mourns the decline of challenging film presentations on terrestrial TV in yesterday’s Guardian…
Where did all the great movies go?
I don’t think it’s *quite* as bad as he suggests… there’s a trickle of decent films on BBC4, ITV3 and 4, More4 and five, just as long as you have access to Freeview. Even so, it’d be easy to come to the conclusion that an increase in the number of channels leads to a reduction in choice. Sweet mentions the retrospective seasons they used to run just after a director or actor had died… this is part of the rather patronising, paternalistic approach to TV that seems to be all but gone, and I MISS IT, DAMMIT!
In a recent discussion on Comment is Free, someone called me an elitist snob for suggesting that the disadvantage of commercial TV is that everything is dictated by the will of the masses (via the advertisers). He was wrong, though… I was including myself in “the masses”. I want experts and boffins to take me by the hand and guide me through stuff I don’t know. In this case, I want a real Film Expert to show me films I’ve never seen before and explain why they’re important.
In reality, I’m more likely to be given a list of Top Movie Moments by a collection of one-hit wonders, footballers’ girlfriends and graveyard shift cable presenters. These people have killed all the experts and boffins and taken charge. Where did they come from? Who employed them? Are they members of a secret society, headed by their great role model, That Welsh Woman Who Couldn’t Learn To Drive?
Please send them away. I want the boffins back. I want to be patronised and paternalised.
Y’know, I spend a lot of time backing the BBC. I’m happy to pay the license fee and I’m comfortable with the concept of a patriarchal state media corporation that dares to tell us what it thinks we ought to watch, rather than letting the “Great British Public” drag programming content down to the lowest common denominator. I’ll gladly defend it against the likes of Paul Dacre, who seems to think we’d be better off with a fully commercial US-style range of TV channels, where the primary motives are maximising viewing figures and keeping the advertisers happy.
There’s plenty on the various BBC channels that I hate. No problem… I don’t expect my every whim to be catered for. What’s sad, though, is when part of the BBC’s output goes so dramatically downhill, dumbing down faster than you can say “well… duh”. I’m talking about the news bulletins. With laptop on lap, I sat and watched tonight’s 10pm news programme, typing this accurate (-ish) transcription…
A man who was paid a lot of money to drive a car very fast while being filmed for a TV programme, but unfortunately crashed, is now in good health and presenting that TV programme again. This man is a national hero and his programme is on this channel, so it’s bound to be worth watching. It features no racism or CCTV footage of people arguing.
By the way, 250 people were killed in Iraq today. That’s miles away, though, so it’ll be safe to put the cat out tonight.
There were several football matches today, and normally we’d just give you a quick run-down. However, for some unknown reason there’s no Match of the Day tonight, even though these were important FA Cup matches featuring big teams, so we’ll have to show you some more detail. Unfortunately, we had to burble so much about celebrities at the start of this programme, we’ve only time to show you one or two random goals from each match. Oops, soz about that.
Now the weather. Tomorrow will be quite a usable day.
Yeah, I know I’m cynical and the Big Brother thing has (whether I like it or not) been a big media event, but really! And yes, the weatherman really *did* describe tomorrow as being “usable”. I may get out of bed after all.
Now that’s what I call good news!
In this household’s occasional ruminations upon whether we could justify paying for a subscription-based cable or satellite TV service, FilmFour represented the main motivation for doing so (along with the Italian football, since its departure from Channel Four). However, the obstacle was always my fundamental opposition to subscription TV… I refuse to pay upwards of £15 per month in order to buy the right to *then* pay additionally for channels I want to watch. If the whole thing was truly “pay per view”, based on single payments for major sporting events (or even single films) or subscriptions for individual channels, I’d be all too willing to sign up, but I’m not paying for a load of “free” channels I’m never going to watch.
(Obviously, I’m already paying a subscription of sorts via the BBC licence fee, but I’m talking specifically about commercial channels here.)
But lo… a golden ray of hope amid the dumbed-down cheapness and corporate sponsorship. The free-to-air relaunch of FilmFour coincides perfectly with the sad end of the weekly “Director’s Chair” feature at my local cinema, a rare alternative to the usual “free overhyped blockbuster with every kilo of junk food purchased”. Watching films on the small screen is never ideal, but it’s better than nowt, and there’s still the good old NFT for the proper cinema experience, as well as the really unusual stuff that they’ll never show on FilmFour.
The cynic in me would probably wonder if all this is just a PR stunt, building viewer loyalty in preparation for some as-yet-unnannounced revolution in subscription TV. For the moment, though, I’m making the most of it and keeping my cynicism at bay!
Bob Geldof’s favourite heart-tugging BBC correspondent Michael Buerk reckons the balance of power in broadcasting has shifted too far. According to the former newsreader, “almost all the big jobs in broadcasting are held by women”. Really?
BBC Director General - Mark Thompson
BBC Chairman - Michael Grade
ITV Chairman - Sir Peter Burt
ITV Chief Executive - Charles Allen
Channel 4 Chief Executive - Andy Duncan
Sky TV Chief Executive - James Murdoch
BBC1 Controller - Peter Fincham
BBC2 Controller - Roly Keating
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport - Tessa Jowell (YESSSS!)
Broadcasting Minister - Lord McIntosh
Ofcom Chairman - Lord Currie
And so on…
Even if Buerk’s statement (part of a new Channel Five programme) was made before the departure of former BBC1 Controller Lorraine Heggessey, he’s still way off the mark, and the choice of Tim Henman and David Beckham as examples of how “men are becoming more like women” is just bizarre. A doctor’s son from Oxford with an ability to keep a stiff upper lip in even the most emotionally fraught situations and a “working class lad made good” from Essex with a taste for lavishly expensive kitsch… see if you can find a common thread of acquired femininity there!
As far as I can see, our (frequently TV-driven) popular culture is currently going through a phase of being even more gender-divided than before. Next time you watch a sports programme on a commercial channel, make note of the advertising during the breaks… men driving cars, men drinking beer, men not wanting to go shopping, men eating pizza, men being protective towards women. Then do the same during the breaks in a soap opera… women cooking, women showering, women having fun and laughs (rather than telling bawdy jokes) in bars, women raising children. THERE IS NO CROSS-OVER! YOU HAVE YOUR ALLOTTED ROLE! STICK TO IT!
If men are becoming more like women because of how our TV is controlled from above, there is absolutely *no* evidence of this, as far as I can see, in the output of those TV channels. If anything, we’re seeing more and more instances of infantilism among both genders. Earn money, buy toys, have fun, buy more toys… if it all goes wrong and you can’t pay off your debts, find someone in the government to blame.
But anyway, on the subject of consumer goods, Michael Buerk goes on to add…
“Some people might argue that this is a case of the pendulum swinging over the woman’s side for a change, and eventually it will find a happy medium.”
Well, there are certainly far too many reality and self/home-improvement shows on TV, which may or may not be aimed primarily at women. But “products” or “cars”? Is he clumsily referring to the recent explosion in of consumer technology products, such as Apple’s iPod/iMac range, where form is allowed to coexist with function? Or the fact that there just aren’t so many gas-guzzling dependable old saloons on the roads any more? Is visual appearance solely a concern for women? Or is this something a lot deeper and personal; something Michael needs to work out by himself? Have a look at this comment…
Oh dear. Too much information, Michael. Don’t you think you should be sorting this out with Mrs Buerk?
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