wellpip

I can remember the days when the BBC and ITV would always be telling us just how good our TV is/was compared to other countries.

On the whole would you say British television is better or worse today and why?

I personally have mixed feelings. Far to much in the way of Z-list celebrity based rubbish and cookery programs for me.

Modular

Modern television just doesn't work for me, and hasn't done so for some years now.

In truth, I haven't watched television since the Nineties, choosing to replace it with pre-recorded material instead.

I guess I just grew bored with repeatedly trawling through 'drivel and shite' trying to find the odd golden nugget. These days, I much prefer to watch what I know I'll enjoy, or take a punt on a title from the Sixties or Seventies.

In reality, I doubt television is generally any worse than it ever was. Perhaps it's just my own tastes that have failed to move with the times...

samkydd

It was far easier to guage years ago, say in the 1970s. With the exception of Euston Films/ITC bought-in programmes, anything on ITV was mostly dreadful, especially sitcoms, whilst anything on the BBC was generally well done.

Unfortunately third party programme makers sell to both, and rather than offer a high standard everything is done to a price and it shows. Appealing to the lowest common denominator seems to be the remit of all channels and off-loading their in-house production expertise was a recipe for disaster.

If your own production costs are high but the programmes are good, what is the advantage in getting someone else to make it cheaper? You still pay out a small fortune for something that viewers thinks is rubbish!

20 years ago we were ridiculing the Japanese endurance type reality shows, clips of which used to be shown on Clive James and Chris Tarrant's programmes, but now we've sunk to their level and it's very sad indeed.

The simple solution of course is DVDs and just watch programmes that were good 20 or 30 years ago!

This Christmas I watched one TV programme, and they should have renamed it To The Manor Bored, it was just dreadful!"

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Dave Rattigan

The big difference I notice when I see an old show, especially talk shows, quizzes and interviews, is how little real "conversation" there is now. Everything's fast and snappy, made to fit the lowest common denominator, and there's an assumption (probably true) that most people won't have the patience for anything too in-depth.

GRAEME

The majority of programming has always been mediocre. The problem with nostalgia - and I do it as much as anybody - is that it involves cherry-picking the greats of the past and ignoring the dreck.

What I really think is wrong these days is the lack of balance in the TV diet. Planners know their audience can switch off, over, slamm in a DVD at any time. So they try and give us what we "want" over and over again.

In the old days there was a menu of diverse elements: news, a soap, a sitcom, a documentary, a drama, a film. Modern audiences won't sit still for the documentary so they have to make it like a soap or get rid of it all together. Drama is challenging so turn that into soap too. The soap is too literate and dramamtic? Dumb it down.

Everything converges.

Harleybloke

Worse!

Too many soaps.
Too much 'Reality' tv., makeover shows, dire comedy, rolling news channels that fill an hour with 20 mins worth of news...............

Worser for sure!

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!

Jackdaw

The documentary as we knew it is almost dead now.
You want a programme on dolphins? OK, we'll send Tamsin Outhwaite out to swim with them.
You want a programme on Lucille Ball? OK, we'll show a few clips and get some twenty-something female zelebs to talk about their admiration for her.
A series that epitomises this dumbing-down is COAST.
A fortune is spent on high-class photography of said coast, beautiful shots taken from the air in excellent weather.
In earlier days, this footage would have been accompanied by an erudite commentary written by an academic, spoken out of shot by an accomplished voice-over artiste.
We now get wall-to-wall Neil Oliver, walking in and out of shot and spouting personalised inanities and irrelevancies, Fat-Boy Horton Buntering around with his faux reconstructions, and the language-mangling Alice Roberts peering into rockpools and building sandcastles.
What a shambolic, amorphous mess!
Sad thing is, they've probably used up most of the "science" budget with this crap, and worse still, are regarded as having made the definitive documentary on the British coastline. No need to make any other landforms series - Oliver has nailed it!
How infuriating!

PS. How about that appalling vanity project by David Dimbleby?
Self-regarding, vacuous, shallow crap.

cletus awreetus

There seem to be plenty of repeats, yet they never seem to repeat something classic from the 60's or 70's.
Or is today's attention span that determines what is shown?

smudge

Problem is now that there is too much choice and broadcasters are now fighting for figures which. in the old days, would have been pitiful.

Only yesterday I unearthed an old VHS from 1991 and had to comment that back then even satellite was of a 'better' standard as it was itself limited to the number of channels. The digital technology age has done the viewer few favours thus far.

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Wee Sonny MacGregor

I recently looked through some back copies of the TV Times from the 1980s and was struck how better balanced ITV's programme line ups were back then. A lot more classy drama and much less pandering for cheap ratings. Sure, there were plenty of quiz shows but far less soap. ITV executives now don't seem to have realised that spreading a show like Coronation St by screening it several times a week is not imaginative programming. The Christmas Day programme drew 9m viewers - which to use Smudge's term is a pitiful figure. At least we don't pay for ITV.

samkydd

Years ago we used to watch gritty dramas, but now they're just shitty dramas, penned by the likes of Lynda La Plante and formulated like a recipe, starring ex-soapsters who can only just about play themselves as characters, and very dull they are too!

The alternative is to watch Freeview repeats, but they seem to have run out of all the good stuff ; Randall and Hopkirk, Minder, The Sweeney etc are worthwhile programmes but I almost know the scripts by heart after so many showings. That leaves us with DI in the Pie, Parrot, Midsomer Mediocrity and all the American CSI Miami etc which are a novelty the first time you see them and tedious the second time.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

smudge

I think it is the universal problem now that television, like every other business, is run by accountants and the bottom line is what concerns people all the time. With advertising revenues diminishing with the fragmentation of the market ITV simply reacts by feeding people what it knows is successful.

Sadly in this modern and unthinking age of 'lowest common denominator' television it seems that familiarity rarely breeds contempt and audiences are only too happy to be fed more and more of the same slop; how else could one explain the continuing popularity of shows such as BIG BROTHER ? You can bet that the people who 'create' these shows never watch television themselves - they will have far more stimulating pursuits.

So what about the (apparent) minority of us who crave similar stimulation, but through the televisual medium ? Can we turn to the BBC ? Yes, if we want hordes of similar auction/property development/celebrity 'special' shows. The BBC is a public broadcaster but - like ITV - it is happy to chase the moronic majority with this continued outpouring of pap, tat and soap operas.

I recently purchased some old ARMCHAIR THEATRES from an EBay seller and we watched some of these over Christmas. I must a say that it was an absolute delight to sit and be entertained by something with a high quality, literate, script and electrifying performances by some of the most outstanding talents of the time.

I fear that we shall never see their like again - the days of the artistic producer or showman TV entrepreneur are long since gone...

British Television is dying - all it needs now is a Celebrity TV vet who will do the decent thing and put it out of its misery.

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

BillTurner80

All good points and all well made. My own view is that the TV companies are too busy frantically falling over each other to try to keep whatever few viewers they have with endless trails, voiceovers etc of what's coming next, to concentrate on providing a balanced evening's viewing. Already we are plagued with 'dogs' telling us which channel we're watching and in some cases another 'dog' telling us what's coming up later. I thought that's what TV listings were for. and oh, to see a programme again and not have the final credits squashed and interrupted . . .
I could go on . . .

samkydd

The sad thing is that the people who appear on TV get more money than it costs to make the programmes they're in!

Advertisers will call it a day soon because they've only just realised that the number of channels available decreases the number of viewers/potential punters dramatically, and unless they pay to repeat their expensive TV ad campaigns on all channels covering the type of person they're trying to appeal to, then they may as well use the Net, newspapers or magazines. Simple arithmetic.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Harbottle

The standard now is pretty abysmal I think, what makes me very annoyed is the way the BBC has degenerated. Standards have plummeted to extraordinary depths, as a public funded organisation they have no need to aim so low with their output supposedly trying to grab audience figures. They are not having to fight for advertising revenue so why the need to "compete" with ITV and C4 trash TV?

Thank heavens for DVD anyway