How about Regulation within tv?

You've stopped watching Big Brother?

I gave up after the first week as the changes needed (and long overdue) hadn't been made, yet they go and make one change to something that didn't really need changing - the eviction interview.


I see what you're saying, but far more important to widen the audience rather than keep it narrow.

But has the audience been widened over the last 20 years, ISTR it was already pretty wide in 1985, each of the four channels had a weekly reach of over 90%, BBC 1 and ITV over 95%. What was wrong with those figures ?

I'm not sure what the average daily TV viewing was for adults back in 1985 (perhaps 3-5 hours on a weekday evening?), but no doubt that wasn't all filled with high quality programming from the available 4 channels. There was plenty of tat around that was just viewed because there was little alternative if you were determined to spend the evening sat in front of the box.

I probably spend less time watching TV now that I did then, but I'm fairly sure that if I had a mind to, I could find decent programmes to fill at least 3-5 hours in an evening from the hundreds of a channels available.

I accept that some of them may be repeats on the likes of ITV3/Alibi/Yesterday/Eden etc, but the 1985 schedule wouldn't have been exclusively original broadcasts either.

The quality of programming hasn't really diminished, you just have to look a little harder to find it.

I agree with everything you say, and yes Chs 1-4 were by no means crammed with quality programmes. TV viewing in the 70s and 80s totaled 24 hours per week, so you're spot on with your estimate of daily consumption.

I certainly watch less TV than I used to, but as someone else pointed out there are still real gems to be had such as Psychoville, so perhaps all is still well after all, but why not have just, and only, four or five HD channels so it's all still easy to find

I think the 100s of new channels have a devaluing effect on TV as a whole, and personally I won't regard a channel as a proper TV channel until it's been around for at least 25 years. Until then, it's pretty much a non-channel as far as I'm concerned.

Too much social realism on TV. There must be a dozen fly-on-the-wall documentaries about the police between the five main channels, for example. Once you've seen one arrest you've pretty much seen them all, and if you want to see more then you can always take a walk down town and see it happening for yourself. Is it any wonder so many people prefer to watch a DVD these days?? They want to get away from real life when they sit down in front of the TV, not be confronted with more of it. The current government loves social realism though so regulation wouldn't help to solve this, at the moment anyway.



I don't think they'd necessarily refer to the style as boring, but they would say it wasn't accessible to, or inclusive of lesser educated people. Horizon has essentially been dumbed down so that even viewers who don't have a GCSE can understand it. Quality has been affected by this move and the programme has changed beyond recognition. Sadly I don't think it'll ever return to what it once was.

You're less than 25 years old yourself, Chie, yet you're firmly established with your style and point of view - so perhaps you're being a little harsh.

I think the multi-channel, genre environment is having a greater impact than we give it credit for.

Over the course of the weekend, I'm sometimes in the mood for Nat Geo, Discovery Science (or regular), and a fair bit of Frasier on Comedy Central.

The struggle the general entertainment channels face is that they're attempting to create a catch-all blend that will keep the average viewer with them for as many hours as possible.

Consequently there's more and more low-brow stuff flying around on the big 4 channels, and often they're following a familiar popular style.

But there's definitely lots of gems out there. As a viewer we just have to try harder to find the needle in the haystack.

I remember TV from the 70s and 80s. Its easy to remember the great stuff, but there was a good proportion of rubbish too.

Regulation of TV (beyond certain caveats of decency) is probably not a good thing. The market will thin itself out, surely?

As all TV Channels have to use their advertising revenues to subsidise any programming, surely as more channels pop up, the advertisers will be spending less dosh on individual time slots in favour of spreading their adverts over multiple channels.

I think this is one of the recurring problems ITV is having.

Regulation may be the only way to stop this thin spreading of advertising revenues, keep the number of channels down to a premium. The channels that remain, will be better funded to survive and develop.

The thinning has happened. You can't put the genie back in the bottle now.

Commercial channels are there to make a profit. If you thin the number of channels to inflate the remaining ones' income - what incentive would they have to "develop"?

Isn't it more likely that they would make lazy schedule fillers, knowing that they had a certain share of all the advertising spend by default?

How would that serve the viewer?

And to be fair, most of the channels which seem to generally be considered the biggest waste of space (shopping, quiz, casino channels etc.) don't actually run advertising, so culling them wouldn't make any difference.

I wholeheartedly endorse the North Korean model -- have a government bureaucrat decide everything that appears on our screens. Now THAT'S great TV.

out of interest, is advertising revenue completely proportionate to viewership levels or are 3, 4 and 5 being "punished" in a BT style for being incumbent broadcasters. Surely if they were able to use their millions of viewers against "discovery how windscreen wipers are made's" dozens then they should be able to get significantly more money and thus finance their stuff.

obviously itv are incompetant but c4 shouldn't have the problems they claim they have.