What would you want to see more of on TV

Charlie Brooker asked it to a small group of teenagers last night. So I want to ask it now to a wider scope in general. What would YOU like to more (and less of) on Television?

I'd like to see a return to the family orientated saturday night..... programmes like Big Break, Noels House Party, Generation Game etc, things that could be adapted for todays audience. Less reality programmes but keep the most popular i.e. Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor....none of the 'Z LIST CELEBS GO SKYDIVING' or that sort of thing.

scale back the soaps to 3 nights a week tops, and pump more money into original dramas, comedies, documentarys and sport.

People will leap at me when I first say it but I'll elaborate afterwards.

Less: Soaps, Reality TV shows
More: Repeats

Not the kind of repeats we get now not those kind of repeats, but I want more repeats of other stuff that doesn't ever get repeated. An example is recently The Vault were repeating old 1990's episodes of The Chart Show and the second I spotted them lapped them up and tuned in every single week until they axed them That is the kind of thing I would like to see more of, 'that kind' of repeat, would love to see old 80's & 90's episodes of Top Of The Pops as well not highlights edited together with Steve Wright links but proper repeats of full episodes shown as originally transmitted. Same goes for Noel's House Party and Going Live. Why not just show repeats of them again (and just blur out any interactive element such as phone ins etc). I have recently spotted Men & Motors repeating Hale & Pace on Monday's at 10pm. Have enjoyed watching those too.

Got another idea you could a 'pitch' that I could in fantasy give to a tv network. It's repeats again but a certain kind of repeat bungled together and packaged in a certain way but i'll save that for a later post.

Totp2 cover most of that!

Less: Soap operas, reality series, didactic news bulletins, trailers (especially over-produced, costly ones usually on the BBC)/in-programme promotions/ECPs/announcements over the end theme tune, overnight phone-in quizzes, "double bills", programmes that treat the past as "ironic" or "funny"... and a lot more I can't think of at the moment

More: Regional/outside of London production, substantial news, innovative drama and comedy

Agreed with that, absolutely.

I'd like to see less property shows - And I'd also like to see what a season on Five without any US programmes would turn out like!

I wouldn't mind BBC2 (or perhaps Channel 4) being a bit more niche outside of primetime. I'd definitely like to see them air more short films and animations, no matter how abstract, and generally be more willing to take on challenging programmes without the ongoing quest for ratings having to matter.

Peak time Gameshows!

I was very interested to see Screenwipe last night - it was very enlightening to see that most of them would probably have continued watching a documentary to the end if Charlie hadn't stopped it half way through.

I consider the viewing habits and needs of teenagers to be the same as those of fully grown adults - because in essence, teenagers are fully-grown adults who just haven't finished their compulsory education yet. They demand well-written drama ( Skins was an example demonstrated on Screenwipe ), intelligent, challenging documentaries and, overall, they just want good telly like the rest of us. They don't like being patronised.

edit :


I can quite imagine cult gameshows ( Blockbusters , etc) being quite popular, especially with a teenage audience, if they were revived.

I was thinking more of Strike it Rich, but Blockbuster will do!

And what is a didactic news bulletin?


Anyhow, guess we need to club together and build a time machine to take you lot back to the early nineties.


I think we're often quite narrowminded in discussions like this, tarnishing all the dross with the same brush and looking back on what we liked as kids with rose-tinted spectacles.


So I'm going to say I don't know what I want - because I want to see something new. More innovation and choice (i.e. a balanced schedule) and less finding a hit and duplicating it to death.


As for repeats - I don't want old stuff served up yet again, but companies need to be making better use of their current programmes - not exploiting them to death, but making sure that they do enable people to catch something they've missed.

It's done well with certain shows such as Skins, Heroes and Doctor Who (though arguably too well in some cases), but other shows get the one airing and are then consigned to On-Demand or UKTV Gold.

More old doctor who on uktv gold.It seems like they never show it.Any time it
SHOULD be on,it's not.

I'd like TV to be a lot less lazier than it is now. I really really really hate "user-generated content" or whatever they call it - it's something that noone is particularly interested in, yet news programmes in particular think it's some craze that instantly makes them look fresh and trendy.

I certainly don't have a problem with the likes of The X Factor, although I hate it when BBC1 try to do shows like this as they tend to be crap.

To be honest, though, I doubt TV would ever be able to get it right, in the viewing public's eyes. It's all very well people saying "more intelligent shows", but there are intelligent shows out there already, and they seldom get the viewing figures they deserve.