Quote: A Horseradish @ 17th May 2015, 11:20 PM BST
So that's the critique done then. What are your specific proposals? Television and radio. Let's start with a bit of context. The new Culture Secretary is the sort of toff who sounds like he would be for Bach and Handel but enjoys Deep Purple and Franz Ferdinand. Genuinely. For all of my appreciation of pop and rock music I see that as a disturbingly faulty starting position.
So, I'm now supposed to propose the entire programme for a multi-channel broadcaster with tens of thousands of staff? Here and now?
Is that reasonable?
That's the equivalent of my denying your right to criticise the Tories on the basis that you haven't published a fully costed manifesto of your own. (and no, please don't.)
In general I would suggest that they must review their programme formats. I'm not one who's against format TV in general. (Many culture snobs don't realise that all television is format TV.)
But - the formats must change once in a while. Most of their formats are at least a decade old.
Their comedy panel shows are a perfect example. But they are hardly the only such example.
Furthermore, there is a desperate need for greater variety.
I don't mind a programme on antiques. But Antiques Roadshow, Flog it, Bargain Hunt, etc, etc? Meanwhile, several celebrity and other versions of the very same?
The problem is self-evident.
For all their claims of innovation, there just isn't any. One has got rather lazy. Too much money and too little accountability.
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Well, I don't mind people sounding like toffs. I simply mind a bunch of people who've all been to the same school at the same time running the whole country.
But I can't really see why liking Deep Purple and being posh means one's head is in the wrong place.
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Meanwhile, just to clarify my animal rights position.
As I have pointed out in another thread, I grew up in Zurich.
The local dish attributed to Zurich is rosti with chopped veal on a white sauce.
Oh, and their local Bratwurst also has veal in it. Yum, yum.