Divisive TV

[clockworkorange]

In an attempt to have a serious thread, I'm interested to hear thoughts about the current spate of what I think is pretty divisive TV.

In the run up to the election and aftermath of the no vote, I've noticed a big increase in the number of programmes which seem to be aired purely to stir things up. These "documentaries" seem pretty low on facts and pretty low on purpose.

I'm talking about those programmes about people struggling on benefits/thieving for a living, rich people wearing red trousers and being successful at the cost of everybody else, immigrants spending a week together in a house and arguing, those about youths that can't/won't work etc.

Just seems so many of them and wonder if anybody else feels they're at irresponsible and potentially dangerous, I.e. Stirring up social unrest?

Discuss...

[PokerTime]

The first thing to say is that these kinds of 'fly on the wall' programmes are really cheap to make - that's why production companies make them and channels buy them. They have tons of channels to fill with content at a time when less people are watching broadcast TV, so from a media industry perspective it is the slippery slope into cheap programming that no-one really wants to watch, made by people who are cheap to employ. You get what you pay for.

The quality of these programmes is another matter. They are almost like the tabloid equivalent of programming - designed to inflame, sensationalise and skew. What it's hard to say is whether that's a genine lack of intelligence within the ranks of the programme-makers, or that the opposite is true, an understanding that the only way to get ratings, is to be controversial.

The impact of these programmes on wider thinking however is indeniable. It have become very much the mantra of the media to follow conservative demonisation of the poorest and most vulnerable, including immigrants, but what shocks me is the ignorance of those that swallow it all. Who would have thought that terms like 'deserving' and 'undeserving poor' would pervade our vocabulary again?

[*Bob*]

I have to disagree with a lot of that.

First off, nobody keeps making programmes that 'no-one really wants to watch'. Unless you think that in a realm of hundreds of channels, box sets, Netflix, blu-rays by post, PVRS, movies-on-demand.. a particular show manages to get a couple of million regular viewer.. simply by accident.

Secondly, most television, particularly budget television - follows rather than leads. It rarely ever sets an agenda, it merely exploits an existing one - amplified for effect, granted, but you can't 'amplify nothing'.

It's a mirror. If you concentrate on the reflection and pretend the original source is absent, you're kidding yourself.

See 'rise of UKIP'.

[david_carnell]

Sorry *Bob* - I don't buy that. That absolves TV producers from any responsibility of their content.

"We're just giving the people what they want..." is not an excuse to turn out programme after programme that exploits those unable to defend themselves.

See 'Jeremy Kyle'.

Newspapers try and use the same schtick and it's bollocks there too. The media sets the agenda just as much as it jumps on existing bandwagons.

[miga]

.

[Jeremy]

Actually I think the ones that focus on immigration (when I've seen them on rare occasions!) usually remind me just how desperate a lot of these people are, and how fortunate I am. Rather than propogating the "immigrants living it up on benefits" stereotype.

[*Bob*]

david_carnell Wrote:

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> See 'Jeremy Kyle'.

This format is often misunderstood by metropolitan elite such as yourself, DC.

Viewers of Jeremy Kyle / Participants on Jeremy Kyle = very often the same people.

It's not made for you.

[david_carnell]

While I'm grateful to be lumped in with chianti swilling Islington-dwellers, *Bob*, you are right that JK is not made for me.

But it is made by me. I mean, people like me. Except that they're c*nts. It's not made by the feckless, the poor and the idiotic. They might be forced to appear and tormented by Kyle's ringmaster in this circus of every-day freaks but they sure as heck don't make it.

It is made by meedja types though. Those chianti swillers. And they set an agenda. It seeps into every day life. Newspapers join in. Again, edited and written not by some underclass looking at itself but by the chatterati. And the cycle is complete.

That's not a mirror. That's the tv equivalent of making a monkey smoke a cigarette for loose change.

[Lowlander]

As a media outsider, I see these programmes as I do The Sun/NOTW

Without the editors, journalists, cameramen, production etc. these programmes wouldn't exist.

So whilst the people starring are reflected in the audience and vice-versa, the people involved in making them are complicit. Therein the key point - if no-one made Benefits Street etc. then no-one would be talking about it.

And I see the tabloids and TV producers as being complicit too - both egg each other on (see Sky/The Times/The Sun, The Express/Channel 5.

B***rs, the lot of them.

[steveo]

I heard that a lot of people apply to be on these programmes because they want the chance to come to that London and stay in a hotel.

Travelodge

[????]

Hogarth and his stereotyping voyeuristic prints - the Chianti swilling west London tosser

[PeckhamRose]

I agree with PTime, they're cheap to make, irresponsible and divisive. And yes they are broadcast version of The Sun and Mirror. And if the programme makers who doubtless went to film school and production courses with high ideals of making great telly had more choice, they probably wouldn't be making them either.

[*Bob*]

So we should get rid of The Sun, The Mirror and cheap tv. Also inexpensive alcohol. Cigarettes. Fast food. Easyjet. Possibly shagging.

We can feed them instead on a strict diet of Nordic Noir, Newsnight and home baked granary bread.

It's for their own good. We know better. They are only The Dumb Proletariat.

[????]

*like*

We know best for the likes of them

[Otta]

This is not something that has happened or even increased since the No Vote.

[TE44]

Otta Wrote:

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> This is not something that has happened or even

> increased since the No Vote.

What do you mean by that??

[Blah Blah]

*Bob* Wrote:

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>

> It's for their own good. We know better. They are

> only The Dumb Proletariat.

That's a bit unfair. I think people would be better off without the Sun and Jeremy Kyle, as both things add absolutely nothing to the quality of life. To argue that we should permit everything, because it's snobbery to quality control, isn't a good argument in my opinion.

Look at the shameful behaviour of the News of the World for example. Lives and reputations were wilfully destroyed by some journalists at that paper. It's more than ok to criticise the people behind these things, because the media has a huge power to shape opinion, to both make and break people. It's right that we ask programme makers to act responsibly.

[david_carnell]

????/Bob - were people not adequately catered for prior to these programmes? Did anyone sit around in their pants and bemoan the lack of daytime tv shows that mock and decry the poor and disposessed?

No, didn't think so.

Your logic is false too if it is simpl "if people will watch it then we must put it on". There should be harm tests for public broadcasters. They have responsibilities that come with the right to show programmes.

[Otta]

TE44 Wrote:

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> Otta Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > This is not something that has happened or even

> > increased since the No Vote.

>

>

> What do you mean by that??

The OP SAID "In the run up to the election and aftermath of the no vote, I've noticed a big increase in the number of programmes which seem to be aired purely to stir things up. These "documentaries" seem pretty low on facts and pretty low on purpose."

i don't think there has been a big increase, I think this sort of stuff has been around for years. I just don't see the link to the No Vote at all.

[maxxi]

It's a trend innit.

A tv genius/arse comes up with an idea and - unlike 100s of others similarly floated - it takes off and gets big viewing figures. Then lots of other geniuses have the idea to copy this idea and we get a glut of the same stuff until we tire of it and it dies a death.

Though I'd say the 'How That Lot Live' peep-show has been a staple for years. It's whether the viewer is invited to sympathise with or condemn the subjects that has changed. Maybe the latter pov just sells more soap powder right now.

Used to be docusoaps on cruise ships, airlines and tube-workers. Ah, what an innocent age it was.

[PokerTime]

Just to come back to your reply to me bob;

The average budget for a tv show is a fraction of what it was twenty years ago. More channels mean diluted audience share so advertising revenue has plumetted too. Tabloid programming has emerged the leader in this, because the cost of making it compared to the revenue it can raise, is profitable.

High end drama on the other hand has declined. It's expensive to make and it can no longer attract enough viewers to get the advertising revenue to pay for it. Even the BBC looks to make drama it can export for rights revenue, rather than making the ground breaking stuff it used to. Soap drama on the other hand is again comparatively cheap to make, and popular enough.

It's a business at the end of the day.

Having said that, it costs nothing to edit a documentary or current affairs programme in a balanced and informative way. But as I said, controversy sells, and in that respect, the programme makers ARE exploiting those it features, to their own ends.

Edited to add that yes, formula programming has always existed.

[*Bob*]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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I think people would be

> better off without the Sun and Jeremy Kyle, as

> both things add absolutely nothing to the quality

> of life.

Surely you mean both these things add nothing to quality of 'your' life, which isn't quite the same thing. Some people - quite a lot of people - enjoy them, no matter how much you wag your finger and tell them they shouldn't.

DC..

david_carnell Wrote:

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> Your logic is false too if it is simply "if people

> will watch it then we must put it on".

But it is really that simple. There's no 'logic' to declare false or otherwise. The reality of a commercial station is 'make something enough people want to watch within a given budget. Find an audience and retain it'.

[Otta]

I agree with *bob*. They have various organisations apparently watching out for breaches of certain rules. So long as they're within those rules, they're simply going to put out whatever makes the most money.

[*Bob*]

PokerTime Wrote:

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> High end drama on the other hand has declined.

> It's expensive to make and it can no longer

> attract enough viewers to get the advertising

> revenue to pay for it. Even the BBC looks to make

> drama it can export for rights revenue, rather

> than making the ground breaking stuff it used to.

> Soap drama on the other hand is again

> comparatively cheap to make, and popular enough.

Where have you been hiding? There has never been a greater appetite for (or turnover in production of) high end drama than there is right now. Streaming websites and disc rental joints are awash with more quality drama than any human being can consume. Globally speaking, admittedly; but what's surprising about that? - everything else is global too.

[????]

Play for Today was largely sh1te, though still triumphed as a masterpeice in drama far too often...it did encourage some young writers who went onto far better stuff is the charitable line