TELEVISION is like a supernova – an old star that’s exploding catastrophically as it dies.
TV magnates think their industry is in a golden age of ever more channels and ever more choice.
The reality is that people are switching off, and turning instead to leisure activities that require more than sitting on one’s bum and staring at a screen.
Only a few decades ago, TV programmes enthralled us. We used to talk about them avidly in our offices, factories, playgrounds, and JobCentre queues.
Now TV just makes us feel jaded, that we’ve seen it all before.
We know that ‘more choice’ of viewing actually means more rubbish is pumped at us every day.
Take the new series of I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! (ITV1).
It’s supposed to be about showbiz celebrities dumped in a jungle encampment and left to survive by doing silly stunts to gain food rations.
Except the chumps on the show aren’t really celebrities and they aren’t really in a jungle.
They are, at best, micro-celebrities, resting in the perfectly safe environment of a subtropical rainforest. There are no wild beasties around who could devour them. More’s the pity.
The latest series is so very predictable. The Z-listers eat creepy crawlies and get covered in gunge. Er, that’s it…
The programme has about as much sophistication as 1980s Saturday morning kids’ TV – and yet it is supposed to be for adults. Are we Brits really that thick? (OK, you’ve got a point…)
One of the ‘celebs’ – who I’ve never heard of – is John Burton Race, a chef, apparently.
Another is Lynne Franks, who isn’t a celeb at all. She’s merely a public relations professional.
Well, I’m in PR too, in my day job, and I’ve certainly more to say for myself than Lynne Franks.
So why didn’t the producers ask me to come on the show?
I’d have told ‘em to bog off – but it’s nice to be asked.
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New Brighton Newbie wrote...
Yeah that's one problem with reality tv, it's completely fake! Between Alan Sugar's pantomime villain "you're fired" act for a job they've already given, and the room in big brother where they go to discuss their issues - soaps are closer to real life than any of the so-called reality tv shows.
The other problem - they're crap!
REGAN REPLIED: Well I think we've sorted that issue, Newbie, between us. Modern tely is a crapfest.
Posted by: New Brighton Newbie | November 15, 2007 6:39 PM