- Having not bothered to watch television for nearly five
years, John Humphrys was "quite shocked" when he emerged from
his "Rip van Winkle state" and switched it on again, he said
yesterday.
-
- "So much of it seemed not just vulgar and obsessed
with sex but altogether more confrontational than I had remembered."
-
- Delivering the annual MacTaggart lecture to an audience
of broadcasting chiefs at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Radio 4's
Today programme presenter expressed a robust view that must have left many
shifting uneasily in their seats.
-
- He believed that the best television was, if anything,
better than ever. Humphrys mentioned the dramas The Lost Prince and Second
Coming, comedy such as The Office and My Family, arts shows on Leonardo
and Goya, and history from Simon Schama and David Starkey.
-
- However, "a vast amount of the rest is simply mediocre",
he said: "populist pap" such as lifestyle programmes.
-
- Humphrys said he had encountered "real concern"
even within the industry about the effects of what he called the "mind-numbing,
witless vulgarity" of so-called reality television.
-
- "This is not just bad television in the sense that
it is mediocre, pointless, puerile even," he said. "It is bad
because it is damaging. It erodes the distinction between the public and
the private, which is a profoundly important aspect of our culture.
-
- "Much more worrying is its coarsening effect. That
is partly because of the sheer vulgarity. But it is even more that it turns
human beings into freaks for us to gawp at."
-
- Referring to the censorship debate in the 1960s between
Mary Whitehouse and the liberal intelligentsia, he said: "There is
no longer a battle between two groups of people with different views about
what is good for society. It is a battle between people who are concerned
about society and those whose overwhelming interest is simply to make programmes
that make money.
-
- "Those who fought for the word f*** in Lady Chatterley
did not do it to make money; there was no money to be made. There is now;
you can hear the cash registers go ker-ching every time there is a fumble
beneath the sheets."
-
- Humphrys cited a survey by the media regulator Ofcom.
It found that only 11 per cent of people believed that television's main
role should be to provide entertainment, while 76 per cent thought it should
help to build a better society.
-
- While preparing his speech, Humphrys said he asked broadcasters
to send tapes of what they regarded as their best programmes. They included
Your Face or Mine; The Pilot Show; Banzai; Breasts Uncupped; Nip/Tuck.
-
- "If they really think that sort of rubbish is the
best, God knows what they think is the worst," Humphrys said.
-
- He also deplored "the violence of the language"
in many programmes. It seemed almost impossible to switch on without encountering
some sort of aggression, even in the soaps.
-
- Humphrys, whose programme was at the centre of the battle
with Downing Street over the weapons inspector David Kelly, rejected claims
that media scepticism about politicians was to blame for falling public
interest in politics.
-
- He said the BBC should be doing more, not less, investigative
journalism.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?x
ml=/news/2004/08/28/nhump128.xml
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