Friday 12 March 2021
Bouncy Beeb
The other day I was sitting in a hospital outpatients waiting room for my annual scan. The hospital was very quiet with lots of spaces in the car park. Only one other person before me in outpatients and the whole job was done in less than a third of the usual time. Obviously not over-worked but I’m not complaining.
During my brief sojourn in the waiting room I watched part of a BBC programme about waste and the wonderful things being done to recycle it. The programme was presented by a bouncy young woman whizzing around asking people what they were doing and telling us how amazing it all was.
Routine stuff but as I no longer watch BBC I found myself wondering why they bothered with a presenter. In spite of the bouncy approach she was clearly not particularly knowledgeable about the subject. She also came across as intrusive with that impossible to erase hint of condescension.
A narrator could have worked better, but the BBC still seems to have a fixation on making presenters into celebrities. The overall effect is to dumb down almost any subject. It reminded me of tabloid journalism. Keep down the word count, avoid technicalities, keep it bright and breezy.
In my mind I compared the two possibilities. One tabloid style programme with bouncy presenter and one with a professional in the field. I watch lots of YouTube videos which vary enormously in quality and professionalism and that BBC programme did not come across as premier league material. Not when compared with the best online videos. Instead it came across as rather dated and rather amateurish.
Dated because the fixation on celebrity presenters is dated. Amateurish because it hasn’t moved on and is decidedly inferior to the best that YouTube offers. The BBC has been doing things this way for decades, but even the bounciest presenter cannot compete with an articulate professional or even with an enthusiastic and articulate amateur. The contrast has become too obvious.
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7 comments:
History programmes have become 'look at me', too.
I remember the horrific experience of a BBC programme about Anne Boleyn where the presenter, hitherto bouncy and patronising, suddenly donned Tudor garb and bright red lipstick and joined in a re-enactment of a group of people walking round a Tudor Palace. I was watching this at about 10pm so I had thought it would be aimed at adults rather than 5 year olds. The Time Ghost team on You Tube do so much better with a bloke sitting behind a desk reading a script
It often seems to have a slightly desperate tone to it. Terrified of getting it wrong and offending people, wanting to keep to an approved "house style" which varies according to the type of programme. They might think that they are cutting edge and appealing, but it looks to me as if the dead hand of bureaucracy weighs heavily on whatever they do. With You Tube clips, what we are reminded of is quirkiness and real rather than faked enthusiasm.
The BBC have become a hollow box-ticking automaton, with most 'presenters' having to prove their 'value' after the myriad of training days (all at the tax-payer's expense), and talks from other automatons.
I don't give a light for their opinions these days, and seeing the result of a recent poll, 84% of the polled (?) agreed the whole lot should be defunded as well!
Anyway, I'm glad the day went well for you, even though they told you your blood pressure was probably up a bit because of the awful BBC pageant!
Most non-fiction programmes these days, serious or otherwise, are much too full of the presenters who use them as vehicles to advance their own 'personalities'. Oh for the days of a nice crisp BBC voice narrating interesting documentaries.
It's probably a mix of culture (youf is good, old is stodgy) and economics (how can we fill up all those channels cheaply).
As a suggestion you could rearrange the BBC channels into BBC Daytime and BBC Night-time, each limited to their slot in the day. That's the economics sorted out, fewer, smaller, channels to fill with an expectation that the Night-time channel would be more serious and documentary based. The News, Cbeebies, minority and regional channels could be sold off or given to other providers. No loss. Same with BBC Radio too. Sort out the over-manning and over-managing and the TV license could be considerably reduced.
As for the youf element... why would upwardly thrusting career types want to stay in such a limited media company?
Sackers - as if 'look at me' has become the standard without which programmes cannot be made.
Graeme - yes they seem to think it is okay to be an obviously modern person. Differences may be elusive but to ignore them is to dumb down the whole thing.
Sam - 'the dead hand of bureaucracy weighs heavily on whatever they do' yes it's an impression we get from quite a few people who have left the BBC.
Scrobs - thanks and that's an interesting poll. I don't see where the BBC thinks it is going as the number of people who grew up on Netflix etc just grows year by year.
Vatsmith - they do use them to advance their own 'personalities'. It is even possible to see that as a kind of disguised promotion because it is pretty blatant.
DJ - to my mind the BBC should never have taken on entertainment. It could have been purely factual, far more useful and reliable and far cheaper.
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