[Amy]

BBC news veteran John Humphrys yesterday branded TV soaps and Big Brother “damaging, seedy and cynical”.

John, 61 – presenter of Radio 4’s Today — admitted he had not watched the box for five years.

But when he tuned in recently, he was shocked by the sex and violence.

And he does not want his four-year-old son Owen watching.

He told the Edinburgh TV Festival: “The first time I watched BB live, there were two men lying on beds and talking about women — or rather ****ing women.

“Characters in EastEnders seemed never to walk past each other with a smile and a nod, but with a snarl and a threat.”

Article taken from The Sun

[James]

This is from the Guardian article

The influence of reality programmes has been out of all proportion to their number. They have infected the mainstream of the medium. History is one small example - now it has to be "living" history. Commissioning editors have less of the schedule to play with; they become risk-averse. Originality suffers.

Then there is the cult of celebrity, which fosters values that are utterly shallow and kill real ambition. We tell kids what matters is being a celebrity and we wonder why some behave the way they do. And what about the "lucky" ones, the ones who make it into the house, on to the screen? Most survive unscathed - so far as we know. But then, we would not know if they were damaged, would we, because we lose interest once they are no longer "famous". BB5, we were told, would "get evil". The house would be made more claustrophobic to "prompt the explosion of any tensions". And when the explosions duly happened, what are we told? "The welfare of the housemates is always our overriding concern". Note the "always". Do I need to join the dots?

In society as a whole, reality television 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. It turns human beings into freaks for us to gawp at. And don't tell me it's just entertainment. You can't use people with real lives and real problems and real children as "just entertainment". Well, you can, but it's corrupting. The first time I watched Big Brother live there were two men lying on beds and talking about women. Or rather "********** women". And talking about their responses to them. Or, rather, "my ********** s*****". My, how we've pushed back the boundaries of television. How proud we should be.

Let me give you a quote: "To apply broadcasting to the dissemination of the shoddy, the vulgar and the sensational would be a blasphemy against human nature." That was Lord Reith. But what did he know? Patronising old toff.

You may ask why I'm attacking reality TV when it's in its death throes. Well, because it's not. What happened when Big Brother ratings were down last year? The ratchet effect took over. We had to be shocked that bit more. That's what always happens when ratings are the only measure. And ratchets work only one way. Even when this genre exhausts itself, it will leave behind an audience that has been desensitised. The ratchet has been at work.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/sto...292765,00.html

[Amy]

Cowell disputes Humphrys jibe

POP Idol's Mr Nasty, Simon Cowell, hit back at John Humphrys' mauling of reality television yesterday as he admitted being a big fan of fly-on-the-wall shows.

The millionaire music mogul, whose new talent show The X Factor begins next week, said Michelle's infatuation with Stuart in Big Brother 5 was "every guy's nightmare" and was "compelling" viewing.

Cowell, speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, also defended his own shows' format, saying viewers would not watch a "sanitised" version of auditions, where only good singers were shown.

The same industry gathering heard Welsh veteran broadcaster Humphrys attack the "mind-numbing, witless vulgarity" of reality shows. The presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme accused TV bosses of being motivated by money without regard for the welfare of audiences or participants.

But Cowell, who has a highly successful record label and recently set up his own television company, disagreed. "I have to say, that as a viewer, Big Brother got it right this year, because it was fascinating TV and I'm not ashamed to admit that," he told the industry audience.

Article from IC Wales

[James]

EDINBURGH -- Reality TV was put on the rack at the 29th Edinburgh Intl. Television Festival and for once the gabfest's whipping boy, the BBC, emerged virtually unscathed.

In an industry obsessed by youth and the youth audience, handing the talking shop's keynote address, the James MacTaggart Lecture, to a 61-year-old BBC anchorman who claims he has not watched the box for five years was asking for trouble.

John Humphrys, ex-BBC foreign correspondent turned presenter and now media commentator, did not disappoint.

In Blighty the cantankerous Humphrys (recently voted one of the 50 most influential people in British media) is best known for hosting BBC Radio 4's hard news breakfast show, "Today."

He interviewed the program's defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan in the infamous broadcast on May 29, 2003, that ignited the spat with the government over the "sexed-up" dossier claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That led to the Hutton report and the worst crisis in the pubcaster's history.

Humphreys' savaging of reality TV -- especially "Big Brother" -- and what he called its corrupting influence on the medium and its coarsening effect on society by virtue of its "mind-numbing, witless vulgarity" left fest delegates, many of whom create reality fare, deeply divided.

Some at the gabfest, in the Scottish capital Aug. 27-29, dismissed the vet's remarks as an out-of-touch rant by a "grumpy old man."

"He can go back to his radio and his books," suggested Sky One topper James Baker.

"It's a generation thing," added Channel 4 press person Yvonne Taylor. "He doesn't understand contemporary TV and he doesn't understand young people."

Perhaps. For although Humphrys' lecture -- delivered in the same hall where more than a decade earlier Rupert Murdoch suggested public-service TV would become marginalized in the U.K. in a multichannel era -- took aim at an easy target, many conceded he had a point.

" 'Big Brother' is like heroin," says 23-year-old Kate Dickson, who attended the fest's Television & Young People program. "I watch it, but I know it's not good for me."

Sky topper Dawn Airey, the fest's executive chair who booked Humphrys, warned against rejecting the lecture out of hand.

"I think John has made us stop and think," she said. "Some entertainment shows, like 'Pop Idol,' can be cruel. We're expected to laugh at what can be a freak show."

No one from Endemol, the creator of "Big Brother," responded to Humphrys' attack at Edinburgh.

Endemol's U.K. chairman, Peter Bazalgette, was in Italy finishing a book on "Big Brother."

Instead, C4, which airs the show in the U.K., stepped into the breech.

Its former CEO, Mark Thompson, the BBC's new director general, pointed out that commercial revenues generated by "Big Brother" and other reality shows helped pay for "Channel 4 News" and "Operatunity," the arts reality series praised by Humphrys.

Thompson's successor at C4, Andy Duncan, making an impressive debut at the gabfest, agreed. He said "Big Brother" was no longer considered innovative, but performed an important commercial function for the station.

Duncan denied there was pressure to make the next series more extreme, presumably by adding more violence and sex. The recent series was the first in the U.K. in which two housemates had sex and C4 blacked out the show when a drunken brawl broke out.

A year ago, BBC toppers like Dyke and Jana Bennett complained Edinburgh had become boring and was no longer a must-attend event.

Thanks to Humphrys, the "grumpy old man" par excellence, and his withering verdict on reality TV, the gabfest can now look forward to its 30th anniversary with a spring in its step.

From Variety.com

This is the book Endemol UK boss Peter Bazalgette is writing about Big Brother

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...880704-5086020