I thought the general plummet downwards would have leveled out by now, but TV seems to be getting shite-er and shite-er.
Many people ask me, "Malcolm, as a TV expert, when do you think the decline started?"
Well, thank you for asking.
There was a two-pronged attack on the outer wall of TV standards, and the first was the notorious game show 3,2,1 hosted by ex Butlins Redcoat and terminally unfunny "comedian" Ted Rogers. The show was a 1978 British version of a Spanish TV show.
3,2,1 took what was what we in TV call a 5F - family friendly feelgood factor format show and inverted it in a nasty way. People in game shows tried for prizes, sometimes they didn't win, but they always left with something, even if it was a gift voucher. In 3,2,1, the losers left with worse than nothing, a dustbin. This to me was a sinister play to the worst in human nature, the desire by some people to see others humiliated. It was extremely successful, lasted ten years, and eventually was canned, but (to alter my metaphor) that dam wall had been breached.
The next serious attack didn't come until 1994 when Jerry Springer and his new producer decided to actively take the chat show format downward, once again exploiting many peoples voyeuristic desire to see other people humiliated. Make no mistake this was a departure, as was 3,2,1 from the 5F concept. The new Jerry Springer Show was chat show as blood sport, and the innumerable Springer clones have sprouted up since.
There is a third factor in the downward drive past peoples knees and right through the floor and that is the Digital Age. I'm sure all of us can remember the day our newpapers became plastered with telephone chat line ads. The Digital Age coincided with the privatisation - i.e. the freeing up in the mid 80s of British Telecom's operations to private investors.
Until this time, we the viewers had been labouring under the misapprehension that a real nadir of TV taste would always be avoided due to the prevailing force of Good over Evil. It turns out it was merely price and logistics that stopped idiots (metaphorically) crapping on our TV doorsteps, covering that turd with a paraffin-soaked bag and setting it alight.
Once it was possible to fund programs almost totally via the income received from phone voters, it meant networks could buy shows like Britain's Got Talent very cheaply (the producers got their money via the phone lines) and the real runny stuff started flowing.
When you think about it, if only a tenth of a BGT audience makes a standard rate 50p phone call every time voting is required, that adds up to 500,000 quid a time. It's bean counters who are making our TV now, that's why Simon Cowell has a VERY big yacht.
