Archive
Goodnight, Alistair
31/03/04
Watching TV last night, it seemed that virtually all the channels available in the satellite and cable-free zone that is my current home were broadcasting the same programme: one in which a couple of eager and breathless young presenters (usually one male, one female) rush around interviewing 'ordinary' people about a house they're doing up, or a planned relocation, or a garden they've allowed the experts to redesign, or whatever. It made very boring viewing. And does so again and again, night after night. Cheap productions with cheap me-too ideas predicated on the cheap truth that people will suffer any embarrassment to get their faces on the telly.
And the presenters! Oh alright - I'll grant you Ant and Dec have engaging personalities. But the ones on the property / garden / makeover / let's-all-be-a-fly-on-someone-else's-wall shows generally have no redeeming features whatsoever. Most of them can't even ask a scripted question without it sounding scripted.
Meanwhile yesterday a great broadcasting life came to its sad but not unexpected end. We'll hear no more Letters from America; and no more of Alistair Cooke's distinguished, thoughtful, erudite voice. They should lock these ingenue TV presenters in a darkened viewing theatre and make them watch his documentaries on America over and over again until they're really ready to step in front of a camera.
But they won't: there's not enough time.