Media in Crisis

The relentless negativity of the TV news has finally got to me and I have now weaned myself from the scheduling priority in my evening viewing.  Likewise, I took great personal delight in cancelling my subscription the Times.  The nice lady who tempted me to “stay with them,” with an offer of 3 months for half-price made the mistake of asking if I had any particular reasons for wanting to leave.  I had prepared my pitch earlier and she was treated to a couple of sides of A4 listing my accumulated editorial grievances and quoting plenty of specific examples to back them up.  I reserved my finale for the observation that it had been brought to my attention that the new broom editorial team were intent on making the Times just like the New York Times and, wait for it, the newspaper that modern progressives would want to be seen with.

So I have gone back to the Telegraph and, despite an inauspicious start in which I was given the wrong link to the tablet application and persuaded to take out a separate subscription to the puzzles section (subsequently refunded promptly), £200 for the year seemed a reasonable deal.  Well, it seemed a reasonable deal until yesterday when, after skimming though the first half of the paper which was almost exclusively devoted to Dominic Cummings, I arrived at the leading article which, with breath-taking irony, exhorted, “Let’s move on from Mr Cummings.”  Quite!

Back to the TV and I don’t find myself missing the big budget live outputs or even the sport, for that matter.  Watching the German league play to empty stadiums with only the endless drivel from the commentary team to interrupt the visual spectacle reminded me of the overwhelming emphasis on production over sporting spectacle to which we have become used.  On the plus side, there seems to be plenty of repeat content available through various on-line facilities which I find sustaining, particularly our recent rewind of Last Tango in Halifax – what a gem!

Meantime, I am told that “television has excelled itself in recent weeks.  The BBC has effortlessly glided its way back into untouchable National Treasure status.”  Keep talking Nick Samwell-Smith, the “Big Brother” producer, whilst most of the rest of us ponder which planet you and your tribe are on?