A Media Person's Musings

When TV Goes Too Far

Big Brother fever is upon us and all eyes are focussed on Channel 4. The eighth series of this 'reality' show promises to be even more controversial than ever before with Channel 4 and Endemol raising the stakes even before the contestants arrive in the house: The house has been designed to frustrate with the bath placed in the middle of the living area and the fridge freezer  in the garden. 

On a different front the embattled broadcaster is ramping up publicity aggressively  for another show. This weekend's papers were full of protest at Channel 4's decision to screen a documentary that features graphic images of Priness Diana after the crash that killed her.

Now it has been announced that Endemol (Big Brother's production company) has a new reality show to be aired in the Netherlands where viewers have to vote for the worthiest recipient of a donor kidney. The kidney is from a terminally ill woman who doesn't want to make the decision herself. Endemol has (weakly) argued its case for the show saying it is highlighting the difficulties of sourcing donor organs.

What next I wonder? It is getting frighteningly close to the film Citizen Verdict where the public vote on whether a man is guilty of murder and then get the opportunity to pay to view his execution. When that film came out the concept was thought of as ludicrous...now I am not so sure it is...

Feeling the Eurovision Love

I know it is very cheesy, and very uncool for me to admit this, but I love the Eurovision Song Contest and look forward to it every year. Of course I don't take it seriously, the majority of the songs are simply terrible, but I love the spectacle and the myriad of cultural differences when it comes to entertainment and music.

Now the contest has become a barometer for national popularity. With so many people from so many countries voting it has always been the case that certain countries will favour their neighbours: It has always been the case that the Nordics stick together, as do the Balkans. But I was interested and not a little disappointed to see that in the voting this year those factions were even more pronounced than ever.

What was even more interesting is how unpopular the UK is in our ever expanding European Union....Poland can always rely on Hungary to give them a vote and Serbia can always rely on Belarus. The UK can't rely on anyone (perhaps ireland)..we clearly have no friends.

I'm not saying our entry deserved a lot of votes but it was certainly a lot better than many of the others and didn't deserve to come 2nd last. We clearly, in our stance over Iraq, have alienated the majority of our fellow European countries. What I don't understand is if we are so disliked, why do so many of the people from those countries want to live here?

It was 1966!

It never ceases to amaze me how we cling on, as a nation, to the victory of the 1966 football World Cup! Songs are written about it, the team members (living) are still revered as heroes and there is even a popular TV show named after one of the commentator's final lines "they think it's all over ... it is now".

Recently one of the squad, Alan Ball, died. His memorial service was screened on all the major news stations - live! People lined the streets and listened outside the cathedral. It was like a State funeral or a Royal funeral. I know I will provoke outrage (from the male contingent) when I say this: He was only a footballer for Heaven's sake! He didn't get a Nobel prize, he didn't create a cure for any disease, he didn't save anyone's life. He was simply a nice fellow who could kick a ball in his youth, manage a good squad for the rest of his career and entertain as an after dinner speaker.

Now I see that we have a huge statue of the 1966 team captain Bobby Moore unveiled outside the new Wembley stadium. I just don't get it. When are we going to let go of (and stop dining out on) a very long past success? I do think it is a 'boy thing' as none of the women I talk to about it understands either.

My point is simple: I think clinging on to the past prevents us winning in the now!

Blubbing Blair

I have been more than a little disinterested in the impending announcement of Tony Blair's resignation. The deal between him and Gordon Brown had been sealed years ago leaving us with a foregone conclusion for our next Prime Minister. Its all a bit uninspiring.

I have just sat through Blair's excrutiating TV broadcast. He rolled out his quavering, emotional, soupy  "I am not just a Prime Minister, I am also a man who did what he thought was right" hammy speech.

More and more politicians are becoming entertainers in this way and playing the TV card. Blair's speech could well have been written by Richard Curtis: It reminded me of Notting Hill - the movie where Julia Roberts played a famous TV star and falls in love with a 'nobody'. She says in the film "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her"

Bleedin' Britney

I despair! I really do. There are wars going on, genocide, political wranglings, global warming, murders and yet what have our news broadcasters been focussed on for the past 2 days? Britney Spears' new choice of hairstyle.

In our office we need to have broadcast news on all day in the background so that we can pick up on breaking stories and respond putting our clients' views across. But today I really feel like switching over to a daytime TV show or even a makeover show. Something (anything)that will give me some meaningful and useful content.

Now I know that there is an argument for a bit of celebrity 'gossip' style coverage to chop the content up a bit and make it more palateable. But that doesn't justify the drivel and subsequent 'expert comment' that has been pouring out of Sky news today. I do have more than a little bit of pity for any girl who is in meltdown, but there are people in this world with far more serious problems and far more challenging lives than this distressed Princess of Pop. And there are far bigger news stories that could and should be covered.

The Big Brother Fall-out Continues

Along with millions of people I watched the final Big Brother eviction night with my feet up on Sunday. I had been disgusted by the behaviour of some of the people in the house. Then horrified by some of the vox pop pieces done in the streets of London where people were actually agreeing with Jade and saying that she was well within her rights to behave that way. Then after Jade was evicted we watched as her publicity machine rolled her out onto countless daytime TV shows to cry in public and say she was disgusted in herself. Brilliantly media trained, she gave all her Big Brother earnings to charity.

But what concerns me is the completely over-the-top reaction of the general public who have been whipped up into a frenzy by the media and are now taking it out on the lesser celebrities who were featured on the show. Jade's 'gang' of Jo (a C-List pop singer) and Danielle (a former Miss England who had been stripped of her crown) had joined her in her bullying of Shilpa and had egged her on. But both girls were very much following the pack and watching their evictions was absolutely toe-curling as you saw the enormity of the consequences of their behaviour slowly dawn on them.

Now there are death threats! Jade has had to stay in a safe house. Jo was on morning television yesterday, also in hiding, and absolutely inconsolable and distraught. Danielle is also holed up somewhere, dumped unceremoniously by her footballer boyfriend and her 'career' (as it was) in tatters.

The most ironic thing is that now the public, stirred up into high dudgeon about such obvious bullying on our TV screens, is now bullying these girls. They were silly, mean, stupid and at some times just plain nasty. They were also extremely naive, swept away by the excitement of being one of the celebrities on Celebrity Big Brother. That doesn't mean they deserve death threats for God's sake. The media, that has created this climate has a responsibility to call this to a halt. I hope we see the editors of the red-tops do something about this before it goes too far. And I hope Channel 4 and Endemol take stock of how they have handled this whole debacle and think very carefully in future about what they do and do not screen.

Big Brother - The saga continues....

So  how did everything pan out after the Celebrity Big Brother controversy? Well first of all Channel 4 put together a hasty and ill-advised press conference with a polo-shirted chief executive Andy Duncan refusing to accept any responsibilty for some pretty excruciating TV - which a lot of young and easily influenceable people would be watching. (Andy Duncan - you need some serious media training and you need to sack whatever numpty was advising you - you came across as ill-advised, disrespectful, defensive and arrogant). And I think the media agrees with me -

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,,1994094,00.html

Then came the inevitable feeding frenzy of tabloid criticism - Jade Goody was renamed Jade Baddy etc.etc. Politicians banded together and called on the general public not to watch the show and yes..unfortunately it did become an international talking point.

Even more excruciating was the next night's programme (after 23,000 complaints to Offcom) where it became clear that Endemol (the production company behind the show) had intervened off-camera and all of a sudden the nasty poisonous bullying atmosphere had totally gone and everyone was being more reasonable - unbelievably reasonable..and that led to quite a boring night's viewing. But Channel 4 and Endemol are sitting pretty aren't they? They have 1000s more phoning in to evict Jade and they are making 100s of £1000s in the phone revenues - nice score C4.

Now I am watching 'eviction night' when Jade and Shilpa are up against eachother and they have jointly come into the diary room (the house forum) all pretend and sweet and best of friends and just loving eachother. It is disgustingly staged and reeks of briefings from the station and the production company to 'keep the national peace'. Well done. I am sure that people who dont understand how propaganda works will now be happy that there was no racism or bullying and now think that it was just a little spat that was over-hyped.

Jade subsequently made a plea to leave and cried about 'being hated' when it became blindingly obvious that she was going to be kicked out. It stinks. She bleats about being scared and yet she was an abominable bully and a lot of people will think that she deserves all the flak she is going to get.

But is it all her fault? When she first went into the big brother house she was an ill-educated dental nurse who could barely speak English properly. She was exploited then and (fair play to her) she got herself paid well out of that exploitation. Now she is being exploited again because she is a 'common, uncouth bully' (not my words!).

Don't get me wrong - I have no sympathy for her - I actually admire her ability to get herself out of her bad situations by pleading the 'thick' card when really she is a lot more clever and manipulative than she comes across. The ones that have really benefitted out of this are:

• Channel 4 : Unprecedented viewing numbers and telephone revenues (only after they were publicly asked did they decide to donate some to charity).

• Carphone Warehouse: The sponsors who withdrew their sponsorship and got more media value and credibility than they ever would have done without this incident.

• India: The British love an underdog ..I  predict a rise in Shilpa's career, more interest in Bollywood and a huge appreciation of our Indian-origin communities.

The one big question is will Jade survive? I think she will because she represents a very naive part of our society who thought Shilpa was a 'stuck up bitch' because she was well educated and aloof. She was a bit 'stuck-up' actally but she didnt deserve the bullying she was subjected to. Jade's represents a part of our society is prejudiced, judgemental and unforgiving and I find that very sad. That is why Jade's media career will continue - fuelled by people who see her as the girl who came out of the slums and made good. Sadly in this instance, in my opinion she made bad - very bad.

Has reality TV gone too far?

The reality TV show ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ is so sensational in the UK this year that it has caused a major breakdown in international relations between the UK and India. A host of ‘stars' of stage and screen’ including well known Bollywoood actress Shilpa Shetty ,Jermaine Jackson, Dirk Benedict (A Team's 'Face') and other people more well known in the UK from pop bands and other reality TV shows have been locked in a house for 3 weeks.

One of these 'celebs' is a previous Big Brother contestant called Jade Goody who made a name for herself through her absolute lack of education and resulting various funny sayings including "Rio De Janeiro - that's the name of a footballer isn't it?" Unfortunately Jade's lack of education and intelligence has also led her to be exposed on this show as a bully, a bigot and as an alleged racist. Her bullying of Shilpa is unprecedented viewing on our TV screens every night.

In a strange twist the show brought Jade, her mum Jackiey (a one armed lesbian) and her toyboy boyfriend into the house and instructed all of the other contestants to be their servants and wait on them hand on foot. Her mother refused to even call Shilpa by her name saying that she didn't understand the language and referred to her as 'The Indian'.

This 'social experiment' has led to an unprecedented number of complaints, and effigies of Big Brother producers being burned in the streets in India where Shilpa is as revered as The Beckhams are here in the UK. It has even been the subject of discussion at Government level and it threatened to overshadow Gordon Brown’s week-long fact-finding mission to India by spilling over into today’s private meeting with PM Manmohan Singh. India’s trade minister Kamal Nath warned the Chancellor that the spat was damaging relations.

Now there are worries that the programme is causing not only a breakdown in international relations but also wider racial unrest. The climate is almost hysterical.

Why do people expose themselves in this way? Will this help or harm Jade's future ‘career’ as a professional celebrity? Only time will tell. What is not up for question is the extraordinary impact such programmes can have and that television producers need to think very carefully about the kind of content they decide to make public. As we see the increasing backlash we have to ask have the producers at Endemol gone too far this time with what they have allowed to be screened?