When I look for something to watch on television I frequently despair.
Despite there now being 100s of channels, courtesy of Sky, BT, Virgin or whomever else, the real choice is incredibly limited. Vast quantities of repeats or dramas, detective series and the like; quizzes, (mostly repeats), programmes devoted to cookery or antiques (also mostly repeats). News broadcasts that purport to be 'up to the minute' but are, in reality, hours, even days, behind the times, and rarely broadcast news, more often opinion.
Yes, there are occasional bright spots, but these are few and far between. More often than not, the most praised productions are those devoted to whatever is considered to be the flavour of the moment, whatever is currently 'politically correct'. So much of the truly great television of passed years is hidden away or rebroadcast surrounded by caveats indicating it's horrendously unacceptable attitudes - can anyone really object to the interplay of the characters in "Rumpole of the Bailey" ? It seems that some must, as every repeated episode is preceded by a warning of its outdated attitudes and ancient origins. Is this not lunacy ? When I was rather younger, one of the great Saturday night entertainments was the "Black and White Minstrel; Show", an utterly harmless but quite marvellous musical entertainment; today this is viewed as having been a shocking example of racism and is derided. This seems to me to be the most abominable bigotry and hypocrisy; the entertainment has been overtaken by political correctness of almost Stalinist proportions. Anything that doesn't conform to the standards of the modern day liberal elite view is to be warned against or banned. Is this freedom of expression ?
It seems that freedom of expression only exists when it's applied to left wing views, such as those of the supposed comedienne Jo Brand and her ghastly suggestion that protesters should forego milk shakes in favour of battery acid when assaulting political figures of whom they disapprove, So much of today's radio and television offerings are devoted to trying to appeal to a lowest common denominator of viewer that quality has almost disappeared; attracting an audience is all that matters. This has inevitably led to dumbed down drivel in huge quantities, stuff that requires no imagination or thought and is little in the way of an intellectual challenge. What little is left of serious programming has been sent to the outer limits of early morning or late night, although there is even precious little of this and soon to be even less when "This Week" is killed off.
Why have we, the viewers and licence payers, allowed this to happen ? It is indoctrination of a most blatant, and yet somehow accepted, kind and we must be even more pathetic and impotent than I'd ever imagine to ignore it and do nothing.
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