Five Live: the last straws
I've been listening to BBC Five Live for 9 years now, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make a tenth anniversary. Just as Radio 4 started to grate on me after 30 years, Five Live has outworn its welcome in my home.
I never get the feeling the the audience is particularly stupid. More interested in sport than politics, perhaps, but still capable of displaying wit and intelligence, as evidenced by some of the many text and email messages read out on air.
But this doesn't stop a presentational style which has become increasingly dumb, pandering to a deeply stupid audience that almost certainly doesn't exist. I'm talking about the kind of people who'd be too dumb to know how to tune a radio, let alone require the kind of talking down to that we've been getting lately.
The trailers are particularly irksome, as they are on any media, and they've descended to a level of idiocy and repetitiveness that is completely bereft of invention and humour. It's just so obviously produced by a team of robotic turds who copy all their "ideas" from elsewhere and still get them wrong. When I allow myself to think that the BBC wastes money employing people to come up with stupid trailer ideas, it makes me want to smash things up.
But the final two straws have come from quarters I wouldn't expect this level of dumbing down from. A few weeks ago Nicky Campbell was interviewing someone from the RSPB about their campaign to encourage cat owners to fit collars with bells to their pets in order to reduce the number of small mammals and birds killed by them. Campbell asked,
"How exactly do the bells work?"
Even as the words left his mouth, you could tell he knew it was a dumb question. But you got the impression that he sat there thinking of stupid questions on the assumption that the audience would need the information presented in this way.
This morning Shelagh Fogerty was interviewing someone about the environmental impact of airliners - particularly as regards global warming. I can't remember the exact wording; there actually was a genuine question there, something to do with the special case of aeroplanes because they burn their fuel at higher altitudes than buses and coaches. But she worded it something like,
"And how is it that the planes produce emissions?"
I know it's live and sometimes these things are unavoidable, because mouth is engaged before brain is in gear etc., but it made me switch off this morning and ask myself, why am I listening to this shit? I expect to learn things I didn't know before when I listen to the radio; or I expect to be entertained in some way. The last thing I want is to hear questions that sound like they're being asked just to fill air time till the next break for a jingle and/or trailer.
I never get the feeling the the audience is particularly stupid. More interested in sport than politics, perhaps, but still capable of displaying wit and intelligence, as evidenced by some of the many text and email messages read out on air.
But this doesn't stop a presentational style which has become increasingly dumb, pandering to a deeply stupid audience that almost certainly doesn't exist. I'm talking about the kind of people who'd be too dumb to know how to tune a radio, let alone require the kind of talking down to that we've been getting lately.
The trailers are particularly irksome, as they are on any media, and they've descended to a level of idiocy and repetitiveness that is completely bereft of invention and humour. It's just so obviously produced by a team of robotic turds who copy all their "ideas" from elsewhere and still get them wrong. When I allow myself to think that the BBC wastes money employing people to come up with stupid trailer ideas, it makes me want to smash things up.
But the final two straws have come from quarters I wouldn't expect this level of dumbing down from. A few weeks ago Nicky Campbell was interviewing someone from the RSPB about their campaign to encourage cat owners to fit collars with bells to their pets in order to reduce the number of small mammals and birds killed by them. Campbell asked,
"How exactly do the bells work?"
Even as the words left his mouth, you could tell he knew it was a dumb question. But you got the impression that he sat there thinking of stupid questions on the assumption that the audience would need the information presented in this way.
This morning Shelagh Fogerty was interviewing someone about the environmental impact of airliners - particularly as regards global warming. I can't remember the exact wording; there actually was a genuine question there, something to do with the special case of aeroplanes because they burn their fuel at higher altitudes than buses and coaches. But she worded it something like,
"And how is it that the planes produce emissions?"
I know it's live and sometimes these things are unavoidable, because mouth is engaged before brain is in gear etc., but it made me switch off this morning and ask myself, why am I listening to this shit? I expect to learn things I didn't know before when I listen to the radio; or I expect to be entertained in some way. The last thing I want is to hear questions that sound like they're being asked just to fill air time till the next break for a jingle and/or trailer.
posted by Anonymous at
Friday, July 01, 2005
1 Comments:
Get a digital radio and listen to the World Service. It's the only place left for refugees from 4 and 5.
By
Anonymous, at 6:13 am
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