Patrick Moore and women
08/05/07 14:17 Media
issues
I was interested to see
Patrick Moore's comments on women in broadcasting
plastered everywhere today - and indeed to be asked
about them during my technology slot at BBC London.
Having thought about it since, my view remains the same. There may well be more women than men in charge of commissioning programmes at the Beeb, but they're actually commissioning a lot of blokey programmes. When it was primarily men in charge, we had Dallas, we had EastEnders commissioned for the first time, we had Blake's 7 and Doctor Who cancelled. Now we have the female of the species at decision making level and we have Doctor Who back, Life on Mars and its forthcoming sequel Ashes to Ashes, Hustle, loads of stuff.
It's actually a better balance than there's been for a fair while. Yes, there has been a female captain on Star Trek (one of Moore's gripes) but times have changed. It would have been strange if it hadn't happened. By all means there are a lot of makeover shows but in an environment where there are literally hundreds of channels, there's a demand for something cheap and this means reality TV (or 'TV where people will work for nothing' as I like to think of it).
Overall I find myself dismayed to say the women are looking after male interests on telly much, much better than the blokes had been doing for a fair while. I'd be interested to hear from any women with views on how we served them when the balance was the other way around a few years back.
Having thought about it since, my view remains the same. There may well be more women than men in charge of commissioning programmes at the Beeb, but they're actually commissioning a lot of blokey programmes. When it was primarily men in charge, we had Dallas, we had EastEnders commissioned for the first time, we had Blake's 7 and Doctor Who cancelled. Now we have the female of the species at decision making level and we have Doctor Who back, Life on Mars and its forthcoming sequel Ashes to Ashes, Hustle, loads of stuff.
It's actually a better balance than there's been for a fair while. Yes, there has been a female captain on Star Trek (one of Moore's gripes) but times have changed. It would have been strange if it hadn't happened. By all means there are a lot of makeover shows but in an environment where there are literally hundreds of channels, there's a demand for something cheap and this means reality TV (or 'TV where people will work for nothing' as I like to think of it).
Overall I find myself dismayed to say the women are looking after male interests on telly much, much better than the blokes had been doing for a fair while. I'd be interested to hear from any women with views on how we served them when the balance was the other way around a few years back.
|