Where did all the television go?
As September begins, I eagerly begin to cast my beady eyes over the listings magazines in search of that most rare of summer sightings, something worth watching on the telly. Currently, my Sky+ planner has a single and rather lonely looking “series link” set up to make sure that I do not miss the final three epsiodes of Lost. Admittedly, in my most humble of opinions, one Lost is worth three of most other things on the box but that does not make up for the fact that there is a paucity of new, quality material available during August. There are drought conditions both inside and out.
Now I know that the execs and the powers-that-be realise that almost nothing will get them substantial ratings at this time of year, a distinctly off-putting factor for the commercial outfits. The viewers are off on their holidays, enjoying the sunshine, or having a BBQ and they last thing they want to do is be tied to the TV, but is that any reason to give up? To illustrate, BBC1 tonight (4th Sept) at 7:30…. Open All Hours (!), while SkyOne is force feeding us four back-to-back episodes of The Simpsons. ITV (as if anyone is watching) have a line-up from 6pm to 9pm that goes: News, News, Soap, Soap, News, Soap. Admittedly at 9pm, things start to look up with Dalziel and Pascoe going up against Caroline Quentin’s Life Begins, but it’s September now… three weeks ago things were even more bleak.
I probably shouldn’t complain, it gives me a fighting chance to watch some of those DVD’s that have been gathering dust for a few months, and I can always find some sport somewhere thanks to the omni-present SkySports network and their 5 channels of 24-hour action. May be sport is the answer, we saw back in June and July that it can work: bung the World Cup on and you get millions tuning in to watch Paraguay v Sweden. However, for an industry that is, we are led to believe, crammed with “creative types” I’m sure someone should be able to come up with an idea or two for the summer.
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