Channel Four tops complained about shows list
Before I get into the main part of the article, I’ll just let you know that I’ll be blogging on MWW for a short while as Monitor takes a well deserved holiday. You all may know me from my comments on the site (Originally as Andrew Nixon, more recently as just plain andrew), and I hope my contributions match the sites usual quality. Anyway, on with the story…..
We’re a bit late covering this one, but it’s worth a quick blog anyway. The Evening Standard reports that Channel Four is the most complained about channel on UK TV, according to figures from Ofcom. Eight shows in the top 20 most complained about shows are from the channel, with Big Brother coming in first place (1,147 complaints), with the celebrity edition making it into the “hit parade” at third place. According to that table, Coronation Street is six times as offensive as the BNP party political broadcast. BBC Two and, remarkably, Channel Five escape the top 20 list.
Of course such an article has to contain something from those rent-a-quote “moral guardians” over at mediawatch. John Beyer was obviously too busy, so it was left to his deputy David Turtle to accuse the channels of “dumbing down” and highlighting “bad language, violence and a constant diet of bad behaviour”. More comments from Tuttle follow:
“When even the BBC is cutting back on reality shows Channel 4 seems intent on putting out more of the same, but the net result is they are alienating and upsetting their viewers.
“Even family shows like Emmerdale and Coronation Street are churning out sensationalist plotlines with ever-increasing violence and sexual behaviour. They have dumbed down and as a result are offending more of their audience.”
As the top 20 list shows, not even 1% of most of the show audiences actually complained, so it can’t be that much of a problem can it? Some sense came from a Channel 4 spokeswoman who said:
An important part of Channel 4’s job is to push boundaries in TV. While we operate within the guidelines set by our regulator, we are bound to provoke a strong response and stimulate debate among viewers.
When will the retards realise that they have an on/off switch. When they’ve fully mastered that (six month course for some I believe) they could then meet the challenge of channel changing head on.
I’ve said it before, but you’d have thought some enterprising TV repairman would have offered to do a bulk-buy sort of deal for all these people whos TVs are broken and stuck on one channel.
What makes you think they watch the programmes? I was the source of the TV Choice story the other week, I’m still working there at the moment, and not only are the letters still coming in, but plenty of them admit that they haven’t seen the photograph they’re complaining about.
That’s David Turtle, by the way, not Tuttle. I used to work with his wife. She was a nice lady, but quite deluded by religion. He’s a policeman, I think.
I can well understand the complaints against Big Brother and its offshoots and, to a lesser extend, Corrie. I think they’re offensive, too. I’d find more to entertain me in a BNP PPB than either of those two, I’m afraid. ‘Dumbing down’ just isn’t the phrase for it when it comes to BB. I did once watch some of it, but I’ve forgotten what I saw. Perhaps it wasn’t that after all: perhaps some paint drying on the wall by the set. I have a feeling, though, that my offence at this tripe and that of the complaining morons isn’t the same thing.
I watch BB, but then I’m a fan car-crash tv. I do, however, find Corrie, Eastenders, et al, deeply offensive. Why? Well, at least BB has a certain spontaniousness, but these shitty soaps are scripted by the kind of people who would never watch them just to appeal to a brainless lowest common denominator. I don’t just hate the soaps, I intensly dislike the people who watch them. Intellectual snob? Too bloody right!!
Why do these perpetual complainers always combine sex and violence in their outpourings? Personally, being a sensitive soul, I can understand being offended by the casual violence so often portrayed on TV…but what’s offensive about a bit of rumpy-pumpy? Don’t these people…y’know…”do it”???
I’m tempted to think that the reason why they always say sex and violence together is to subliminally (sp?) make people think of sexual violence.
Or maybe I’m crediting them with far too much intelligence.
I think it’s a case of them loving all the sex and violence, then when they’ve climaxed from their little sesh of getting off on it, withdraw into a session of self loathing and hate for what really turns them on. Pass the father another choirboy, this ones split……
I also love that other dichotomy, prominent in the US:
Extreme violence is keowwwwl, but naughty words must be supressed at all costs.
Classification/censoring for T.V. of Robocop is probably the best example… (“Fly Me![BANG!]Fly Me![BANG!]”etcetc)
🙂
I would hazzard a guess that the majority of complaints come from pressure groups like mediawatch-uk.
what a lot of contrived rehearsed scripted b/s big brother is
its so scripted its untrue does anyone agree with me