Quality vs Cash
The Independent: The sooner we lose analogue, the better
Media Guardian: Television's no-brainer
"Digital TV shouldn't just offer more TV; it should offer more good TV."
The words of Creative Industries minister, James Purnell writing in the Independent.
He goes on to give examples - high quality home-grown programmes like Casanova and The Thick of It, as well as quality imports like Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The West Wing.
And then there's repeats - its a way of bringing programmes like I, Claudius or The Ascent of Man to a whole new generation.
His passionate arguments are one that any lover of quality television would have difficulty disagreeing with. Which is why it feels a bit like a dream - a dream where the reality is increasingly different.
The reality is brought home in an article by Five's Chris Shaw - senior programme controller of news and current affairs - writing in the Media Guardian about participation TV. In case you haven't been skulking around the never ending myriad of channels on your digital box, participation TV is the polite term for those competition channels and shows, where the user is given an insanely easy question, and invited - nay begged - to phone in with the chance of winning some money.
If it's not that, it's women wearing scanty clothing and pouting, or 'psychics' offering you the chance to spend your hard earned money on phone bills (probably the only thing they saw, was the huge profits there for the taking)
A trawl through a satellite box will find scores of such channels, dedicated to the stuff, as well as strands on others. Men and Motors, FTN and even ITV1 dedicate countless hours of programming to the quiz format, whilst small and struggling satellite channels take them as a sustaining feed in order to help pay the bills - often with the result that the channel is renamed, and soon becomes a 24/7 participation station.
Ever wondered what happened to The Advert Channel or L!ve TV? Well the latter is now Babeworld, and the former became Your Destiny TV, before giving up it's EPG listing in order to piggy back on other channels.
Even ITV and Channel 4 are in the act - ITV Play will be launching soon, and Channel 4's QuizCall has been on air for several months. It's turnover is a rumoured £20m, whilst the costs are suggested to be around £500,000.
Which begs the question - when so much money can be made from participation TV, what's the incentive for broadcasters to invest to give us the quality TV that James Purnell wants us to get?
For public bodies like Channel 4 and the BBC, then it's a done deal. But for the commercial sector? ITV Play is to get substantial air time on it's sister channels with the aim of maximising revenue. And if the revenue is as much as ITV are hoping, where is the incentive to fund new, quality programming?
