Words and Pictures 

1 September 2001 tbs.pm/1692

Carltonisation, |-ization (carl’ton’is(e)’a’tion), v t. 1) To dumb-down content to meet the lowest common denominator in a society; 2) To reduce all to the same, or change for fear of alienating the few; 3) To make things more confusing in a misguided attempt to simplify them. Also carltonise, -ize; carltonised, -ized. [f modern English, carlton, unknown derivation, + ISE]

Reference for 1):

Gaining exclusive access to more than 400 hours of colour footage of an event previously only seen in monochrome and producing only two series of less than 3 hours each for fear that any more than this would alienate or scare viewers generally regarded to have the attention span of an undernourished gnat, may be described as carltonisation.

This also includes the tendency to mix footage from the first two years of the event and the final two years of the event, on the basis that the audience is too dim to notice. Additionally, the phenomenon of films made in the 1930s suddenly being labelled ‘A Carlton Entertainment’ and thus mysteriously predating the credited company by about 50 years (see also weintraubism) is commonly known as carltonisation.

The editing of famous audio or video footage in order to reduce the chances of any viewer becoming befuddled or losing consciousness by chancing across something that they might have to look up in a book or on the internet is considered an advanced case of carltonisation.

Reference for 2):

The contention that ITV is purely for making money and that anything that might stand in the way of that – or indeed cost a fraction of a penny that could instead be better spent on shareholders (who hadn’t noticed that they were getting bad value for money before) – is bad for business, may be described as carltonisation.

Thus, television ‘presentation’ should be in bulk, or non-existent, in case the punters watching get confused or alienated by someone who has the temerity to sound ‘clever’ or ‘knowledgeable’ about the programming ahead that day. Anything else may cost a few pence more and therefore is unwarranted expenditure that may only attract those with too much intelligence to continue watching the next programme.

Reference for 3):

The purchasing of other ITV contractors, then changing their names in order to ‘simplify’ a confusion that nobody in Britain had noticed in the last 40 years. This confusion is summed up as being the problem of viewers seeing a Carlton production on Central Television, their local ITV station.

It was considered far simpler that they saw a Carlton programme on Carlton. However, this led to “Central News on Carlton Television at the heart of ITV” being a common appearance, leaving viewers puzzled or annoyed and therefore may be described as carltonisation by commentators. See granadaite for appropriate antonym.

Related words:

Antonym: granadaite (esp in the sense of bernsteinism)

Synonyms: fiverism, murdochian

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