25th August:

Serendipity, indeed.

Yesterday's post pondered the role of television in society as a medium to inform and entertain. At the Edinburgh International Television Festival last night, notable TV presenter and journalist Jeremy Paxman delivered the annual James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture. In his speech Paxman also pondered the role that television should play, and made some pretty damming comments about the quality of output that the major broadcasters transmit these days. He also raised concerns about the sheer amount of content available, noting "the more television there is, the less any of it matters".

Paxman's comments don't perhaps address the issue of how to make quality programming profitable but it is heartening to feel that people on the inside are just as worried about the erosion of quality as some of us on the other side of the screen.