The name’s Evans. Phil Evans: Licensed to view...
SOME weeks it’s so difficult to know what to write about, the editor’s been outside my house, pounding away on my front door, demanding that I hand over that week’s column, while I was inside, pounding away on my computer keyboard trying to finish it.
Then, there are weeks like this when an article can almost write itself. Though I have to be here to check the spelling!
I’m not a massive TV watcher, because I don’t own a massive TV.
Many evenings my telly’s unplugged and unwatched, standing silent in the corner, like a sullen teenager reprimanded for not helping with the washing-up.
However, I’ve always bought a TV licence, knowing it pays not only for TV channels I don’t watch, but also radio stations I do listen to.
But I was staggered to learn the BBC is spending £50 million – enough to pay for 314,000 TV licences – on market research to find out what sort of programmes their viewers would like to see.
If you’re laughing at how ridiculous that sounds, this’ll stop you.
They’ve also spent £80 million relaunching BBC3 after taking it off air some years ago to put online.
BBC3 is aimed at 18 to 34-yearolds, who are more likely to spend their evenings playing with their Xbox than watching the telly box.
As a good proportion live with their parents, the BBC are providing them with a channel they probably haven’t bought a TV licence to watch. Not that many people are watching,
One BBC 3 programme about tractor racing (!) attracted 43,000 viewers. There were more people queueing outside my local chippy last Friday.
If a BBC market researcher came to my front door, elbowed my editor out of the way and asked for my thoughts on their programmes, I’d tell them the prefix “Celebrity” should be removed from all their cheap’n’cheerless shows featuring ‘reality TV stars’ and ‘influencers’ and immediately replaced by the more honest “Nonentity”.
Genuine celebrities appear in films, TV dramas and sitcoms, theatres and arenas – because they’re skilled performers with talent honed over a long period.
I fear the format for Celebrity Toast Buttering is already on a BBC executive’s desk awaiting a commission.