TV now more exploitative and cruel, says Ofcom boss

TELEVISION programmes are increasingly “exploitative and cruel”, the chairman of the broadcasting regulator Ofcom has claimed.

Lord Grade of Yarmouth has criticised commissioners and broadcasters for turning up the “exploitation dial” in TV shows in order to chase ratings.

In an interview to be broadcast on Boom Radio on April 21, Lord Grade said: “The exploitation dial has been switched up more and more for ratings. It makes me mad. I really don’t like it or enjoy it.”.

The crossbench peer expressed concern that members of the public are all too often being used on screen in place of “professional entertainers”.

Lord Grade, 81, said: “Television has also become patronising in the sense of: ‘This will do for the audience.’ No mind at work behind it. No real craft thrown in. Just bread and circuses.

“In the old days, professional entertainers used to entertain the public. Now the public are entertaining themselves.”

The Observer newspaper, which first published the interview between presenter Jo Brand and Lord Grade, said the peer does not single out specific programmes for criticism.

But from the BBC’S The Traitors to Netflix’s Love is Blind, reality shows are attracting huge audiences.

Lord Grade took up the £142,500-a-year role of Ofcom chair in May 2022. The appointment required the then Conservative peer to move to the crossbenches in the House of Lords.

He has been at the helm as the regulator has come under increased pressure to investigate broadcasts hosted by serving politicians, particularly on GB News.

Last month Ofcom ruled that GB News episodes presented by three Tory MPS had broken Ofcom’s broadcasting rules on due impartiality.

According to The Observer, in the Boom Radio interview Lord Grade told Jo Brand that he would not comment on any ongoing investigations.

“However, we have to weigh up freedom of expression and the public’s right to know along with the need for balance and impartiality,” he said. “We also don’t want our broadcasters being owned and run for political reasons.”

A seasoned broadcaster, Lord Grade was controller of BBC One in the mid1980s, chief executive of Channel 4 from 1988 to 1997 and the chair of ITV in the late 2000s.

Despite his career history the peer is a BBC critic who has previously argued that the BBC licence fee, which is now £169.50 a year, is “too high”.