Der Mut zum Rundfunk ist verloren gegangen, sagt der Schöpfer von Grange Hill

Grange Hill hit on some very heavy subject matters. Could they do the same today i wonder.

I’m genuinely humbled to get a lesson in courage from a gentleman possessed of such a leonine mane of hair

All we get now is really on the nose ‘representation’ that just mirrors twitter politics, which itself is massively skewered by American politics.

I don’t think it’s so much courage has gone out of broadcasting, and moreso there are fewer shows in British broadcasting that *regularly* tackle these hard hitting subject matters. Take the recent Doctor Who Christmas Special. Doctor Who isn’t a show known for tackling those heavy subject matters often, but there was a moment where the character, Joy, was having her mind taken over by a star, and to break the connection to her, the Doctor needed to overwhelm Joy. He quickly found that talking about Joy’s mother was a sore subject and we got this beautiful scene where Joy broke down, at it’s revealed the reason she was spending Christmas alone was because during the pandemic, because of the rules she had to leave her mother alone to die in a hospital on Christmas day. It was very powerful delivery, and a hard hitting moment that a lot of people praised. It’s just not what Doctor Who is known for doing.

Grange Hill certainly handled a lot more of that stuff, which is extra impressive considering it’s target demographic was teenageers. But I understand the point of there being space for a show like that. There’s nothing that immediately springs to mind in British broadcasting at the very least

When there are 4 channels people watch what you make. When there are 400 you have to make what people want to watch.

It’s the same with print media: you have to print what people want to read. Truth and investigative journalism and balance and perspective and nuance all go bankrupt.

TV is boring now tbh, you can’t do anything even remotely edgy without fear of getting people moaning when they don’t simply change the channel.

I remember the best and most memorable moment of I’m a celeb was when Johnny Rotten just flat out called the viewing public fucking cunts for not voting him out.