The announcement this week that BBC Four is to stop making new programmes and become a largely repeats-only channel – which they are cheekily calling ‘archive’ to make it sound better – is a depressing reminder to viewers of a very long-term trend.
When BBC Four was launched amidst much fanfare in 2002, its slogan was ‘Everybody Needs a Place to Think’. Has the BBC decided that they no longer do? Or perhaps the corporation – in focusing on ‘youth programming’ like BBC Three – thinks it isn’t its job to provide one.
Oh dear. Whatever happened to television? And in particular, the area that BBC Four was particularly supposed to promote: factual and arts television.
Time was when working in television was to work in one of the most exciting industries around. A huge wealth of documentary-making talent showed us how we were living both in this country and abroad – to reveal ‘The World About Us’, as one long-running factual series proclaimed.
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