Dear RTE, enough of the lifestyle programmes already
ByThis has been on my mind for quite a while now. Curry Chips talked about it last week. Will Leahy’s interview with Lucy Kennedy and Jade Goody this evening to promote “Livin’ with Lucy” brought it to mind again. I’m talking about lifestyle/reality based programmes that have become a staple part of RTE output.
The latest in this genre is airing tomorrow night. It’s called ‘The Ultimate Guide to Everything’. Each week, 2 volunteers will take a self help book and live by its rules to see if it makes a difference to their lives. The two subjects this week are ‘unlucky in love’ and will use Superdate to change their fortunes.
Is this not beyond scraping the bottom of the barrel?. I’ve come up with some crazy half baked ideas in my time, but I generally have a clue that they are exactly that – crazy half baked ideas. It really galls me to think that license fee money is being spent on drivel like this and I just wonder what drugs the RTE programme controllers are taking if they can’t spot crazy half baked ideas.
One of the 2 subjects on the first programme of the Ultimate Guide is ‘Single mother Lynette’ (quoting the Sunday Business Post description).
Here is how she appears in the, presumably, official promo shots for the episode. Sorry for the bad quality image.
Here is how she appeared in the Sunday World yesterday.
This just goes to prove that people who volunteer themselves for this show are either publicity hungry or just seeking their 4 minutes of fame – all paid for by you and me. Far worse than this is the sheer waste of airtime these shows are. It’s just popcorn – cheap, stale, fart inducing popcorn and it has to stop.
Just look at the list of programmes that RTE are seeking volunteers to participate in. Overkill, no? I’m not saying no to any lifestyle type programme, but do we have to have so many of them?
If this is the route RTE want to stick with, maybe I should try pitching an idea to them myself.
It’s called ‘The Redundant’. 14 recently-made-redundant volunteers will compete to spend a portion of their final paycheck in the most reckless way possible during a pre-defined task. Think of it like The Apprentice in reverse and heavily influenced by Brewster’s Millions. The person fired each week is the one who either:
– fails to spend the allocated portion of their money completely with no assets to show for it
- is judged not to have spent their money stupidly enough.
The Redundant really has it all and is perfect for the economic climate we’re in. I think this is almost ready to be pitched to RTE. With another paragraph or two I’m sure it is ready for prime time.
Watch this space….
7 Comments
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Oh dear. All the warning signs are certainly there.
Reality TV in a wide variety of forms has ruined British TV for years (from Big Brother to Wife Swap, The Apprentice to Location, Location, Location).
They’ve all had a really damaging impact – greed is good; ignorance is bliss; aspirations are out of control and out of proportion to individual talent. It even impacts on the news – the BBC provides info-tainment these days, not news.
No-one is prepared to work for anything these days – they want it handed to them on a plate, “like those folk on that reality show”.
It even taints property shows – suddenly everyone aspires to an enormous “family kitchen” where everyone can sit around watching whoever cook their Nigella Lawson creation; they want en-suites for all 5 bedrooms; they want nice neighbours but they don’t want road noise or any noise. They want to show off the size of their budget, but they don’t want to mention the crippling 100% mortgage that is funding the lifestyle that the TV tells them they should have.
Anyway, what do I know?
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:50 am
Excellent analysis Paul – it’s all catering to Status Anxiety – was that made up by Alan de Bottoin (think that’s his name) – but it’s very real and fuelled by a lot of those programmes you mention.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
I had been working on a rant (sorry, considered article) on the property shows in particular and you’ve indirectly helped to focus my mind. The fact that one of the Beeb’s shows I’d been following is now postponed to accommodate the snooker also helps.
It is a chicken and egg question – do our aspirations fuel TV, or does TV fuel our aspirations?
No easy answers.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
interesting that you made a point of illustrating the disparity between ‘Single mother Lynette’ in the promo shot and her spread in the Sunday World (pun intended). what were you getting at?
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Wasn’t getting at anything Rosie. I was quoting the blurb from the Business Post. Using the photo from the Sunday World was just to illustrate the point of participants being publicity hungry. If she’d been described as ‘Company Director Lynette’ or ‘Hospital Consultant Lynette’, I’d have used that as a description and still used the Sunday World photos to illustrate my point. What did you think I was getting at because I honestly don’t know and I’m assuming you did think I was getting at something? or maybe you’ve made me paranoid now.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
i did think you were getting at something, i wasn’t sure what though (it wasn’t a rhetorical question or a rebuke, is what i mean!). probably more my paranoia about how women are depicted in the media than any paranoia on your part.
on an unrelated note, is there a way to subscribe to the comments on your posts? i keep forgetting which ones i’ve chimed in on and then i arrive back to conversations (such as this one) long after my train of thought has left the station…
April 30th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I’ll check out the comments thing for you, I have the same problem myself with other blogs as well.