Paxo fronting C4 election coverage!
Straker
Posts: 79,631 Forum Member
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29345406
Good on C4. Always thought it odd that the Beeb sidelined him to a supporting role at election time.
Good on C4. Always thought it odd that the Beeb sidelined him to a supporting role at election time.
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He's still doing University Challenge for BBC2. If it's like the programme C4 did in 2010 it will be an ''alternative'' election night which (C4 claimed) beat the ITV results programme in the ratings.
I very much doubt they would get Paxman to front a programme like that.
I was really disappointed that Channel 4 ran the programme they did at the last election.What I respect about Channel 4's news output is that they attempt to take a more independent angle on covering current affairs. In 2010 they had a fantastic chance to replicate their news coverage with a serious election programme and instead they bottled it by going for cheap satire, hosted by Brooker, Mitchell etc.
It seems to me that Channel 4 spends far too much time, effort and money in trying to be "weird" or "shocking" in their programme commissioning. I'm sure the senior team congratulate themselves on being "provocative" but I personally don't find it at all impressive.
I hope they use Paxman properly as the anchor of a high quality election night coverage which is less dumbed down than Sky News / BBC efforts.
Channel 4's entire remit is to provide 'alternative' programming - i.e. different from the BBC and ITV. It's on this basis that it receives licence fee funding. I agree that it's left leaning current affairs coverage is a good balance to Sky and ITN but I don't see how this applies to election coverage which by definition is just the reporting of the facts.
Saying the above, I think there is scope for Channel 4 to provide a fair more analytical coverage than the dumbed-down version we see on both the BBC and ITV. The US elections gave a lot of good examples of how to report and analyse figures so that you are actually informing the viewer on voting behavior rather than hearing the same tired cliches from talking heads.
"This is a great indication of our ability to win up and down the country, it gives us hope that this is going a good night for us.
"This is disappointing but our polling indicated we may struggle in this seat. We're still confident of having a good night.
"If we blindly put this result into a basic swingometer we can see what would happen if every constituency voted in the same way - which they don't"
Thank you, you have made the point better than I was able to.
I can't really imagine him in that role. (I blame Alistair McGowan).
I love election nights (if not the results). I've already booked the Friday off!
I feel like i am in a minority of one sometimes but i cannot abide Brooker sneering at everything. To have an element of satire in an election show is a great thing to do (I remember Spitting Immage puppets in 87) but i really didn't like the 2010 C4 offering.
Mind you, i'm sure everyone will steer clear of interviewing boozed up celebs on a party boat on the Thames!
Channel 4 doesn't receive any funding from the TV licence.
http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/faq/name/does-channel-4-get-any-of-the-licence-fee/id/400286880
It is a PSB though.
Apologies - I always thought it did. It must just be part of it's broadcasting licence then.
Yup.
Yes. The Thatcher Government created Channel 4 to provide alternative programming to cater for minority interests. By this, they meant opera, ballet etc.
Those that ran Channel 4 had a different idea about what their remit meant. These included programmes for the gay, black communities etc.
It really was created as "the alternative voice"; much more liberal, risk taking and off-message than it s now.
To some it is indeed strange that the Tories created it in that form, but in many ways not so strange.
There were three factors, two of which were directly counter-posed.
(1)
Clearly any Tory would loathe this idea, but there was one aspect that was inciting. The creation of a funded publisher/broadcaster would facilitate the growth of the independent broadcast sector, a sort of fusion between the ethos of a light film industry and those talented individuals pissed-off with working at the BBC or ITV.
This linked in with (2)
The counter-posing problem was that the Tories certainly weren't going to fund it out of the public sector, not even by advancing seeding capital. The only solution was to tap into ITV's licence to burn loadsamoney - sorry I mean their cash-flow. This met up with the third factor (3) :kitty: The City and the Stock market.
Naturally these kitties quite liked ITV company stock, nice little earner it was. Therefore, the Tories weren't going to get away with setting up a competing ITV of rival companies (even though their own original television Act said that they must). That would have competed away commercial television profit, and look too much like capitalism (which Thatcher certainly wasn't, although Keith Joseph probably was)
The solution was a lovely British hybrid of a compromise. Something that (apparently) had the ethos of Annan's OBA, something that didn't abstract ITV's earnings and something that led to the re-organisation of the production side of the telly business into what we see today.
They even got to put a real establishment heavyweight in charge of it. And, for accounting purposes and pure style place it in the IBA VAT group, giving that little quango a nice cash-flow boost!
Number two here!
Although I quite liked the Alternative Election Night, and 10 O'Clock Live.
What evidence do you have ?
Instead of a swingometer, Jamie Oliver will provide a pie chart.
Paxman wrote an article in my newspaper where he admitted that he was and always has been a Conservative party supporter. He added of course (as Conservatives always do) something basically claiming to be one of the better ones, they usually claim to be 'compassionate', or 'one nation'. Also even this thread assumes that he is to be on Channel 4's TV election coverage. That accords with whet I have heard on TV and re3ad in the papers.
So my evidence is that he wrote it himself, claiming to be a Conservative and that the appearance has been trumpeted abroad..
What is your evidence denying it?
Regardless of whether they are blue, red, yellow or purple (!) all you would ask is that they are professional in their work. Did Paxman ever show any bias or loyalty towards Conservative interviewees? I don't think so and Michael Howard would certainly say that he did not.
I would suggest that for journalists in this country who feel strongly about politics in one direction or the other there is more risk to us as viewers that they over compensate in their interviews.
There are far more noticeably biased journalists than Paxo - most of them working for Sky News - however that is more about editorial decision making than it is about personal beliefs for the most part.
The same applies to civil servants. They are sensible enough to separate their personal views from their professional duties and enact policies that they might not agree with. Journalists are in the same position: it would be extremely unprofessional for them to let their own biases leak into their work and (in the UK, at least) it is a very rare occurrence.
The whole issue of their personal politics is irrelevant.