We’re all the victims of the relentless march of homogenisation, says Dan Mackay.
JANICE Forsyth is getting the chop. It seems that after 18 years her Saturday morning Radio Scotland programme no longer fits the bill or the Beeb’s vision of an evolving schedule which places a greater emphasis to air more speech-based programmes during the day with music shows relegated to the evenings.
Forsyth’s popular show is apparently not “distinctive” enough and will be replaced with more sports programming instead. The decision has left some observers “flabbergasted”, according to reports in The Scotsman.
BBC Scotland is seeking to make savings of £16 million from its annual budget of £102m over the next five years. It is pursuing a strategy of offering radio programmes that are different from rival commercial stations.
Forsyth, who is highly regarded as an intelligent and eclectic presenter, is said to be disappointed. “We had a great run. We know these things can’t go on forever and it’s been a great team effort,” she told The Scotsman.
With its topical mix of music and interviews the Janice Forsyth Show had a proven track record and winning formula with Saturday morning listeners. How can Radio Scotland claim to be offering more distinctive radio by simply airing more (and seemingly more) football-dominated sports?
Don’t get me started!
I’m old enough – you may yawn now, if so inclined – to remember the days when the radio had a far more diverse range of programmes. The same can be said of television. (Yes, despite all the Freeview channels much of the core schedule is a mindless morass of repeats).
It seems we are all, increasingly these days, the victims of the relentless march of homogenisation. For all its assertions that Radio Scotland and BBC Scotland’s radio and television schedules will be distinctive, just how confident can we be?
Sure we all want programmes that are fit for purpose and reflect the social and cultural needs of the day.
But how much faith can we have in the Beeb? What was wrong with Janny’s popular, eclectic Saturday morning show?
And look what’s on the telly. Homes Under the Hammer, Cash in the Attic, Bargain Hunt... You can say they are innocuous but given they are scheduled each and every day – and have been for years – I would suggest, collectively, they have a corrosive effect.
They all obsess about making a quick buck. Their collective drip effect has us fixated on money and profit.
Or you can watch To Buy or Not To Buy, or the likes of Wanted Down Under, and ponder whether your obviously inferior standard of living is better pandered to in grander domestic surroundings – or in Australia!
THESE programmes are not about the needs of real people and communities.
They are neither distinctive nor inspirational. It’s all about “me, me, me” or “more, more, more”.
Alternatively, you could try watching The Secret Millionaire and pray for a messianic figure to rescue our broken communities.
With their emphasis on house buying, antique dealing, lifestyle choices and profit making much of today’s television serves up cheap easy viewing which, I would argue, is not doing anyone any good.
All of which puts me in mind of Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur’s encyclopaedia of modern life called Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit? Described as an encyclopaedic attack on modern culture it is a book that says no to phoney ideas, useless products and the double speak that increasingly dominates our lives. A very funny compendium of bile, it’s said to add up to “an excoriating broadside against consumer capitalism”.
It rails against trends in interior design, celebrity product ranges, bling, the lack of public conveniences, the property ladder and plastic surgery for pets... the list goes on... and on.
The book’s humour is very cutting and takes no prisoners.
There was nothing too amusing watching the CBS documentary, Summer of Love, on telly the other night. It was a look back to 1967 and the Hippy invasion of California that summer.
These were America’s post-war baby boomers who had come to reject societal norms. The US’s global dominance – politically, culturally, militarily, you name it – was assured.
But at the same time the futile Vietnam War was raging and the mood of the people was changing; in some cases influenced by a few mind-altering drugs.
For all that, I found the interviews with dozens of hippies who had congregated on the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco fascinating. Sure there was talk of new cosmic energies, all very mystical, man... and there was a resounding belief that drugs – mostly marijuana and LSD – would change the world. But in there, too, were sound arguments justifying why they had rejected the American dream with its free market economy and its industrialised and increasingly materialistic society which had come to worship the dollar.
As singer Scott Mackenzie’s anthem noted:
“All across the nation such a strange vibration,
People in motion,
There’s a whole generation with a new explanation,
People in motion, people in motion.”
Listen to interviews with the encamped remnants of protestors outside St Paul’s Cathedral and you’ll hear exactly the same arguments today.
Part of the global “occupy” movement, their demands that the world’s resources must go towards “caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich” have a persuasive hippy summer of love echo.
I WAS thinking maybe we need a new hippy countercultural revolution in the world today. One in which individuality with a sense of community responsibility prospered. People not profits. It might just give the bankers and the financial sector a run for their money. Maybe even a few radio and television programme producers too!
A few good vibrations with “Janny back on the tranny”, flowers in her hair... people in motion. Yeah, that’d do it.
