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bjb406 t1_iyevjja wrote

I don't know what that has to do with poorer backgrounds. But I know TV in general the last few years has become fucking obsessed with "dark" shows. Like Stranger things and American Horror Story, okay, they did really well financially and a lot of people like them because they're really out there. Squid Game more recently, there's a niche for that, but its like everything now. They turned the Sabrina remake into a dark show. They made Riverdale a dark show, which is just bizarre. I don't watch tv so that I can experience a pervasive, never ceasing sense of existential dread. I get enough of that from my life.

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Turqoise-Planet t1_iyf1yfq wrote

I think the implication is that poorer people generally have unhappier and less fulfilling lives. So, they're less likely to want to indulge in dark and depressing shows, since their real lives are already depressing enough. Instead, they might prefer lighter escapist stuff to take their minds off their problems.

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Lamacorn t1_iyfct75 wrote

TIL that I am poor by these standards, as are post people I know.

A dark show here and there is great, but for fuck sake can we just have something fun once in awhile?

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Skavau t1_iyf403b wrote

Ted Lasso, Pachinko, Heartstopper, Schmigadoon, The Good Life, Schitt's Creek, My Brilliant Friend

I mean most sitcoms too

And a lot of Korean TV is slushy as hell

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speedheart t1_iyf3c0x wrote

I strongly feel that Riverdale does not belong on this list lol. mainly because Riverdale is perfect and has never done anything wrong ever

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yeahwellokay t1_iyetlfa wrote

How about a TV show entirely in Cockney rhyming slang.

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Knife2MeetYouToo t1_iyf67js wrote

...why are you assuming the 'poorer backgrounds' are cockney or Irish?

They are referring to the huge influx of 'refugees' that they currently have.

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CategorySad6121 t1_iyf97hn wrote

I don’t know why but when I first read this headline I thought it meant lighter in terms of cinematography 💀

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TooSmalley t1_iyf0uz4 wrote

To be fair a bunch of the “prestige” British dramas gives me the impression y’all a bunch of miserable dudes over there. Broadchurch, The Bodyguard, Luther, Marcella … stuffs so bleak.

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thorpie88 t1_iyfa5wz wrote

BBC itself just makes me think of comedies already. The Young Ones, Faulty Towers, Red Dwarf, Blackadder, Mighty Boosh and probably way more I'm forgetting.

Even Jonathan Creek was a light hearted murder mystery show about a magician that solved crimes.

They have a good track record with this stuff so it's good to go back to their roots but it's such a weird way to describe their plan

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stalinmalone68 t1_iyf25yh wrote

It’s awesome. Well written and well acted. Better than the mindless reality dreck that permeates American tv.

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velifer t1_iyf60if wrote

Is this a clandestine attempt to privatise even faster?

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ledow t1_iyf9ptz wrote

a.k.a. let's dumb down everything to celeb shite, so that our core purpose of existing (to educate the populous, and not dumb down) and the reason for our funding is completely destroyed once and for all.

I mean, one day the BBC will be gone. I just hoped never to have seen it. But to be honest, broadcast TV is dead.

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ivorygoldmine t1_iyfc8qx wrote

So they should be! If you re-word the argument, the BBC is publically-funded and as such it should provide content that the public want to see. They doesn’t mean it’s not going to continue making lots of other types of programmes too, but they’ve found a groups they’re not serving and thinking of ways to serve them.

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exophrine t1_iyf0syf wrote

So this is the bright idea that someone got out of a focus group?

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do_or_pie OP t1_iyetykw wrote

OFCOM: Hmm, how can we fuck with you BBC. You don't serve ITV's audience, make their shittest programming.

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anasui1 t1_iyerpfm wrote

"ignorant content for ignorant people", more like

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Dry-Mortgage5063 t1_iyeuhj6 wrote

"Hey, people from poorer backgrounds seem to prefer comedies and light drama. We should make some more of those."

Enlightened redditor: "Those ignorant fucks. Those addlepated simpletons!"

?????????????????????????

The people on this website were bullied for a reason.

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ledow t1_iyfae0d wrote

The BBC and licence fee were operated mostly on the basis that they wouldn't fall foul to just "crass entertainment", but carry educational programmes (e.g. the entire Open University lectures for decades), fund insightful and non-commercial programmes (e.g David Attenborough for decades), do the things that paid-for commercial channels wouldn't do (e.g. Children In Need, intellectual quizzes like Only Connect, etc.) because everyone else just wanted to appeal to your eyes, not your brain.

It's drifted away from that just in my time of watching it, let alone of late where it seems to be accelerating.

And - a bit like the NHS - the current government want it to look bad so they can justify scrapping it because it's an expense. Paying to educate the riffraff for free?! So they want to scrap the licence fee, force it to produce inane content and turn even an intellectual format into nothing but yelling, the same dozen comedians and nob gags (e.g. QI), wait for it to die, remove funding, force it to compete, then kill it off when it's not profitable.

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Dry-Mortgage5063 t1_iyfb9mg wrote

Well I don't care about your brit bong tv dynamics. But considering the BBC's most famous and successful show is some bullshit about a wonky space wizard, or whatever, and that's like 80 years old, it seems like it's never been what you describe.

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EpicPJs t1_iyfcjeo wrote

Sherlock, Faulty Towers, Blackadder, Line of Duty. All produced by BBC and all a extremely popular and quotable worldwide.

No need for the hostile attitude.

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ledow t1_iyfe06s wrote

Dr Who is shite. Sorry, but it really is. It's literally the kind of thing we're talking about. It was a trash sci-fi from the 60's that didn't go "cult" until what... the 00's? It's like people going ape over a Thunderbirds remake.

The BBC produced some of the best programmes in existence over the years - not churning them out constantly 24/7 for decades, that's impossible, but it produced a LOT of great stuff that other channels wouldn't touch.

Literally, the BBC Micro was invented to go along with BBC programmes to teach kids in the 80's how to use this new fangled thing called a home computer. They commissioned many series of programmes, the actual hardware (the BBC Micro, giving rise to Acorn/ARM's fame! The chip that's INSIDE YOUR PHONE NOW) , etc.

Schools showed BBC programmes directly during the day for lessons. Entire generations grew up with BBC programmes in their classrooms, then went and learned BBC BASIC on a BBC Micro.

The OU literally has millions of degree-level graduates who owe their degree to late night lectures on BBC2 that NOBODY else would dedicate air-time to, and the BBC basically funded them, gave them the facilities to make them, and put millions through university who couldn't afford it, have time off work to go to university or get the materials any other way.

BBC iPlayer was also ground-breaking. They invented their own codecs to make it work.

Not to even mention the World Service, etc.

Sorry, but if you think that Dr Who shit was what the BBC was about, you've already fallen for the con they want you to.

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PaxNova t1_iyf0y5x wrote

There's no good reason for bullying.

But yeah, I get it.

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do_or_pie OP t1_iyew43g wrote

ITV1 is famous for not having a decent sitcom in years, they have given up on comedy unless it is inadvertently black comedy in having a chance for someone's heating to be paid for over the winter, but do continue to project your own insecurities onto everyone else.

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Dry-Mortgage5063 t1_iyewq9b wrote

Did you...read the article you posted?

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do_or_pie OP t1_iyeylo0 wrote

Yep, it says comedy drama, but you wrote comedy in a rush to have a go at anyone who might chip in.

Maybe you should have read it more closely.

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Sad_Ad9159 t1_iyf6lz0 wrote

“You said ‘comedy and light drama’ and the article said ‘comedy-drama’! Such a faux-pas! What an imbecile! A complete buffoon! Now, do excuse me while I huff my farts from a snifter.”

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