On 14/05/2014 11:18, Sacha wrote:
On 2014-05-14 02:06:38 +0000, FrankB said:

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
As for the treatment of Alan Titchmarsh, words just fail me. I'm at a
loss to understand how the BBC would - effectively - ditch a man who
has spent his entire life in horticulture and worked hard and well for
the BBC and humiliate him as they have. It beggars belief and I suspect
the really knowledgeable in horticulture will feel the same. I cannot
count the number of people we know who have stopped watching Gardener's
World and who may well give up on the BBC presentation of Chelsea for
all the same reasons. What a mess! On top of that, Monty Don's
'sidekick' knows little about gardening but her parents have a garden
they open to the public. That being the case, I'm putting forward the
names of all 3 of my children for next year's coverage. They know
bugger all about gardening but not only do their olds have a garden,
one of them owns a Nursery and this garden is open to the public every
day 50 weeks of the year! They'd be a shoo-in on that basis!
--

To be frank (I am) I've never been a fan of AT. I've always found him
patronising and corny. I much prefer Monty Don as a tv gardening
presenter
even though I no longer enjoy GW.but that's more the format tham MD's
fault.
I believe he's probably just as knowledgeable about gardening as AT, even
though he's not a qualified horticulturist. The series he did a few years
ago on Italian gardens was good and I doubt AT could have pulled it off
without driving me mad.

The idea of having a woman presenter is obviously to 'sex up' the
image of
the Chelsea presentation and appeal more to the younger viewer. Sad, but
that's what tv media is much about nowadays.

The matter of which presenter one prefers is very much up to the
individual but this isn't really about that. It's about the BBC's
handling of the situation. They've recently made a big blunder over a
Radio Devon presenter of 32 years' standing and this sort of treatment
of respected figures does the Beeb no favours at all.


No one seems to have taken into account AT having sold his image to B&Q,
and after having him plastered over everything in their stores I'm not
surprised that "Auntie has dropped him.
Whilst Chelsea is a feast of flowers it's also the first event in the
London "Season" so is the place to be seen by many who go there. They
are more interested in knowing if the cameras caught them at the show
than in a bunch of plants and a load of "Hicks from the sticks" who are
crowding up the place.
I speak as one who has been to Chelsea over 25 times and who has also
exhibited there in the days when it was a show for nurserymen to display
their skills rather than big business to employ "names" to design and
build them a garden at almost any cost.
The BBC would show 3 programmes from the show and no one cared who
presented it as long as they got to see the plants.
How about there being a competition each year where say 10 contestants a
week present a 5 minute presentation on a garden of their choice, the
viewers vote and the top 2 from each week go on to a series of semi
finals then to a final where the winner gets to present Chelsea show on
the Beeb.
David@ a very sunny side of Swansea bay for 2 days now.