On May 28, 6:44 pm, "Bob Hobden" wrote:
"'Mike'" wrote ...



Who or what is the target audience?

A) The complete new person to gardening? In that case the celebrity is not
required, someone who can put things over in an interesting and
informative way. Someone who remembers that they too once knew nothing
about gardening, but doesn't talk down to the beginner.

B) Someone who has been gardening in their patch for years to keep it
'nice looking' but doesn't know the names of plants, other that it is a
'Rose', a 'Daffodil' (I think or is that the Tulip?) and would like to get
their fingers a little more dirty in the garden and experiment and be
encouraged? Then someone as in A) but a bit more of a 'household name' but
not the celebrity

C) The person who knows it all and the TV Programmes are just for them to
criticise?

The great unwashed who, it has been decided by the producers, want to be
entertained without engaging brain. You only have to look at what's on offer
every evening to see that. Personally I tend to only watch documentaries,
the news, and scientific programs but they seem to be getting fewer and more
dumbed down too.

This is a function of two processes:
1) aging; as I get older, I find TV more and more trite; when I was
younger TV was also mainly rubbish but we tend to remember the best
bits. We were easier to impress then. I was anyway. When I was a
kid we had one channel (RTE; Irish TV); then when I was a teenager, we
had 3 more (BBC1,2 and ITV (from Northern Ireland if we were lucky or
Wales if you were less so). This was exotic and exciting at the
time. In retrospect it was probably mainly dull drivel but I have
fond memories.
2) the real world. The BBC used to be able to do as it liked. This
included stuff to help the general improvement of society and it could
quite happily put on very non commercial programming just because they
thought it was good for you. This resulted in patronising drivel and
brilliantly educational and or entertaining (e.g. Monty Python) TV,
side by side. These days, they have to compete more and more in a
lowest common denominator driven commercial world. They can show less
and less of the weird stuff and have to show more and more stuff that
will pull in the ratings.

You notice it with particular series like Horizon. That used to be a
very high-brow show with expensive production values and lots of
boffins working on weird stuff. These days, I have been horrified at
some of the shows. They seem to show you nothing much for a whole
show or do very politically correct; touchy feely science.

The BBC and C4 are still my favourite channels and I am very lucky to
get them. Gardeners World is doomed to be a lifestyle, glossy coffee
table magazine type show if it is to be shown at 8.00 or 8.30pm on
Fridays. That is commercial reality. Punters do not like latin names
or complicated procedures. They want entertaining male presenters and
glamorous wimmin doing things with diggers and champagne and low cut
overalls. Put in latin names and real world muck and it will be much
more interesting to me and will get axed.

Disgruntled in DUblin




The person in C does not exist, nobody knows everything about
gardening/plants. I've been gardening all my life but almost every week I
learn something new on here and elsewhere.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden