On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 08:51:30 +0100, Stan The Man wrote:

On 2011-04-04 18:12:22 +0100, Sacha said:

On 2011-04-04 17:28:44 +0100, Derek said:

http://www.gardenersclick.com/garden...me_announ ced
www.lincolnfuchsiasociety.info

It

will

be interesting to see how this one works. I'm never quite sure what's
meant by a 'magazine format'!

Lots of different strands, I presume. Gardeners' World comes in
magazine format too - although doubtless more coffee table than mass
market. I would expect ITV to be more down-market, possibly with
competitions, viewers' gardens, giveaways, DIY, product reviews, etc. I
hope so anyway -- GW caters for the keen gardener but that's only
around 5% of the people who have to maintain their garden.

That's the trouble, though: I think with gardening we may have come up
against the barrier beyond which TV as a medium can't actually go. TV
isn't going to inform the already informed in *any* subject: beyond a
certain level, it can only offer interesting sightseeing and the
occasional new technique, and if you want "A" Level, as it were, or
above, you have to look in books. By its nature, it can't deal with
complexity.

So I reckon Stan's described a pretty good format for Mr and Mrs
Non-Enthusiast-Gardener. But you watch the tellyteers stuff it with
irrelevant celebs, book-pluggers, fake flirtation, and all their usual
patronising dollops: they won't be able to resist it. I bet a quid for
Oxfam the very first edition will include at least one instance of
pretending not to be able to pronounce, or spell, a gardening word;
and, for another quid, within two episodes somebody will have
simperingly said something about not being good at simple arithmetic.
No, that's stingy: let's make it a fiver on the double.

--
Mike.