S Poddar
Carol Vorderman has launched a scathing attack on the decline of the TV industry—blaming it on alienating working-class viewers who get their representation on social media instead. During her alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV festival, former Countdown host Vorderman delivered a withering assessment of the current state of television, citing how people have been driven away from traditional media simply because the industry does not reflect working-class life.
Vorderman pointed out that many working-class people simply don’t see their lives represented on TV anymore. “Their situation is not represented, the lack of opportunities and lack of money and jobs is not represented,” she said. With social media becoming, very quickly, the platform of choice for so many, she underlined how its impact has come to realign society and disrupt television. “Social media – no longer the new kid, more like the badly behaved uncle – has changed our society and it’s rules, and it is decimating our industry as we know it. And with good reason.”
Vorderman, looking back at her career spanning decades, told of what she sees as pervasive snobbery within the television industry. She then returned this elitism to a broader social malaise – the race riots that have recently swept through parts of the UK. “The rich and powerful corrupting politics,” she said. “The upper middles taking broadcast for themselves. The increasingly absurd rightwing newspaper headlines being promoted by political programmes. What has this got to do with class? Everything. Literally everything.”
Vorderman did not mince words in pointing fingers at the television industry over its role in sowing the seeds of today’s social chaos. Following 14 years of austerity and misleading policies classed as the political elite, the country was in a state of turmoil to which, according to her, the TV industry must accept its responsibilities—including that which pertains to the riots. She has also slated the decision to have Nigel Farage, Reform UK leader, appear on ITV’s *I’m a Celebrity.Get Me Out of Here! *.
Vorderman argued that this move was setting the normalization of Farage’s very divisive views and that deeply troubled her. By contrast, earlier in the festival, ITV’s managing director Kevin Lygo tried to defend Farage’s participation—indicating an industry division over the matter. Vorderman, who introduced herself with the words “Pain in the arse, lover of parties, post-menopausal,” said she feared for the future of television in general, citing figures from Ofcom that show the audience is shrinking. Fewer than half of young people now watch live television in an average week, according to the July report.
Even the 45-54 age group, which typically sticks to linear TV, saw a slump in viewership from 89 percent to 84 percent year-over-year.
For Vorderman, the problem lies in the fact that so much of what is offered by traditional media seems out of kilter with the lives of many viewers. “People feel lost,” she said, and the sources from which millions of people get their news and information are seen as removed from their experience. She feels very much like playwright James Graham, the writer of Sherwood and Ink, who also spoke at the festival. In his MacTaggart lecture, Graham underlined that just 8% of the British film and TV industry hails from working-class backgrounds—thereby putting an exclamation mark on the deficiency in diversity within the industry and how cut off it is from the larger population. “If you see a person, or a character, who looks like you or sounds like you on screen, whose experience or dilemmas, or joy, reflects your own … you feel more seen,” Graham said. “There is a catharsis there, for audiences.
A validation.” Against this background of concerns, Graham announced an agreement to collaborate with the TV Foundation, a charitable arm of the Edinburgh TV festival, in establishing the Impact Unit. It will provide a social mobility bursary and also monitor progress on class representation in the industry—something like an attempt at linking television content to the different audiences it is trying to reach.
