BBC Told to Place Entertainment at Heart of Service--

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

5//The Independent, UK Published: 15 March 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article351369.ece



BBC TOLD TO PLACE ENTERTAINMENT AT HEART OF SERVICE

By Ciar Byrne, Media Correspondent



Tessa Jowell has urged the BBC to "take fun seriously", place high quality entertainment at the heart of its schedules and not confine itself to worthy programming.



Unveiling the Government's White Paper on the future of the BBC, the Culture Secretary said one of the clearest messages to emerge from a public consultation on last year's Green Paper was a concern that the Government was in danger of losing sight of the importance of entertainment to the BBC.



Ms Jowell said: "Licence- fee payers told us it all sounded a bit worthy. What they cared about most was getting BBC programmes they wanted to watch and listen to. So the White Paper makes entertainment central to the BBC's mission. The BBC should continue to take fun seriously engraining entertainment into its services.

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[antigone382]

1. Umm, can we have all the leftover "worthy" programming?

Seeing as we don't really have any of our own...they can have some of our "entertaining" shows...like "The OC," or any of the CSI spin-offs.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. No time for the truth!

Just like in America...

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. England needs endless discussions of white girls gone missing

as much as any country wanting to distract from it's horrible crimes. Television! It's the crack cocaine of mind control.

[kestrel91316]

4. Of course. Give the proles their bread and circuses and they won't

even know or care what we are doing behind their backs.

Quick! More choco-rations, too!

[slaveplanet]

5. Tsk, tsk, Tessa, drowning em with trash TV is a Hollywood game

But then again, keeping the fact that your hubby stood to make bigtime bucks selling airplane parts to Iran (in the face of sanctions) might well be obscured with such a strategery.

Too bad he lied about being the owner of the company.

Tessa Jowell minister of distraction.