BRITISH TELEVISION

British Entertainment Television

Table of Content

Chapter I: Introduction4

Introduction4

Aims and objectives5

British Television Entertainment7

New Genres of Popular TV and Public Service11

Diversity and Change in Public Service Broadcasting13

The Concept of Aggression15

Conceptualization of Realism17

Replicated Reality18

Contextual Reality20

Intention23

Motive24

Reward24

Consequences25

Humor26

Realism27

Chapter II: Literature Review30

The Problem31

Problems facing Television Entertainment for Commercial Broadcasters34

Challenges of public service broadcasting38

While UK broadcasting is under these tremendous pressures, let us have a look at what is going on in the commercial broadcasting world:40

What can we do as UK television broadcasters under these circumstances?43

What are our responsibilities in this situation?43

Chapter III: Discussion/ Result and Conclusion45

Analysis and Conclusions45

Chapter I: Introduction

Introduction

There is no doubt that British Television has taken an ethical turn. By this I do not mean that the pursuit of goodness has replaced the pursuit of profits in network boardrooms. Rather, that ethics have become entertainment. Beyond the phenomenal rise of 'infotainment' there is the emergence of a whole range of new formats, from docusoaps to reality TV to tabloid talk, where everyday ethical dilemmas are very often the source of conflict and content. Growing amounts of television programming now involve examinations of ways to live: information about the care and management of the self, explorations of the tensions between collective versus self-interest, audience participation in quests for the truth of the self.

Surfing channels on almost any night of the week can now take you from a tense confrontation between team members about 'the rules' involved in searching for treasure on an isolated island; to images of a group of landscapers frantically doing good in the backyard of a recent stroke victim. Television is now a relentless reminder of Foucault's observation that life is one long ethical seminar; ethics are where the textual and economic action is in television. This significant shift in programming (that parallels the decline in drama and current affairs) means that television is now deeply implicated in shaping our ethical sensibilities, in marking out fields and activities that warrant ethical attention, in advising us on how to cultivate particular practices and conducts in the interests of realizing ethical goals: use a condom, recycle, eat less fat, get active, share the road, the drain is just for rain. In infotainment, in particular, we can see how ethics operate as a form of selfshaping, as a shifting terrain of practical rules, judgements and techniques for managing the self and its relations with others. But infotainments's version of ethics as a form of personal governance and cultivation is simply one of many.

Televisual ethics are remarkable for their sheer diversity, for a rampant plurality. In the realm of docusoap and reality TV we are not being invited to manage the self, to reflect on ways of being; rather to spectate on simulated ethical crises. Whether we can enter imaginatively into a world of ugly competition, sexual jealousy, deceit and malice is not really the point; maximizing ethical conflict and thoughtlessness for their entertainment value is.

Aims and objectives The aims and objectives of this study is to examine the British Entertainment Television network is ...