The BBC's controller of fiction Jane Tranter had a lot to say at a Royal Television Society event last night.
While most of the headlines this morning focused on her denial of repeated speculation that she is about to hot foot it over to the States, she also made some interesting comments about the state of British television drama, not least the assertion that it had now supplanted the novel as the "narrative of our times that gives our lives meaning and shape".
She also encouraged critics and commentators to take television as seriously as films, literature and high art, adding: "The golden age of television drama isn't today, but neither is it yesterday. The golden age is tomorrow."
But is she right? Should TV drama be taken as seriously as other forms of more 'high art'? And has it really supplanted the novel as the "narrative of our times"?
