The son of John Logie Baird is reported to have said that his father would have been appalled by what modern producers have used his creation for. Malcolm Baird says that his father invented the television with the idea that it would be a force for world peace. The television we watch now certainly seems far removed from this aspiration.
Sixty years after the creator of the television died, Malcolm Baird thinks that his father would be saddened to see programmes such as Big Brother and Celebrity Love Island on our screens. He talks of how his father envisaged TV becoming an educational force, which would bring people together and promote unity.
"People would see how other people lived and recognise the similarities. That would be a force for good." said Mr Baird, "I don't think that is now true."
Mr Baird went on to say that his father might have applauded the concept of BB as a unique social experiment, but that it had now gone too far. Mr Baird says the problem with such shows is that reality is "99% boring".
Much of TV these days would undoubtedly shock John Logie and much of the present population, but I don't think the problem with reality TV is that it is boring. As a concept, I think reality TV is something that the Victorians would have applauded. The notion of opening up a shuttered society and exposing them to people that they normally would not encounter is a genuinely interesting one. Part of the appeal of shows like BB or Celebrity Love Island is the normality of the contestants. The audience can get involved with a group of people that seem just like them.
Early forays into reality TV proved to be huge successes. Wife Swap. BB and Shipwrecked showed normal people in extraordinary situations. The often long periods of tedium in these shows did not damage the viewing figures, they just mirrored parts of everyday life. Obviously TV is also a great medium for escaping reality. But the constant success of these reality programmes shows that TV has a great way of making reality interesting when it is not your own.
John Logie Baird would have good reason to be saddened by the recent attempts at reality TV, which should now be called something else entirely as they show no reality at all. Producers live in constant fear of audience apathy and as a result, have changed the format of these shows so dramatically that they are now the same in name only.
BB1 featured a group of normal people naively put into a house for a (supposedly) serious experiment. This year, the housemates consist of a transsexual, a porn star, a boy with tourettes and a former anorexic. Producers feel the need to provoke, outrage and offend the audience in order to keep their attention. This is a double edged sword. On one hand, BB has been in the headlines almost daily this time around. On the other however, watching these contestants, the viewer sees no similarities to real life, nothing to involve with and nobody to like. With the invention of reality TV, producers could have fulfilled John Logie Bairds idea of unity by opening our eyes to ordinary people and their often amazing situations. Instead it has turned into a farce, with shows like BB encouraging us only to see the divides in our society, in an often cruel and exploitative way.
