Emily Bell, Guardian News and Media' director of digital content, agrees with Jeremy Paxman's belief that TV executives should spend "a bit less time measuring audiences and bit more time enlightening them". In a Comment Is Free piece, she adds:
"Paxman is absolutely spot on with his assessment that while new technologies are disestablishing TV's monasteries, most of the anxiety is centred on the whereabouts of the chattels rather than the threat to the ideology."
Steve Hewlett, also writing for Cif, says Paxman identified the problems facing TV but not their causes. Hewlett suggests that at the BBC, current problems stem from a shift that happened in the late 80s and early 90s, when money - and commissioning power - moved from programming departments to channel controllers.
