I'm sure that the Mail on Sunday's editor Peter Wright thought long and hard before deciding to do away with television reviews. But, like the reviewer Jaci Stephen, who has lost her job, I think he is wrong.
Wright's reasoning is based on the view that mass audiences for single programmes are very rare in an age of multichannel TV. The viewing figures certainly bear that out. However, certain programmes still manage to become the central topics for water cooler conversation. And TV continues to shape what might be called "the national conversation."
It remains the case that the main TV networks still attract the bulk of the British TV audience. Moreover, that audience is as great - or even greater - than the one enjoyed by most national newspapers. All mainstream media is seeing its audiences diminish, but that is surely not a good reason to decamp altogether.
Here's what Wright said: "TV has changed and in a multichannel age I'm afraid I just don't think reviews have the appeal they had in the past." But is it not possible to argue the opposite, that TV reviews have an appeal because they tell people what they have been missing? Their appeal lies in giving people who have not watched certain programmes a glimpse of what they missed.
Then there is the special appeal of the writer, the enjoyment that a reader can have in simply reading regardless of whether they watched or did not watch, whether they plan to watch or will never watch. Stephen, for example, is a talented writer who is so readable that it doesn't matter whether one is interested in the particular programme she is reviewing.
I think Wright is overlooking the enjoyment his readers may derive from reading Stephen even if they never switch on the TV. She is the kind of high-profile writer who is a key part of the Mail on Sunday package. Her departure will surely be a loss.
