Have to say I agree with a lot of what he says, although to fair to Auntie Beeb, there is some great lower budget factual programming hidden away on BBC4. Full article from Mail Online:=================================================================
Sir David Attenborough - BBC is all cookery and quizzes: Veteran broadcaster criticises lack of hard-hitting documentary series like Civilisation and Life On Earth - Sir David, 88, was controller of BBC Two in the 1960s and 1970s
- There is now a shortage of highbrow programmes about science, natural history and music on BBC
- Presenter has made a new BBC One natural history series called Life Story
- Doesn't watch quiz shows because he has 'quite a lot to do'
Sir David Attenborough has accused the BBC of making too many cookery programmes and quiz shows and not enough landmark documentaries.
He said the corporation’s decision-making is so slow it is no longer able to produce classic series such as Civilisation or Life on Earth.
Instead, our screens are dominated by quiz shows, drama series and cookery programmes such as the BBC’s The Great British Bake Off, all of which he refuses to watch.
The veteran wildlife presenter said he was able to make some of his greatest programmes because he had the freedom to pursue his ideas – and health and safety was treated as a ‘joke’.
But he suggested he would no longer be able to make them under the current stifling management culture. ‘The trouble is, the BBC falls over backwards with all kinds of committees and surveys to make sure that [the commissioning process] is as fair as it can possibly be, but the consequence is it moves at an elephantine pace,’ he told the Radio Times.
Sir David, 88, was controller of BBC Two in the 1960s and 1970s and commissioned some of the corporation’s best known series, such as Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation in 1969. The following decade, he made his own landmark documentary, Life on Earth, which also ran for 13 episodes.
But he said there is now a shortage of long-running highbrow programmes about subjects such as science, natural history and music on the BBC. ‘There are a great number of subjects that aren’t covered,’ he added.
Sir David accused station controllers of being obsessed by just a few genres that become ‘flavour of the month’.
The presenter, who has made a new BBC One natural history series called Life Story, added: ‘I don’t watch any cookery programmes, whether they are competitive, whether it’s the Great Bake Off, or… I don’t watch quizzes either. I mean, they’re perfectly OK – I’m not being snobbish about them – but I’ve quite a lot to do and I don’t put on the television as a sort of “filler”.’
His comments came after actor Charles Dance, 68, criticised British TV drama directors. ‘I don’t think enough risks are being taken in drama television in the UK and I think a lot of programme makers are underestimating the intelligence of the viewing public, basing it all on ratings,’ he told The Guardian.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘With current shows like Wonders of the Monsoon, and the forthcoming series Life Story, the BBC’s reputation for producing world-class natural history programming is as strong today as it’s ever been.’