I've been stirred into activity, several weeks after realising I don't have very much to say about television any more, partly because I'm supposed to be speaking at this Interesting 2007 conference, (neatly ironic since this blog is supposed to be about boring stuff) and partly by someone else doing what I'm doing, but much more effectively.
I'll be rehashing some of what I said here about "How TV Shows Get made", which was part of a general gripe about not being able to sell programme ideas to broadcasters . In the last couple of months, however, I've had a bit more success, and do you know? it seems to have altered my opinion about the process. I'm now shamefacedly looking at the failure = cynicism and cynicism ="blogging about it" equations.
Having foolishly registered a blog with my name in the address, I prevented myself from writing one of those bitchy, sniping and often quite funny blogs which get rapidly circulated around the business and get loads of hits and notoriety and people asking "I wonder who it is?"
Being a bit boring, I thought it was too risky to grumble overtly, and even under a pseudonym the chances of being rumbled are pretty high and I don't fancing changing my job just yet. Also it seemed to be more of a challenge to try and describe what it's really like in tv without slagging people off - although my running out of things to say after 20 posts suggests it was probably too much of a challenge.
So it's interesting to look at the latest hot blog in the tv business thetvcontroller and wonder what is driving the author, because the attention to detail and the undercurrent of vitriol is remarkably strong.
There's clearly a lot of talent in whoever has written it - it's possible that they have been frustrated by certain people targetted in the blog, although if the author's the person I think it is, they have had plenty of stuff commissioned in the last few years.
Maybe they just have a burning desire to expose what is going on inside tv at the highest level and, fair play to them, it has hoodwinked quite a few people into thinking it's real. There is such a clear identification of individuals and such strong claims are made about them that I wouldn't be surprised if the law became involved quite soon.
So if you want to get an insider's view of what you think it might really be like in tv, you should take a look. If you don't like cyber-bullying, maybe it's not for you.
