Sharing

TV and the internet don't seem to me to be natural partners. The internet is based on the principle of sharing information and ideas and making everything cheaper.
TV is about owning and jealously guarding ideas and extracting as much money as possible from them - this is why the whole tv-on-demand, downloaded 360 degree multi-whatnot-convergence has been so painful and will be so costly for the tv business. Who owns what and how much do they get for it? is the overriding question.
TV is also about credit. TV people more than anyone else, except maybe film people, love to be appreciated and noticed, hence the huge list of er, credits that appear on the end of certain shows. I once counted about 8 people on the credits of Frazier, who had 'producer' in the title.
The tv business and people who write about it love to apportion credit as well as blame to individuals, even if they had nothing actually to do with the show at any point.
Michael Grade left the BBC as Chairman just before Christmas 2006, and in several newspaper profiles he was named as "the man behind the successful relaunch of Dr. Who." Not only did he have nothing to do with it, he had actually scrapped Dr. Who when he was controller of BBC1. Often when a journalist refers to a tv person as "the man behind" a show, it's probably fairer to say "The man who stood next to the show when someone else was making it."
So as someone who works in tv, I am reluctant to share some of my more creative thoughts on here, despite the fact that anyone who did see them might have something constructive to say about them eg forget it.
Therefore, I have often marvelled at top blogger Russell Davies' willingness to share his thinking, and occasionally good ideas for books, with any number of people who might be prepared to nick them. I suppose there's some security in knowing that each post has a date and time on it (better than sending something to yourself by mail and hoping the postmark is legible) and that, given tv's natural antipathy to the internet, no-one in the business will think of looking here.

Comments

[neil]

Rich. You have a blog. What's going on? Next thing you'll have an iPod and a personal fitness consultant and a pair of Prada sandals. I like it, though.