Words Dept.: entry

I feel like I’ve sat through both episodes of ITV1’s The Duchess on the Estate, an unimaginative piece of factual entertainment in which the Duchess of York spends some time on a housing estate in south Manchester and jabbers poshly for a couple of hours about “broken Britain”.

I haven’t, of course. But helpfully the BBC has devoted a healthy chunk of its TV and radio schedules over the past couple of weeks to discussing the programme, interviewing Northern Moor residents and describing at length how they are really pissed off about it all.

The BBC’s coverage started on North West Tonight a fortnight ago. This must have caused considerable glee at ITV, which, I suspect, gave North West Tonight permission to broadcast clips because it correctly predicted the several minutes of free publicity that ensued. The BBC regional bulletins have subsequently followed it up with a new angle, focusing on BBC Radio Manchester’s backing for an alternative film made by Northern Moor residents. And tonight it’s been featured on The One Show, with yet more clips of local residents explaining that ITV sold them down the river, etc, etc.

Presumably the reason this is big news on the BBC is because the programme that has caused such irritation was screened by ITV. Can you imagine The One Show doing a segment about misrepresention of the working classes on television if the programme had been on BBC1?

The One Show’s editor had the sense to wait until the second of the two ITV programmes had been screened before buying into the controversy, thus avoiding the PR circus that has surely boosted ITV’s viewing figures. North West Tonight and BBC Radio Manchester didn’t. Their fixation with ITV’s output must have resulted in a couple of hundred thousand viewers checking the EPG to see when the ITV programme was on – and then tuning in to marinate in their own outrage.

I feel sorry for the people featured in this programme if they’ve been misled by some smooth-talking TV researchers and an even smoother-talking red head who used to be married to Prince Andrew. But really, hasn’t everyone had enough of this now?