Sir Patrick: Blame women for bad TV
Eccentric astronomer Sir Patrick Moore has claimed that TV is worse today because the BBC is run by women.
The presenter of The Sky At Night also belittled female newsreaders in an interview with Radio Times, describing them as "these jokey women".
Sir Patrick, 84, criticised the BBC for showing interesting programmes very late at night, especially the 650th edition of The Sky At Night, which was put out at 2am.
"The trouble is that the BBC now is run by women and it shows: soap operas, cooking, quizzes, kitchen-sink plays. You wouldn't have had that in the golden days," he said.
"I would like to see two independent wavelengths - one controlled by women, and one for us, controlled by men. I think it may eventually happen."
The TV veteran also said he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than appear on Celebrity Big Brother and he compared the soap opera EastEnders to diarrhoea.
When asked about his television "guilty pleasure", he said: "I used to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek, but they went PC - making women commanders, that kind of thing. I stopped watching."
Sir Patrick has presented The Sky At Night since April 1957, making him the longest-serving television presenter.
The xylophone-playing cricket enthusiast was knighted and appointed as a member of the Royal Society in 2001.
His interview in the next edition of Radio Times is part of the magazine's Great British TV survey, which asks TV celebrities for their thoughts on the current state of British television.
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I can't believe that folks are still making such a Non-PC statement in the 21st Century! But, ladies perhaps you should forgive him...............look, he's an octogenarian. Ha! Ha! Did someone not tell him that we survived the millenium bug, and fast approaching the end of the first decade of this century? Gosh! Did I just make a non-PC statement myself and be opened to the accusation of ageism? Tut-tut!
On the serious side however, I can see his point of view. Not the one about the women producing poor quality programmes, of course. I think he meant that the BBC is producing more sensationalism programmes, rather than the traditional high quality documentary style programmes which were more educational. I think this is because BBC has to compete with commercial TV channels like ITV and Channel 4. Although they get all our license fees, BBC also has to pursue additional funding from advertising. In the past, they were the only broadcasting company with no competition, and therefore has a freer hand in producing what they like.
Having said all that, I still think that BBC does still produce some good programmes. My all time favourite would have to be "The Blue Planet". The shots are just amazing!. My other daily or weekly favourites would still be Question Times and This Week with Andrew Neil, Dianne Abbott and Michael Portillo. On most days, I would tune in to BBC News, although I think Channel 4 News with Jon Snow is giving them a run for their money. However, when I am back from work and tired out each day, I may not always want to watch the cerebral programmes. I would gravitate to "less intelligent" programmes like The Apprentice tonight. Yeah...I thought Sir Alan fired the wrong guy tonight. Katie should have gone. I think her integrity is in suspect. My two favourites to win this series would be Tre and Christina.
To be honest, I thought that most directors and producers of BBC programmes are men. But what do I know? The only names associated with BBC that comes to my mind are Greg Dyke and Andrew Gilligan; who were both either sacked, or made to leave.
Psssst! Can someone tell Sir Patrick that Celebrity Big Brother is produced by Channel 4 and not BBC? And oh! It can actually be quite a lot of fun.....ask George Galloway!
