The TV channel that saved us, and heralds the change to come

The Herald Scotland

24-05-2025

In case you want to catch it yourself, and I recommend it, Public Eye is currently running on Monday nights on Virgin channel 445, Freesat 306, Freeview 82 and Sky 328, or Talking Pictures as it's known. The channel pretty much only shows TV and film made before the 90s and to the surprise of quite a lot of people, especially people in the TV industry, it's become the biggest independent channel in the country, with over five million viewers a month. Monday is also its tenth anniversary and I'm pleased about that because not only is it brilliant, it's the channel that saved us.
What I mean by that is it's saved us, those of us who know it and love it, from what was happening to TV ten years ago and still is. Quick point: my therapist, if I had one, would point out here that overly dwelling on the past is unhealthy which is true, but what I would say to my therapist, if I had one, is that it's also not a good idea to ignore the past, or assume it was all a bit rubbish and racist, or that the present is much better. That's part of what Talking Pictures is about, but only part.
The other part is that it underlines what's been happening in TV for the last few years and why Talking Pictures has been such a success. Noel Cronin, the former film producer who created the channel, mentioned some of it the other day when he was doing interviews about the anniversary. Asked what he thought of modern telly, he said he tries to watch but struggles. 'It's too quick,' he said, 'they mumble, you turn it on and know what's going to happen.'
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I know that, to some people, this will sound like the grumblings of a curmudgeonly old man but curmudgeonly old men can speak the truth. It is much harder to make out what people are saying on TV, partly because of the mumbling, partly the overbearing music. The pace has also quickened, for fear that the eyes of the viewers will drift to their phones, which they probably will. And it's also true that you often know what's going to happen because the modern TV landscape – the need for a profitable hit in a world of dwindling audiences and dwindling ad revenue – encourages producers to stick to what's worked before.
There are other trends that have led a lot of us to drift away. For instance: the habit in TV shows of recapping what's happened every few minutes in case you haven't been paying attention, by which I mean a recap of what's happened every few minutes in case you haven't been paying attention. The problem with a recap of what's happened every few minutes in case you haven't been paying attention is that it becomes very tiresome for people who are paying attention. This has led to me giving up on a number of series I otherwise quite liked.
Another issue, and I realise you may think this is curmudgeonly served with a slice of gammon, is that messages on gender, sex and other issues have got considerably louder and more obvious. Drama with a message or a point is perfectly fine, it's a good thing in fact and it's always happened – including in shows like Public Eye. But if the message is too loud or unsubtle, as it often is now, it starts to feel more like a lecture than fun, and if I want to be lectured, I'll go to a lecture.
Alfred Burke in Public Eye (Image: Free)
We know why this is happening – the bosses at Channel 4 talked about it the other day. What they said was that they're planning to produce new videos for social media in an attempt to get their shows noticed, by which they mean noticed by the under-30s who only watch TV if they discover it through TikTok or some other platform. That reality – that the under-30s rarely watch telly – is driving most of what's going on: the fast pace, the repetitiveness, the sledgehammer messages, but it's a strategy that's doubly flawed: the young ones don't care and the older ones don't like it.
And ultimately, the destination we're heading for can't be avoided anyway: there's going to be a profound reorganisation of TV within ten years and ironically, it's Talking Pictures, who some would see as old-fashioned, that's pointing the way. In the past, we all watched the same stuff on the big four channels, and some people at the big four channels think it's a past we can back to (we can't). Instead, we're heading for a world of highly specialised, subscription channels that cater to particular demographics: Talking Pictures for the likes of me and some god-awful channel for the likes of the under-30s.
I'm aware of course, because my imaginary therapist tells me so, that closing ourselves off to new experiences and only watching stuff from the past would not be a good idea so I won't do that. But I would also suggest – and there are signs of it happening already thanks to Talking Pictures – that TV schedulers try to remember that the over-50s will be around for a while yet and still watch TV. So how about some more black and white. And more old movies. And old TV shows. And how about we go easy on the same old formulas and the repetition and the mumbling. A different future is coming and we cannot return to how TV used to be. But the least we can do is learn some lessons from it.