Way back in the mid-1990s, back when UK cable TV was considered new media, the notorious former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie was launch boss for a rolling station called Live TV. The channel’s offering was an eclectic mix of neuron-slaughtering dross, to put it kindly, including Topless Darts, the News Bunny – a giant rabbit who stood behind the newsreader and emoted according to the story being read out – and Tiffani’s Big City Tips, wherein a model stripped to her underwear while telling you where to invest (in rival telly companies, would seem to be the short answer). A guy who’d played an Oompa Loompa in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory did the weather forecast while bouncing on a trampoline.
Looking back, it does sound quite like some of the worst bits of modern life online, or perhaps the best bits, depending on your view. But it quickly turned to shit – again, quite like some of modern life online – and the ill-suited and vindictive MacKenzie hit on a ruse for cutting costs and amusing himself at the same time. He would walk in to the studio or production gallery and fire someone at random. If this summary loss of personnel did not appear to affect the live broadcast happening at the time – if it contrived to stay rolling, one way or another – then he’d regard the financial saving as well made. How important, really, could that person actually have been?
