Working-class people are shunning TV and turning to social media, a move that is decimating the traditional television industry, according to Carol Vorderman who gave this year’s alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV festival.
The former Countdown presenter delivered a scathing assessment of the contemporary TV landscape, arguing that working-class people no longer felt represented by what was on offer and were looking elsewhere.
“Their situation is not represented, the lack of opportunities and lack of money and jobs is not represented,” she said. “Social media – no longer the new kid, more like the badly behaved uncle – has changed our society and its rules, and it is decimating our industry as we know it. And with good reason.”
Vorderman, who was the first woman to speak on Channel 4 when she started on Countdown in 1982, said television was rife with snobbery and had played a part in the recent race riots around the country.
“The rich and powerful corrupting politics,” she said. “The upper middles taking broadcast for themselves. The increasingly absurd rightwing newspaper headlines being promoted by political programmes. What has this got to do with class? Everything. Literally everything.
“After 14 years of austerity and lying by the privileged political class, this country is in an absolute mess and the TV industry must accept part of the responsibility for that too, including the riots.”
She also criticised the decision to include the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, in ITV’s I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! It contributed towards normalising his views, she said.
Earlier in the week at the festival, ITV’s managing director, Kevin Lygo, defended Farage’s appearance on the show.
Vorderman, who called herself “pain in the arse, lover of parties, post-menopausal”, said television was a mess, citing Ofcom figures for July which found that fewer than half of young people watched live television in the average week.
Viewers aged between 45 and 54 have also begun to turn away from linear television, with viewing rates in the age group falling from 89% to 84% in a year.
“People feel lost,” Vorderman said. “They feel that the filter of their news, the filter through which they get their information, is one which isn’t recognised by them.”
Her comments follow James Graham’s MacTaggart lecture, in which the Sherwood and Ink writer said programme makers were losing touch with viewers. He cited a recent report that claimed only 8% of people in the British film and TV industry were from working-class backgrounds.
“If you see a person, or a character, who looks like you or sounds like you on screen, whose experience or dilemmas, or joy, reflects your own … you feel more seen,” he said. “There is a catharsis there, for audiences. A validation.”
Graham has since announced he is working with the TV Foundation, the charitable arm of the Edinburgh TV festival, to launch the Impact Unit, which will operate a social mobility bursary and monitor progress on class and representation.
