Make me want to rush home to tune in

Image credit: (c) Val Wilmer

It would be wonderful to be reassured that the BBC will always resist simply being a follower-of-fashion and will know when to take risks with programme-making and setting a new agenda.  Enough of quiz/dance/cooking/reality shows; my friend publisher Verna Wilkins sums up what maybe we all want: “Something that makes me want to rush home to tune in.”  Books and music would do it for me!  More diversity in content and personnel, both on-air and in production, would be good, not only so we never return to the not-so-distant days when phone lines would come alive with folks alerting one another that a Black person – any Black person! – was on TV, but as a guarantee against the complacency and boredom engendered by predictable (invariably male-and-pale) points of view.  When it comes to commentators it still needs to be remembered more often that people from “ethnic minorities” have views and expertise on topics broader than the label “race”, just as women’s views and expertise cannot be confined within the box “gender”.  Why not a permanent think tank along the lines of this website?  Every idea here has merit!

Margaret Busby OBE is a writer, editor and co-founder of publishing company Allison & Busby