Programmes Quotes

In the old days... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.

I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for.

To lead a country, you must periodically hold a national consultation in which people representing different programmes can make a bid for power.

The BBC must never be all about ratings - or even mainly about ratings. In the past year, we have made a raft of terrific programmes which stand comparison with the best the BBC has ever done: 'Blue Planet,' 'Walking with Beasts,' 'Son of God,' 'Clocking Off,' 'The Way We Live Now,' 'Conspiracy,' 'Lost World.'

You go down some street - no doubt it's there, and we have to do something about it, and our programmes are designed to do that - but if that's a picture of Newcastle, it's not the one I recognise and I bet none in the North East do either.

It worries me that young singers think you can shortcut the training and go straight to fame and fortune, and programmes like Pop Idol have encouraged that.

I have been determined for the past couple of years to move away from all those Holiday programmes.

I'm supposed to be the director of a television company, but I've only ever seen that company as a vehicle for making the kind of programmes we wanted to make, getting our ideas on the screen.

By measuring the proportion of children living with the same parents from birth and whether their parents report a good quality relationship we are driving home the message that social programmes should promote family stability and avert breakdown.

I'm not certain that the BBC can claim to be making a wide enough range of distinctive programmes to make the case convincingly.

Last year the National Sorry Day Committee consulted with stolen generations people in every State and Territory, and concluded that programmes set up in response to the Bringing Them Home Report are reaching only a small fraction of those they are intended to help.

The foundations of a strong economy don't rest alone on the decisions of Chancellors or the spending programmes of government.

Nah, I don't watch TV either, apart from a few sports programmes. I just don't have the time.

What government has been doing, we've got major programmes now, of billions of pounds, which are directed by central government into these areas of deprivation.

I could suddenly see the pressures all around; these endless magazines and cheap reality TV programmes poking at women, humiliating us for every flaw. It makes me so angry. I really wonder what it is we are doing to ourselves, because I do think women can be the worst ones for picking each other apart.

Richard Branson once said: 'Tony's very good at selling bands and he's very good at making television programmes. But he'll never be great at either, until he decides which one he wants to do.' I entirely accept that. That doesn't matter to me very much. I like the irony of the two lives.

A lot of panel programmes rely on men topping each other, or sparring with each other, which is not generally a very female thing.

I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature.

That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter.

If we had, we would have realised sooner that Indigenous organisations are sometimes not the appropriate channel for programmes to help the stolen generations, because many of them play little part in Indigenous associations.

You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.

It certainly is dangerous that there are only a few clubs left in Europe that can afford to pay millions. At the end of the day however, the spectators decide the rates of pay - by watching the games and consuming the goods and services advertised on sports TV programmes.

I wouldn't just come home from school and watch TV everyday, they had me involved in lots of local theatre. I was a very dramatic, talkative child. And that was part of my mother's creative solution - to put me in workshops and classes and children's theatre programmes.

Research programmes, besides their negative heuristic, are also characterized by their positive heuristic.

Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.

The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish.