Playing the Reality Card: Factual TV Programming for a New Broadcasting Age

Richard Kilborn

doi:10.1515/zaa.2008.56.2.143

Article

Playing the Reality Card: Factual TV Programming for a New Broadcasting Age

Richard Kilborn

Published/Copyright: March 15, 2014

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Author Information

From the journal Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Volume 56 Issue 2

Abstract

This article provides some reflections on developments in factual TV programming in the UK in the last couple of decades. In principle, the term ‘factual programming’ covers an extremely wide range of material and could include news and current affairs as well as a number of other genres that one could regard as ‘non-fiction’ in their general orientation (see Hill 2007, 3-5). For the purposes of this article, however, I will confine my remarks to types of work which producers claim has a certain affinity with documentary and to which broadcasters themselves will generally attach the label ‘factual’ in their schedule information and in other promotional material. Even so, the amount of programming that is paraded under the factual banner still remains relatively extensive. It ranges from the cheap and cheerful docu-soap to the more challenging multi-part documentaries on topics of more serious concern

Online erschienen: 2014-03-15

Erschienen im Druck: 2008-04

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/zaa.2008.56.2.143