Real people with real problems?: Public service broadcasting, commercialism and Trisha

Wilson, Sherryl

Abstract

Between 1998 and 2004 Anglia Television produced Trisha, a 60 minute talk show broadcast every week day morning across the ITV network. The show attracted high numbers of viewers for that time of day and for some commentators Trisha Goddard’s move to Five in late 2004 signalled a loss to ITV as Trisha was one of the few shows ‘that gained viewers year on year’. (Paul Revoir and Michael Rosser, Broadcast 8 October, 2004: 5) Coming to air at a particularly difficult time for TV talk shows and situated within a much-derided (though popular) genre, this paper explores the dynamics of Trisha by looking at the ways in which commercialism and tabloid sensationalism coexist with a form of public service broadcasting to produce a complex and sometimes contradictory programme.

• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2005
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 159-176
• Book Title: ITV Cultures: Independent Television Over Fifty Years
• ISBN: 9780335217298
• Keywords: ITV, public service broadcasting, TV talk show, commercialism,
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1048179
• Publisher URL: http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/033521729X.html
• Additional Information: Additional Information : Wilson's book on Oprah led to an invitation to contribute a chapter on Trisha to this book on ITV Cultures. This comprises a distinctive new focus for this strand of Wilson's research as it explores the relationship between public service broadcasting and commercial television. This edition has been reviewed in various journals, including The European Journal of Communication (2006) Vol 21, pp 256-257 and Screen (2006) Vol 47 No 2, pp 261-265, in which Creeber comments that Wilson �argues persuasively that (Trisha) 'provides a point of reference through which strategies for dealing with everyday life and its difficulties are developed' and adds that the chapter's 'mixture of detailed textual and contextual work on such a popular contemporary ITV programme is an important contribution to the book's overall themes and concerns'.'