All the fun of the fair: ITV's Tipping Point
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During this crisis we are discovering all sorts of things about ourselves, as individuals, nations and as a world. Tales of tragedy, heroic fortitude, despair and resolve abound. Since the lockdown began in the UK two weeks ago I’ve noticed something at the smaller end of the scale of the upheavals that’s still worthy, I think, of note. A lot more people, shut in at home — and resisting for the moment the exhortations to take up a life of contemplation or self-improvement — are watching daytime TV.
Daytime television has been a largely unexamined part of our cultural life for many decades. Now it’s being examined, and that’s bringing all kinds of interesting tensions and divides to the surface.
The ITV afternoon quiz Tipping Point has even been trending on Twitter recently, in a tone of irony and amusement that an only slightly higher tech version of a seaside arcade Shove Ha’penny machine has somehow become a nail-biting highlight of the day.
As long-time shut-ins such as freelance writers (ahem) have known for long years, daytime television obeys completely different rules to the TV seen by normal people, either before or after their working day. Let me, an old hand, guide you through the surprisingly deep waters of the mainstream.
The first thing you’ll notice is that TV in the daytime is far more civil, and civic-minded. Occasionally at night a kindly announcer will follow up a challenging drama or a sensitive documentary with contact details to help anyone that’s been affected by the issues raised in that programme, but that happens now and again, as and when. The viewer notes it as unusual.
Daytime TV, however, is the land of helplines, factsheets and links to online advice. You’re never more than 10 minutes away from one of these, sometimes all three. Health advice, money advice, relationship advice — it never stops. Overdrafts, divorces, breasts, testicles — all are regularly brought out, checked, and then checked again. Cervixes and prostates are smeared and probed like there’s no tomorrow.
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